Presentation

Throughout the past week and a half, there seemed to be a common trend within the content or orientation of our presentations, as I guess there should be considering the assignment. Though I had never thought of it this way before, communication issues are caused almost exclusively by lack of communicational common ground. Whether the issue was doctors and patients speaking different languages, doctors not simplifying explanations, or, in my case, engineering firms not being able to exchange information due to differing data systems, the problem was a lack of unity and/or cooperation between parties.

The solutions to the problems varied, however, depending on the field. For instance, in medicine the solution to doctors speaking a different language was a translator, rather than one of the individuals learning the other’s language. In the case of engineering, the solutions proposed relied largely on a common data format in order to create a more seamless transition from organization to organization. Solutions to medical terminology issues, both for medical doctors and psychologists, were not quite so defined. It seemed that the responsibility lay primarily on the physician to accommodate the patient’s vocabulary, however the point at which it is the patients responsibility to have some knowledge of the subject at hand seemed slightly undefined. I don’t find this to be the fault of the presenters or researchers, but rather the nature of the problem, as it is difficult to assign accountability to either the doctor or the patient. The ideal solution seems to be a less defined, and therefore less sustainable, version of the solution to the problems in engineering; each party would meet at a common point of communication in order to exchange information effectively.

Unfortunately, while teaching doctors how to talk on a patients level is a reasonable task, expecting all patients to have a standard level of understanding is ridiculous and unattainable. Therefore, the responsibility inevitably falls upon the doctor, as perhaps it should. In these cases, the solution depends on the competencies of one, both, or neither of two communicating parties, and varies based on the realistic cooperation between them.

DataX

As in any professional field, communication plays a profound role in the practice of engineering. Unlike many other areas of occupation, however, communication’s place in engineering lies largely among massive amounts of data. Engineering firms, amassing data from any number of sources, must take an approach to communication based largely on practicality and repeatability, rather than on rhetoric and inflection.

The difference between engineering and other professions is the nature of the data being collected and distributed, as well as the receiver of the data. For instance, while a doctor may need to translate a diagnosis into layman’s terms for a patient, an engineering firm simply tries to process and record a given data set in a manner that is simply efficient and accurate, as a doctor may communicate with another doctor.

Imagine, however, that two doctors conferring on a diagnosis do not speak the same language. While each is independently competent and fluent in terminology, the lack of uniform communication hinders their effectiveness, rendering the pair ineffective. This, in short, is just part the struggle faced by the engineering community.

Despite the furious pace of technological advance taking place in the US and elsewhere, data sharing in engineering is still an issue. The problem is not lack of available technology, but rather lack of uniform data processing. The cost of inefficient communication ultimately adds up to time, money, and sub-standard quality.

The first step of an engineering project is the design process. Coinciding with globalization and an increased number of developed areas around the world, the field of engineering has seen increasing international collaboration. In the case of design, technology possesses a potential for enhanced collaboration that has yet to be realized. To address this issue, an initial application to establish a means of international cooperative engineering was proposed by design engineers Jiansheng Li and Daizhongd Su. According to Li and Su (2008), the intention of their proposal is to assist “geographically dispersed users to communicate and collaborate over the Internet.” Their system, or what they refer to as a Web Enabled Environment (WEE), would be adaptable to diverse design programs as well as languages, ultimately creating a universal design platform.

In order for the designers’ work to see the light of day, the second step of the engineering process is manufacturing or construction (depending on the nature of the design). In order for this step to take place, however, the builder has to have supplies. As with the design process, the supply process requires detailed, real time data sharing in order to achieve maximum efficiency. Babin et al. (2007) proposes an electronic system of product monitoring using sensors and “Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) Systems” that would allow buyers and suppliers to receive instant product status updates. This “on-demand information exchange” (Babin et al. 2007) would enable more intuitive decision making on the part of both parties. Essentially, this system would create an instant, ongoing electronic conversation between the buyer and seller.

Within the study of supply and demand, though, technology is not the only solution to the problem of inefficiency. According to Chan et al. (2008), the importance of a healthy work relationship between a buyer and seller far surpasses that of instant data exchange. The proposal not only opts for human relationship as apposed to technological solutions, but questions whether information technologies (IT) have any positive effect at all within supply chain management. The only consolation the study offers on behalf of information technologies is the suggestion that they may “generate sustainable competitive advantage by facilitating collaborative communication and fostering relational capabilities.”

The alternative offered by the proposal is the suggestions that cultivating professional relationships is the most effective means of gaining a competitive advantage in today’s marketplace. According to the proposal, “Effective and efficient communication between supply chain partners reduces product and performance-related errors, thereby enhancing quality, time, and customer responsiveness.” Additionally, a warning is offered regarding short sighted and monetarily focused buyer-seller relationships; the paper suggests such practices “can inhibit the development of relational competencies, frustrate collaborative communication, and heighten opportunism, which ultimately dissipates relational rents” (Chan et al. 2008).

