The onset of the digital age has changed not only the way in which we live our lives but also our way of working. In fact, thanks to the digital revolution, people today are unable to access huge amounts of information about any topic almost instantaneously at the touch of a button. More importantly, they are able to carry this information around with them on their mobile phones and other similar devices. This, in turn, has led to several innovations in the way of working across almost every field. However, the effect of these innovations on engineering as a profession is way deeper than on any other profession.
Google defines an engineer as someone who designs, builds and maintains engines, machines, and structures. Some people consider this definition to be too outdated, especially with respect to modern engineering jobs. However, the fact that people are becoming increasingly reliant on the various benefits of digitization, has led the profession of engineering to become even more exciting. This is because the primary objective of both engineering as a profession and digitization is to solve problems and make life simpler for end users. Having this as a common goal, digitization has actually helped engineering solutions in the following ways:
1. Enhanced Performance Efficiency
Unlike the scenario of just about a decade ago, engineers today are no longer restricted to their desks, plowing through stacks of journal articles and technical documents to find project-relevant information. They are not required to work in isolation and make vital decisions without proper information sharing with their peers and co-workers. The smart digital age has left all these working methodologies in the past. The engineering professionals today, work in a highly collaborative manner with their co-workers and partners. In addition, the digital revolution has provided them the freedom of on-site project management enhancing their performance efficiency in a significant manner.
2. Reduced Production Time
One of the biggest benefits that digitization has offered is a significant reduction in the time taken to produce. This has been made possible due to the large scale automation of processes, ensuring the completion of various phases of production in a faster and more accurate manner. Consequently, the engineers are able to invest more time in product planning and designing evolution tasks. Moreover, large-scale automation has also made it possible for engineers to implement complex designs and ideas that were considered impractical and impossible to turn into real objects only a couple of decades ago.
3. Easy & Reliable Sharing of Information
One of the basic lessons that trainees learn at any engineering college in Delhi/NCR is that information sharing is the key to maximizing productivity and innovation. The digital age has made sharing information a simple and reliable process, and hence, enhanced the level of collaboration between engineers globally. The astounding rate of proliferation of technical data, combined with the easy availability of cross-disciplinary knowledge, has eased the establishment of innovative engineering projects. The abundance of customizable apps and tools has led to the availability of more robust decision support tools for engineers.
4. No Dearth of Specialist Knowledge
It is commonly seen that engineering professionals need constant access to accurate, reliable data and information about the various aspects of a project. The digital age has also brought with it specialized search engines that make it possible to rapidly discover and access technical engineering reference data in addition to powerful and reliable analytics of the same. Moreover, this technical data and analytics can be integrated with key tools of engineering workflow and even shared through various web-based applications. This, in turn, helps in the evolution of engineers from desk-bound workers to agile innovators.
5. Amalgamation of Various Engineering Fields
One of the most important ways in which the digital revolution has influenced the engineering profession is that it has led to the merging of different engineering fields. This is because the industrial world today cannot operate on the basis of the solutions provided by traditional engineering. Rather, the engineers today need to possess information about numerous other fields of specializations to provide the most relevant and practical solutions. At the same time, this has led to the evolution of newer fields, where the increase in the demand for qualified engineers is taking place.
