The Five-Tool Engineer

Let’s talk about the tools we use as engineers. I’ll present one of the most useful (and not so secret) tools I use to get a leg up on younger engineers with their whamplodyne smartphones.

It’s a bit of a strained metaphor to use here, but a “five-tool” baseball player is someone that possesses several characteristics. Courtesy of Wikipedia these are: the ability to hit for average, hit for power, baserunning skills and speed, throwing ability, and fielding ability. Sure, these are more like attributes of a person rather than objects like a bat or glove, but overlooking that, let’s consider five assets I have in my toolbox. They allow me to swiftly and accurately solve problems, gauge the effect of variations in independent design parameters, and keep organized. They can also be valuable for problem solving in the field.

We’ll start with four simple tools and finish with a discussion of a fifth that has truly transformed the way I think about engineering solutions.

Top three tools: always within reach. Bottom one heavy.

Tool #1: Calculating Device. Mine is a trusty 1980s vintage Casio fx-85M scientific calculator. Everyone has their favorites, and this is nothing special, but over time one gets accustomed to tapping out solutions on keys so often it becomes second nature. I never had an old programmable Hewlett-Packard HP-12C (a true classic) like some folks I work with, but the Casio gets the job done. Best of all, 30+ years and the solar panels behind the scratched up panel still do the job! Smartphones may have the same functionality, but I don’t find them as fast or hard to fat-finger as a real calculator.

Tool #2: Pocket Handbook of Standards and Useful Stuff. Mine would be the Cameron Hydraulic Handbook. Manufacturers and industry standards have a lot of data we need to be aware of and consider in our designs: fluid property data, pipe sizes, pressure drop and flow relationships, flange pressure ratings as functions of temperature. Sure, much of it might be available on the internet, or determinable by a calculation. But you may be trying to solve a problem in a jungle, where the wireless access is sketchy and creepy-crawly bugs abound. A pocket handbook with useful nomographs or tables may come in handy. For my work, something like the Cameron travels well.

Tool #3: The Notebook. Like most tools I favor, this might seem archaic, but by nature humans are lazy and overconfident in their ability to recall things. I can barely remember the beginning of a sentence by the time someone finishes speaking. Jotting down meeting or field observations in a notebook is far superior to relying on memory, if you have to reconstruct them later. Taking notes in a laptop or tablet might be preferred if you are in a position to access one, but more often the aforementioned bugs and lack of ease with which one can sling out an iPad on any occasion makes true notebooks superior. Plus, it’s just cool having a stack of them in your archives – you can find all sorts of interesting observations that might lead to other innovations or research paths you’d forgotten about. Ones that can be tucked into your pants at the small of your back unobtrusively so your hands are free to climb ladders or take photos are useful.

Tool #4: The Colossal Book of All Knowledge.  In my field of process design, Perry’s Chemical Engineers’ Handbook has more information than I probably will ever read, remember or understand. This does NOT make it with me into the field, but is an incredibly useful reference for the equipment, processes, or analyses that I’m often faced with on a project. It may seem hard to believe but the classes you take in the university will not completely prepare you for what you will deal with in your first or final jobs (if they do, you’re not challenging yourself enough). I often get thrown into some challenge where I need to do some reading-up on things I’ve never seen before. Enter an archive like Perry’s that can provide data on, say, the thermal conductivity of bricks, multiphase flow pressure drop correlations, heat exchanger nomenclature, or cost estimating techniques. While it may not provide the complete answer, it may be enough so as to not look completely like a neophyte (or following 2016 terminology,  n00b) at the next project meeting.

If one regularly caught fish as heavy as a Perry’s, happy day

Yes, yes, it’s hard to see fish this small

Tool #5: The Secret Weapon. In my case: Engineering Equation Solver (EES).  Some details of the features and merits of this software are found in a later post. I’ll say this here: in decades of using it, it provides me with:

• A revolution in how I think about the governing equations for systems
• Reinforced knowledge of the underlying equations I can use to solve problems by hand, while also providing unparalleled speed and the ability easily to perform sensitivity analysis
• A valuable teaching tool, that students can use to enhance their own research and industrial work
• A leg up on engineers who don’t have it or don’t understand its merits
• A massive library of transport and thermodynamic data, accessible offline, especially useful for that late-night analysis of tough plant problems in sketchy areas
• A decent way to present diagrams, charts and results

So many software packages are costly, non-intuitive, require keys or network licenses, and rely on obscure computations that are not evident to the engineer manipulating them, such that you can’t really be sure the output is reasonable. For all the glitz, my position is that expensive programs, while often necessary are just a faster way to generate errors. In contrast, understanding the fundamentals, coupled with an economical tool such as EES for checking work done in other tools, is invaluable. It’s the KA-BAR you need when the aliens are zerging and everyone else’s plasma rifles are jammed with dirt.

Summary

Figure out what tools are applicable for your industry – a little cubicle reconnaissance can help identify the well-worn resources others have. Some you won’t discover you need for years. But it’s never too early to start with a simple notebook.

I asked some different discipline engineers at the office what key tools they use and here is a compilation:

Hopefully the principles of these tools are general enough that a young engineer could adapt them to their particular industries. For me, an inventory of trusted friends at my elbow greatly increases my productivity, competitiveness, and confidence.

Disclaimer: I have no financial interest in promoting EES, it’s just simply great.