The New Engineering Game

Tim Weilkiens

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781839212093
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Data Processing
• Index: Computer Science

Adapt to a world of digitalization and get ready to become a successful player in the new engineering gameKey Features• Discover what the fourth industrial revolution is all about• Explore the new engineering game through the context of globalization, craftsmanship, and interdisciplinary engineering• Develop strategies to improve the engineering of products with functional architecture, lean systems engineering, and moreBook DescriptionOrganizations today face an increasingly complex and dynamic environment, whatever their market. This change requires new systems that are built on the foundation of a new kind of engineering and thinking. The New Engineering Game closes the gap between high-level reflections about digitalization and daily engineering methods and tools.The book begins by describing the first three industrial revolutions and their consequences, and by predicting the fourth industrial revolution. Considering the fourth industrial revolution, it explains the need for a new kind of engineering. The later chapters of the book provide valuable principles, patterns, methods, and tools that engineering organizations can learn and use to succeed on the playfield of digitalization.By the end of the book, you'll have all the information you need to understand the various concepts to take your first steps towards the world of digitalization. What you will learn• Deal with the challenges of Conway's Law• Explore domains from different viewpoints with the Cynefin framework• Use the Business Model Canvas (BMC) to view your business model in one chart• Use the Business Model Navigator (BMN) to elaborate your business model• Get an overview of REThink 4.0• Discover how to apply the principles of the Agile Manifesto for Software Development in your projectsWho this book is forThis book is for those of you who want to want to gear up for the ever-evolving and dynamic environment that has come into play with digitalization. Anyone who wants to create industry-grade applications using smart product engineering techniques will find this book useful. To grasp all that has been explained in this book, all you need is a knowledge-seeking attitude.

Chapter 1

Introduction

The engineering of products faces an increasingly complex and dynamic environment. Megatrends such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and the industrial internet (Industry 4.0) have changed the rules. They require a new kind of engineering and thinking. Only companies that can adapt themselves to the frequent, and sometimes disruptive, changes in complex and dynamic markets are successful in the long term.

The first signs of this new playing field can be observed, for example, from the sharp rise and steep fall of Motorola and Nokia to the tremendous success of Google and Apple. Tremendous things happen in very short timeframes because markets are highly dynamic.

Almost every day you will find a hint of the change in the news. You may remember when PayPal first launched and was revolutionary for the banking sector, but a more recent example is Snapcash (https://support.snapchat.com/en-US/a/snapcash-faq). This allowed users to transfer money from the moment they entered a sum in a Snapchat dialog, whereas traditional money transfers can last days, even if the same bank manages the accounts. However, since this was originally written, the Snapcash service has been withdrawn by Snapchat, which shows how quickly things can change in these industries.

Speaking of Paypal, the founder, Elon Musk, is another example of disruptive change. Traditional automotive vendors greeted his idea of building electric cars with smiles. Now his Tesla cars sell better than traditional luxury cars in Western Europe (https://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-0419-tesla-germany-20160419-story.html). The same goes for SpaceX.

There are many publications available that capture a high-level view of the impact on IoT and Industry 4.0. This book closes the gap between those high-level reflections and the need for daily engineering methods and tools to face the upcoming challenges.

We start by expressing our motivation behind the book before going on to describe the first three industrial revolutions and their consequences. We then introduce the idea of the predicted fourth industrial revolution. In light of the fourth industrial revolution, the third chapter depicts the need for a new kind of engineering. The fourth chapter provides valuable principles, patterns, methods, and tools that engineering organizations need if they want to be successful in the new engineering playing field.

This book covers many exciting topics, such as the business model canvas, model-based system engineering, Industry 4.0, the industrial internet, and much more. Each of these topics deserves its own book, and those books are already available.

Therefore, I only give an overview of these topics in order for you to be able to understand the concepts and take the first steps. In addition to these informative and useful overviews, the book depicts the relationships between the concepts.

This book fills up your toolbox so that you can master the new engineering game.

Chapter 2

The Industrial Revolutions

The Industrial Revolutions

"A revolution is a dramatic and wide-reaching change in conditions, attitudes, or operation" (Oxford Dictionary Online, www.oxforddictionaries.com, accessed 2019). People and organizations that don't align with change don't have a good chance of surviving. When most people think of revolutions, they think about a forcible overthrow that happened many years ago, such as the storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution on July 14, 1789 (see Figure 2.1):

Figure 2.1: Storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789

Nowadays, we still have revolutions. Consider, for example, the Arab Spring in the early 2010s, which affected Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Bahrain (Jason Brownlee, Tarek Masoud, and Andrew Reynolds. The Arab Spring: Pathways of Repression and Reform. Oxford University Press. 2015).

Changing our focus from politics and overthrows of governments to the industry and engineering domains, we can also find technological revolutions that have resulted in dramatic and wide-reaching changes.

Industry 4.0 describes the radical change in the manufacturing domain. It originates from a German project, Industrie 4.0, which is part of the government's High-Tech Strategy (Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), The new High-Tech Strategy Innovations for Germany, 2014). The term itself, Industrie 4.0, points to the fourth industrial revolution.

