Over the weekend, I attempted to repair my seven-year-old’s battle-smashing toy. Though it’s designed to withstand rough handling and abuse, one of the key features stopped functioning, which degraded the toy’s allure. However, there was no way I would surrender my investment and chalk it up to, “Well, honey, that’s what happens when we play too rough.”
No, I decided to tackle the enigma of complex children’s toys and be a hero for my son. I wanted to teach him that we don’t just throw things away when they stop working. We think about the problem, brainstorm solutions, devise a plan, then give it a go and test the results.
This is not my son, just a really cute picture.
Long story short, I figured out the problem but couldn’t fix it without breaking the only component still functioning. The mechanism causing the issue was inaccessible, and opening it up would likely result in irreversible damage. Being the sweet, understanding person he is, my son appreciated the lesson in manual actuators, gears, and springs and conceded that the remaining functionality was still worth playing battle-smashing games with his mom.
Many engineers I meet face similar conundrums. They first must decide whether an issue is worth investigating, and if so, then they have to figure out the problem and what to do about it. In some cases, problems can’t be fixed without creating brand-new ones, and maybe the remaining functionality or performance is enough. Technical feasibility aside, it usually boils down to ROI and whether solutions align with a company’s goals and trajectory.
Over at our sibling publication, Design World, we’re hosting a new event to address just that. The inaugural Digital Transformation Forum will take place May 1 and 2 in Boston to help engineers and industry leaders discuss problems, align solutions, and accelerate time-to-value.
But one of the fundamental challenges is defining “value.” It starts with identifying and prioritizing who will receive value and establishing metrics to evaluate whether value has been realized. Each company must do this to strategically position itself in the market, but market viability and technical capabilities go hand-in-hand. These days, it’s all about finding the right recipe for automation, electrification, and digitalization by leveraging AI, machine learning, IoT, big data, and other trends. How much of each depends on the company’s objectives and willingness to contribute funds.
I firmly believe that given enough time and resources, engineers can create and fix almost anything. Give them the green light, and they’ll launch us into a new technological era. With our new event, we hope to help more engineers align designs with value and more leaders adopt value-based designs. Check your inbox for details or email me for more information. Hope to see you there! In the meantime, I’ll be tinkering with my son’s toys and showing him the value of problem-solving skills so he can learn how to defeat me in the battle-smashing game.
Filed Under: Fluid Power World Magazine Articles