I recently had a chuckle over a cartoon showing a guy digging a hole while surrounded by shovels held up by folding stands. The caption explained how the new "self-standing" implements helped the company cut its workforce by 75% without sacrificing productivity. There's truth to this stereotype, and it applies to many industries, including engineering.

As American companies strain to compete in the global economy, engineering will certainly see more cuts. Many engineers are just too far from the trenches to justify their existence. The good news is that when these people are gone, there will be fewer meetings and e-mails, and less paperwork. Let's he honest. Engineers who actually engineer spend a significant amount of their time informing and updating higher level nonessentials.

The engineers who survive -- the ones who are indispensable to industry -- will be those closest to the action. And by action, I mean motion.

Motion -- power transmission and motion control -- is what makes products roll off production lines. It moves potato chips and other foods through ovens and then into bags. It prints newspapers. It stacks and boxes ceramic tiles and bricks. Motion is also instrumental in making chips of another variety. It deftly picks up silicon wafers, handling them though countless processing steps. Motion not only helps make ICs, but also places them, accurately, on circuit boards for soldering. In hospitals, motion moves patients into and out of imaging stations, it helps separate blood components, and it adjust beds, operating tables, and wheelchairs.

The engineers who make all these products and processes work -- motion system engineers -- are the true core value in any company today. Take any business in almost any industry. Its fortunes will directly correspond to the intelligence and creativity of the motion system designers it employs.

Next time, I want to talk about how to spot these indispensable engineers; who they are, and who they are not.

In the meantime, I'd like to know what everyone else thinks.

Larry, you make inspiring points about the importance of the motion systems engineer, and how motion is at the heart of all manufacturing! Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

There are many industrial processes that do not use much motion control at all.......or complex motion. The plywood industry comes to mind.

That depends on how one defines "motion control."

I look at it like this: Automation and manufacturing are based largely on controlled motion. The engineers who know how to configure and program the systems that produce that motion are at the top of the food chain in terms of their value to their employer.

As far as complexity goes, even the "simplest" motion challenge is complex... until someone comes up with a practical and elegant solution. The value of such "engineers" -- whether they get credit for it or not -- is unmatched because they are the lifeblood of the manufacturing organization.

I see what you mean.
In my experience there are very few of these people out there.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Larry Berardinis,

...which makes them all the more valuable.

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