It also implies that we already had three industrial revolutions before. The following sections in this chapter present and discuss the first three industrial revolutions that have led to the fourth industrial revolution.

Figure 2.2 presents an overview of these industrial revolutions. It is based on a similar figure in the paper Securing the future of German manufacturing industry: Recommendations for implementing the strategic initiative INDUSTRIE 4.0 - Final report of the Industrie 4.0 Working Group (Communication Promoters Group of the Industry-Science Research Alliance and acatech. Securing the future of German manufacturing industry: Recommendations for implementing the strategic initiative INDUSTRIE 4.0 – Final report of the Industrie 4.0 Working Group. 2013):

Figure 2.2: The four industrial revolutions

Sometimes, people refer to only three industrial revolutions. Based on their understanding, the third industrial revolution is what we have called the fourth industrial revolution here. Note that the four revolutions are actually the German perspective of the industrial landscape. In fact, in the US, there is no third industrial revolution, as specified by the Germans. Therefore, the US only mentions three revolutions in total (for more details on this, you can refer to Jeremy Rifkin. The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World. St. Martin's Griffin. 2013). You can find more details about the different viewpoints of the third industrial revolution in The Third Industrial Revolution section later on.

I call the third and the fourth industrial revolutions the quiet revolutions. They have not come with prominent events, or people, like the other two revolutions did. The change happened gradually and quietly and is still happening step by step. Nevertheless, the result has been a disruptive change in the industrial landscape.

This historical review shows the effects of these industrial revolutions on general development. Against this backdrop, it is easier to look at the current development from an out-of-the-box perspective. In retrospect, technical progress is inevitable: you cannot stop progress. Moreover, it is a waste of time and effort to try to stop it. Instead, you should spend your valuable time and resources on guiding this progress in the right direction and adopting the changes that accompany it.

However, technical progress is only one side of the coin. Just as important, or even more important, is the role of people.

The First Industrial Revolution

The first industrial revolution took place in the 18th century, from 1760 to 1830 (T.S. Ashton. The Industrial Revolution 1760-1830. Oxford University Press. 1998). During this time, the production of goods changed from hand production to mechanical production, that is, it was driven by the advent of machines in combination with the use of power.

In fact, the power loom (or weaving machine), which was invented by Edmund Cartwright in 1784, played an important role (see Figure 2.3). It was a steam-powered weaving machine. Although it improved the weaving process, it took some time before the technology was widespread.

However, these weaving machines raised many concerns about the loss of workplaces and worsened conditions for workers. Finally, it led to the so-called Machine Storm. This protest movement destroyed many production sites. Nevertheless, power loom technology continued to improve over the next 47 years, until a new design by Kenworthy and Bullough made the operation completely automatic.

The evolution from hand production (not just in the weaving domain) to powered factories changed the conditions for workers dramatically: increased unemployment, low wages, and long working hours in hot and dusty factories. That was the beginning of unions and similar organizations fighting for more rights and better working conditions.

Figure 2.3: The power loom

The construction of factories also centralized working places (which were previously widely distributed) and caused an increase in urbanization.

Agriculture was another area affected by the change. Horse-powered threshing machines, as shown in Figure 2.4, replaced workers and this also led to a protest movement. Yet, these machines were only one part of the entire story: wages and other social issues also played a role in fomenting the riots.

A famous protest movement was the Swing Riots. The name originates from the fictitious Captain Swing. He was the head of the Swing Riots, and the signee of the letters sent to farmers, government people, and others who were seen to be responsible for the situation. Eventually, the British government cracked down on the rioters and transported more than 500 people to Australia. Additionally, 600 people were imprisoned and 19 people were executed (The National Archives, www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/politics/g5/, accessed January 2016):

Figure 2.4: Horse-powered threshing machine

However, the progress of using machines in manufacturing was unstoppable: individual craftsmanship that was distributed all over the country turned into centralized factories with powered production machines. The change in the production landscape created a lot of new employment, but it also destroyed many other jobs at the same time.

The factories were much more efficient than the distributed local workshops. But the price for this efficiency was a less flexible production process. That was not a big problem at that time, since the markets were thirsty for products, and there was not much demand for considering individual needs. People were happy about the things they got from these factories.

That was the first step toward the era of mass production, which dominated the second industrial revolution.

The Second Industrial Revolution

The second industrial revolution took place from 1870 to the beginning of the First World War in 1914. (Ryan Engelman. The Second Industrial Revolution, 1870-1914. ushistoryscene.com/article/second-industrial-revolution/ accessed May 2016.)

Violence and destruction did not accompany the second industrial revolution, in contrast with the first one. It had many aspects: steam-powered railways and ships enabled a broad distribution of goods, people, and ideas. These inventions also drove the revolution and led to the spread of telegraphy and telephone technology. It was the first wave of a globalization phenomenon. We will explore this in more detail in the Globalization section in Chapter 3, The Context of the New Engineering Game.

The most prominent aspect of the second industrial revolution was the introduction of assembly-line production, which, again, changed the landscape of the industry. The principle of assembly-line production enabled mass production and a massive reduction in production costs.

Figure 2.5: Henry Ford (1863-1947)

Henry Ford (Figure 2.5) and his assembly line for the production of th...

Table of contents

• Preface
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4