TABLE OF CONTENTS Attaining excellence in engineering practice is fairly simple. The engineer keeps clearly in view a broad mission or purpose and relates this to each of the details of everyday work as they arise. A person who is able to do this most of the time will be successful. We will want to examine carefully some of the seemingly complicated and subtle details. These fall into place with surprising ease, however, when related directly to the overall goal.
The reader's first task in this book, then, is to gain a clear understanding of what will be his or her own purpose as an engineer. This chapter lays a firm foundation for understanding engineering itself and the general nature of engineering practice. Chapter 2 encourages the engineer to look closely at the profession from a career and personal development standpoint, and chapters 15 and 17 discuss these personal aspects in more detail.
Beginning in chapter 3, the book takes up chapter by chapter the important elements of practice encountered in daily work and relates them to the broad picture presented in this chapter. The reader will see at once the project nature of practical engineering work. Relationships to other members of the project team and how to make them effective will become apparent as an understanding develops of what project control must be. Report-making, problem-solving, laboratory skills, studies and proposals, and systems work all fall neatly into place. The basic ideas of research and development, design, production, and marketing...
