Techpoint : Manufacturing the Future

March 8 is celebrated as the International Womens day. In April 2007,
addressing the Economic Commission of Europe at Geneva, Kjell Erik ie of Norway
said, Modern societies need to utilize all human resources regardless of
gender. Both women and men must be able to participate in work life, social life
and family life. It is a matter of democracy, and to be honest: it should be a
matter of common sense.

Seems straightforward enough, right? The problem is that the tech world,
especially the mechanical engineering field, is yet to wake up to this fact
worldwide.

In the last few years, the manufacturing sector has seen amazing growth in
India, especially the metal fabrication companies. Most of these fabrication
firms are small and medium enterprises, which do subcontracting work for energy
giants in India and abroad. While all engineering sectors in India face labor
shortages, this segment faces the maximum labor shortage because of two reasons:
first, flight of trained and skilled personnel to countries abroad, especially
the Middle East, and lack of trained engineers and technicians.

Despite growth in this sector, it will be unable to realise its true
potential unless the above two reasons are properly addressed, reversing the
brain-labor drain in Indias favor. However, to do this, one needs to understand
what mechanical engineering is about.

Mechanical Engineering

To many people, a mechanical engineer is a mechanicsomeone who works with
machines and does heavy lifting. For others, a mechanical engineer is
essentially a car mechanic with an engineering degree or diploma. However,
mechanical engineering is the only engineering field where you learn about
various other fields apart from just machines and machine design. While a
student of mechanical engineering learns computer programming, a computer
science major cannot do gearbox design. In short, a mechanical engineer learns
about civil, electrical, computer science, electronics, and economics apart from
machinery.

The Money Factor

Being a mechanical engineer means you can survive in almost any environment
as it makes you adaptable. You can choose to do baseline work or complicated
designs as you are trained to do both. Apart from this, a mechanical engineer
can also engross himself in another field like software programming, making them
the most sought after human labor. As a result, mechanical diploma and degree
holders get plum paying jobs in Europe, North America, and South East Asia. Body
shoppers from regions like the Middle East recruit even those without degrees
but practical experience in the metal fabrication field, especially in
energy-related companies, regularly. The promise is a better paying job and
facilities. Then there is the challenge from Indian companies in other sectors
who offer lucrative deals to fill their own labor shortage. While the money
doled out by small and medium fabrication enterprises has increased steadily
over the last 10 years in an attempt to retain labor (most firms dont employ
tactics of hiring people only after they sign bonds or contracts as in other
sectors), nevertheless, once trained, job hopping to other lucrative sectors has
become the norm.

The Myth Factor

I remember being asked several times by college authorities if I was
absolutely sure that I wanted to do mechanical engineering. It amused me then
but makes me ponder now if this could be a reason why we are facing the labor
shortage in our manufacturing sector, especially the metal fabrication
companies. Women are a viable option if giving the right training but first one
has to address why there are very few women in this field.

Not many women opt for mechanical engineering either in the diploma or degree
level. This is true not just in India but also worldwide. Apart from
discouragements in academia, we encounter social myths about mechanical
engineering.

Women and machines dont go together

• It will be tough for women to do the workshops
• Women cant handle the shop floor

All these myths are usually due to a disinformation about what mechanical
engineering constitutes or what the workplace demands. When I interviewed both
women and men who are mechanical engineers, I received some interesting insights
about the myths.

Bruno Jacques from France said, I believe this has its cultural roots dating
back to the industrial revolution. Cultures are slow to evolve, and even today
in psychology of the crowds, one could see projection of male attributes to
mechanical machinerysomething threatening and a symbol of power and
subordination.

sGayathri from Salem said, I was discouraged from pursuing mechanical
engineering by college authorities who felt computer science, or ECE was a
better option for me. I was too passionate about it and argued with them, so
they let me. However, most, if not all of the women that Ive met so far, had
parents or relatives that were in the field, and so they had better access to
what the work was about. However, the workplace was different, as on the shop
floor men initially do feel less comfortable working with women. Although, once
you get promoted, they feel honoured that madam is working with them. It is
funny.

As for the myth about physical labor and women; most laughed it off. Think
about itwomen can be construction laborers, agriculture workers, and manually
do heavy lifting but cannot push buttons to operate a machine? This is as good
as saying women cant operate washing machines, grinders, mixer, microwaves,
etc. The majority felt this myth is due to the lack of information about the
progress in the field, from manual labor to semi-automation and in some cases,
complete automation on the floor.

In short, women are a viable option to fill the labor shortage, if they are
trained because they possess the ability. In manufacturing centers like Trichy,
they are already examining the option of setting up training institutes so that
people can be trained, especially local women. The two reasons for targeting
women are that they are less likely to run off abroad and they do less
job-hopping.

One hopes the academic institutions would wake up to the fact that this is
the twenty-first century for the mechanical engineers, too. Otherwise, like the
private computer institutes, we would have mechanical institutes minting money
while our hallowed academic institutions would end up just majoring in computers
and management.

Deepa Kandaswamy

The author is the founder-moderator of the IndianWISE e-group.

(c) Deepa Kandaswamy. First serial rights, CyberMedia 2008.

Any quotes or reprints from this article must link to this article and credit
author Deepa Kandaswamy and Dataquest.

This article may not be distributed in any manner without written consent from
the author.