Future Imperfect

The graying of the workforce may be skewing the results, says Georgia-Pacific’s Larry Wells. “As an older person, I know that I’ll have work,” he says. “We talk about how we need people, but now we hire older ones. If we want a young person just out of school, that’s no problem, but if we want an experienced person, there’s a void in the middle, so we end up hiring the older person.”

Better Times Ahead?

Forty percent of those surveyed say yes, but 30% disagree and another 30% are uncertain.

And what about the future? “It’s a better choice now because so few people are going into it,” he says. “We’re paying in the low 70s for a young engineer just coming out of school. There are still good pay and good benefits. It’s a better choice because there are fewer people entering the field.”

Miklovic is the most optimistic of our board members. “The good news is that it’s not a dead-end career. There are going to be a lot of job opportunities, but they’re going to be in instrumentation, service and repair. My odds are better at getting a job at Anheuser-Busch managing beer-making controls than they are working for Fisher Controls designing new controls. A lot of that is going to be done in India.”

A Different Kind of Engineer

The nature of the job is also subject to debate. Many see the basics remaining. Editorial board member Jim Sprague of Saudi Aramco said in an email, “The basic function of a process control engineer—measuring and controlling the process—will be the same. The future will change the tools we use to do this, and will increase the number and type of people that look at the data, but understanding the chemical process and the physics of how to measure and control it will remain the bedrock skill set.”

Dan Miklovic adds, “Most automation people got there because they became process experts. They understood what they were making. For example, they had to learn how to make lumber and then how to automate the process. Being an automation engineer without understanding what you’re making is hard.”

But having said that, a whopping 84% of the readers we surveyed say the job of the automation engineer is going to be a different one in the future.

Convergence is the name of the game, says Miklovic. “So many things are now in the realm of IT that control people need to think about what they should give up and what they should keep. If we don’t break down the wall between control and IT, then we’re going to build up wasted investments. Control engineering should be focusing on the process and let IT worry about the computers. They already know how to do those things.”

Novopharm’s Mark Wells says, “The automation engineer is going to be taking on more responsibilities. [He or she] will have to know more technically, but will be more in charge of sourcing, purchasing and implementing through others rather than actually doing the work. Engineers will be more managers of resources coming from suppliers. Whatever application they encounter, they’re going to have to be able to source solutions, understand what’s technically available, make the best choice and manage the implementation.”

He goes on to say that “soft skills” such as project management, in addition to the traditional technical skills, will be increasingly important, and those technical skills will be “less in depth and more broad-based. They’ve have to know a little bit about a lot of technologies, enough to make educated decisions.”

The Sales Department

Nearly 70% of those surveyed see selling the benefits of plant-floor automation and optimization to the executive suite as a growing part of their job description in the future.

Georgia-Pacific’s Larry Wells adds, “The basic skills and understanding remain the same, but now you have more time to add value. Because we contract out more, engineers have to know who to call. [Engineers] will be facilitators—getting information to the higher-ups and making sure systems are implemented properly. Today you have to be more of a generalist. You have to have a bigger picture now that you used to.”

Being “bilingual,” both in terms of spoken and technical languages will be a necessary skill, says Miklovic. “This isn’t really new. The most successful companies have always been the ones where someone knew how to sell the business case for the technology. They had senior engineering people who could explain the benefits of adopting this type of control.”

What’s changed, he says, is the level of sophistication. “Twenty years ago, the average management person didn’t have a strong technical background. Today they all understand technology to some degree. The dialog is ratcheting up a level, and the sophistication of the person you’re talking to is better. Before you had to spend time on the technology. Now you have more time to spend on the business case.”

Our survey reflects this focus on the larger business as well. Almost 79% of respondents say that future engineers will have to have business process analysis skills, and 70% think that selling process automation to upper management will be a bigger part of their job in 20 years than it is now.