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Engineering and the Global Marketplace: Educating “Technicians” or Problem Solvers? Saeid Y. Eidgahy – Hamid Y. Eydgahi Jefferson Community College – Lima Technical College

The swift degree of change has virtually influenced every aspect of human life, global industrial and business entities, limitless communication systems, automation beyond imagination, and competition from all corners have challenged the world as never before. To survive competition requires nothing less than organizational revolution including higher education.

Engineering education has a pivotal role in this global process. Questions such as up to the moment technological education and the latest facilities are the heart of the educational process; but are these adequate? The highest skilled “technicians” are important, but global problem solvers are necessities. This paper explores the idea that educating engineers in a multi- discipline environment has become essential.

Actual curricular models will be explored in an effort to delineate future directions. Engineering education, world-wide experiences and emerging global needs must be merged for a successful future. Specifically, the following will be presented: x Global industries; x Communication and delivery systems; x Principles of multi-discipline engineering education; x Education models; and x Synthesis. It is the authors’ intent to present several approaches with varying objectives; however, participant input will also be sought as an integral part of this discussion.

Global Industries Technical education has been broadly defined as education preparatory to entering an occupation which requires a degree of higher education.1 The swift degree of change has influenced virtually every angle and phase of our lives. Today’s bounds in technology guarantees to transform the way we teach more critically than any other dominance in the past one hundred years. Moreover, led by the success of global manufacturing, improvements in communication and delivery systems, the competitive environment has perhaps become unpredictable to the point that challenges the even well run manufacturing organizations.2

While today manufacturing is being subjected to major changes, both economically and socially; it can only be satisfied through major advances in productivity throughout the entire manufacturing organization. Such benefits require substantial reengineering involving comprehensive innovation throughout not only the system of manufacturing, but also the entire education system which are primarily driven by advanced technologies such as CAD, CAM, CIM, MRP and others.

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Eydgahi, H. Y., & Eidgahy, S. Y. (1998, June), Engineering And The Global Marketplace: Educating Technicians Or Problem Solvers? Paper presented at 1998 Annual Conference, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/1-2--7078