1. What will engineering design practice be like in 2040
What will engineering design practice be like in 2040? Implications for OU teaching
Prof Claudia Eckert
Prof Ola Isaksson, System Engineering Design, Chalmers

2. Motivation Underlying future trends are analysed from multiple angles
Societal: e.g. globalisation, aging population, migration
Environmental: e.g. climate change, resource availability
Technological: e.g. industry 4.0, nanotechnology
What does this mean for engineering practise over the next 20 years?
What does this mean for engineering education to support practise?
What does this mean for OU teaching?

3. Our approach
Ask experienced engineers how they think engineering design will change
Focus on the practise of product development of complex products
Generational products, incremental development
Connected to other products and services
Multi-disciplinary, but currently still controlled largely by the original disciplines
Some of the policy intensions for 2040 are already launched

4. Methodology

5. Interviewees

6. The interviews Past and present research collaborators
8 – 35 years of experience in senior product development roles, e.g. system architects, strategic problem planers, engineering team leaders etc.
Questions centred around
What trends do you see?
What skills will be required?
How can academia help?
Teaching
Tools and method development

7. Trends based on the interviews

8. Trends Transportation Integrated transport solutions
In service data gathering
Order of innovation creates path dependency
New business models emerging
Energy
Battery used in multiple products
Regulation and funding regimes affect energy mix
System architecture
Legacy systems plus innovation
Sharing of components

9. Engineering practise
Discipline blending: mechanical, electrical, software, systems, mathematics, statistics, data science, material science
Trade-offs
Representations
Collaboration skills
New and enhanced skills
Better system thinking
More numerate
Understanding diverse markets
Expertise
Deep subject matter expertise need to be complemented with systems and generalist thinking.
People don’t stay long enough to become subject matter experts.
Process
Trend away from prescriptive processes to greater flexibility
More design engineers, fewer production people

10. Conflicting trends Efficiency vs flexibility
Optimization vs innovation
Current company would have the money to fund radical concepts
Optimization vs remanufacturablity
Individualization (travel from A to B) vs standardization of modules
Industry needs specialists and generalists

11. Trends from the workshop

12. Workshop Participants

13. Workshop Hosted by GoCo innovation cluster
Senior engineers largely from Sweden
International academics
Interview finding circulated before hand
Introduction talk on interview findings and sustainability predictions

14. Technology Trends Technology
Artificial Intelligence and Augmented / Virtual Reality
Increased computational power, quantum computing
Cyberphysical products pose challenge in cybersecurity
Additive Manufacturing
New smart materials
Modelling and Simulation
Flexible working, organise tasks and workflow
Digital twins
Virtual testing
Gamification of design

15. Soft trends Society Sustainability principles will become main stream
Circular economy, nexus, upgrade, repair etc.
Clearer regulation
Ways of working
Cross disciplinary, diverse teams including robots / Ais
Small core teams and gigging engineers
Beyond stage gate
Life long learning
Individual ownership of life long learning
New forms of university / industry collaboration

16. Observation on OU and trends
OU teaching is already doing very well
Remote teaching prepare engineers for remote working
Interdisciplinary engineering
Sustainability well integrated into curriculum
OU has some weaknesses
Exposure of students to complex engineering processes
Modelling and simulation only gradually introduced
High degree of mathematical competency don’t be assumed

17. Potential for OU courses
Introduction of a AI / big data pathway in collaboration with maths and computing
Increased literacy in AI
Modelling
Data management
Specific cross disciplinary training, e.g. cross disciplinary team projects
Clearer positioning in generalist – specialist spectrum
Teach remote collaboration explicitly

18. Reflections OU courses designed now will run to 2030
We need to prepare the students for the trends that are coming
We should engage with employers about the skills that they expect to need
Draw on the research connection to gain access to experts