After successfully negotiating the realm of supply and demand, the next step of the engineering process is construction. While construction sites are a common site in today’s ever developing world, communication issues on the site are most likely unapparent to the common onlooker. It is easy to see, however, that monitoring a large construction site would be difficult to accomplish from one location. The result of the sometimes immense sprawl is multiple centers of data, or what Bernold and Lee (2008) refer to as “islands of information.” The end result of the “islands” is a disjointed information system that is neither centralized nor consistent. In order to address the issue, Bernold and Lee (2008) suggest a Local Area Network (LAN) based system of cameras placed strategically around a site. Working similarly to a WiFi network, the cameras would allow wireless monitoring of an entire site from a central location, resulting in consistent, consolidated information gathering and processing, cutting out the process of data transfer entirely, and thereby solving the communication issue.

The last step of the engineering process is long term condition monitoring. The practice of condition assessment is very common in the field of transportation, where miles of roads keep agencies busy assessing, reporting, and processing road conditions. In addition to the immense amount of data inherent in such an extensive undertaking, the process is further muddled by inconsistent data gathering and processing. Each transportation agency uses a set of standards and measurements to assess road conditions, known as an Infrastructure Management System (IMS) (Capuruco and Tighe, 2006). According to Capuruco and Tighe (2006), agencies within the US alone are using “8 different categories of devices from 10 different vendors to conduct pavement data collection and condition assessment only.” The data collected by these agencies, intended to provide information that would lead to better future road construction, ends up lost in translation due to the numerous data collection and processing standards. Their proposal calls for a unification or regulation of road monitoring standards, which would ultimately result in improved road quality and cost efficiency due to less need for repair.

Ultimately, the majority of proposals regarding information sharing within the field of engineering call for automated, instant transfer which, ironically, effectively eliminates actual communication from the process. The lone study pushing for more established relationships within a business community is an exception to the common school of thought. Within this paper, the proportion of human based solutions to technologically based solutions roughly matches the proportion produced by academic writers in the field of engineering; technology is undeniably the future of business and engineering. While I would not presume to assign a “correct” time and place for professional relational improvement, I would venture that human contact has, and always will have, its place in each field, and should not be forgotten as the foundation of both.

Works Cited

1.) Capuruco R, Tighe S. A Web-Centric Information Model for Managing Road Infrastructure Data. Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering [Internet]. [cited 2008 April 5]; 21: 357-368. Available from EBSCO Host: http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.utk.edu:90/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=120&sid=58c59aa5-89bd-4034-98ec-ae3b8c0a2f56%40sessionmgr109.

2.) Chen I, Lado A, Paulraj A. Inter-organizational communication as a relational competency: Antecedents and performance outcomes in collaborative buyer-supplier relationships. Journal of Operations management [Internet]. [cited 2008 April 5]; 26: 45-64. Available from ScienceDirect: http://www. Sciencedirect .com.

3.) Li J, Su D. Support modules and system structure of web-enabled collaborative environment for design and manufacture. International Journal of Production Research [Internet]. [cited 2008 April 5]. 46: 2397-2412. Available from Informaworld: http://www.informaworld.com.

4.) Bernold L, Lee J. Ubiquitous Agent-Based Communication in Construction. Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering [Internet]. [cited 2008 April 5]. 22(1): 31-39. Available from ASCE Research Library: http://scitation.aip.org.

5.) Babin G, Carothers C, Hsu C, Levermore D. Enterprise Collaboration: On-Demand Information Exchange Using Enterprise Databases, Wireless Sensor Networks, and RFID Systems. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics – Part A: Systems and Humans. [cited 2008 April 5]. 37(4) 519-532. Available from IEEE Explore: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.

Research: Not for the Faint of Heart.

For what should be the final English paper of my academic career, I have been trying to follow the assignment as closely as I can manage while staying within my major (Civil Engineering). Though there are not as many academic papers regarding language in the field of engineering as I had hoped, I have been fortunate enough to locate five papers that seem relevant to my topic. My topic, as dictated by the information I have found to work with, is the efficiency and effectiveness of communication and data exchange between and within engineering firms. Fortunately, this is similar to what I originally had in mind for this paper, so I have not had to adjust my thinking too drastically to conceive the outline of my ideas.

One of the problems I would say I have had with the research are the sometimes wordy and technical titles and content of the papers I searched for. I have been accused of being a wordy writer; however I don’t ever recall creating a sentence as monstrous as those I have read in these papers. That said, I am painfully aware that my struggles are the result of my technical vocabulary (or lack there of), as well as my inexperience with papers of this sort. I am not too worried, though, because with some quality time spent reading over these behemoths I am sure I will be able to comprehend the messages they are trying to get across.

My only other struggle was deciding what constituted a language related topic and therefore fell within the bounds of this assignment. In the age of technology, it seems that less time is spent relaying data by speaking and more time is spent figuring out ways to transfer massive amounts of data via internet. Because of this, many of the papers I encountered (some of which I am using) focused on perfecting the art of data collection exchange. I have (I think) managed to tie all of the ideas I have encountered together in a manner that satisfactorily meets the requirements of this paper.