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Perspectives on Engineering

Moderator: James A. Champy '63, SM '65
Charles Vest HM Thomas Hughes David A. Mindell PhD '96 Daniel Roos '61, SM '63, PhD '66: March 29, 2004; Running Time: 1:42:36

About the Lecture

About the Lecture

This panel provides a sense of the critical role engineering systems have played historically, and continue to play, as advanced technologies take root around the world. Charles Vest urges a broad intellectual framework for studying and developing large engineered systems, whose “complexities are so great we can’t know all the possible end states.” A new framework becomes urgent as we face “the mother of all systems problems” – defending ourselves against terrorism-- and the ultimate challenge of sustainable development.

Thomas Hughes invokes the past to encourage the inclusion of “a real and messy world” in engineering approaches. For instance, the 19th century road-building projects of Thomas Telford also functioned to improve literacy and reduce poverty. David Mindell describes the evolution of engineering science from the Manhattan Project through the Apollo missions to the end of the Cold War. He welcomes a shift in engineering studies from an exclusive focus on the technology itself to technologies’ impact. Engineers must be trained as “inventors, communicators, policy makers, and leaders.” Daniel Roos notes that the emergence of a powerful technology such as the automobile, which influenced urban design and economic growth, led to a vast increase in engineering systems scale and complexity. The widening scope of contemporary engineering projects means that engineers must “find the best solution that satisfies all stakeholders.” Today, “just understanding technology is not sufficient….it requires a broader understanding of organizational and contextual implications.” Finally, James Champy chides industry for its “hesitancy and cynicism about new ideas and instead, its obsession with costs.”

Lecture Details

Location: Wong Auditorium

“A whole new breed of engineers can be educated. Universities must respond and change and that change is going to be difficult. We must go forward working together…”

Daniel Roos

About the Speakers

Moderator: James A. Champy '63, SM '65

Chairman of Consulting
Perot Systems Corporation
Life Member, MIT Corporation

James A. Champy is an authority on the management issues surrounding business reengineering and organizational change. Prior to joining Perot Systems, Champy was chairman and CEO of CSC Index, the management consulting arm of Computer Science Corporation. He was one of the original founders of Index, a $200-million consulting practice that was acquired by CSC in 1988.

Champy has also authored such well-received books as Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution, which sold more than 2,500,000 copies and spent more than a year on The New York Times bestseller list. His articles appear in major newspapers and magazines throughout the world.

Champy earned his B.S. and his M.S. in Civil Engineering from MIT, and his J.D. from Boston College Law School. Champy serves on the board of Analog Devices, Inc., on MIT’s Board of Trustees, and on the Board of Overseers of the Boston College Law School.

Charles Vest HM

President, National Academy of Engineering
President Emeritus, MIT

Charles M. Vest was the fifteenth President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

During his 14 years at MIT, he placed special emphasis on enhancing undergraduate education, exploring new organizational forms to meet emerging directions in research and education, building a stronger international dimension into education and research programs, developing stronger relations with industry, and enhancing racial and cultural diversity. He also devoted considerable energy to bringing issues concerning education and research to broader public attention and to strengthening national policy on science, engineering and education. In this latter capacity, Vest chaired the President's Advisory Committee on the Redesign of the Space Station and has served as a member of the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), the Massachusetts Governor's Council on Economic Growth and Technology, and the National Research Council Board on Engineering Education. In February 2004, he was asked by President Bush to serve as a member of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Vest earned his B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from West Virginia University in 1963 and both his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Michigan in 1964 and 1967, respectively. As a member of the Mechanical Engineering faculty at MIT, Vest's research interests were in the thermal sciences and in the engineering applications of lasers and coherent optics.

In December 2003, Vest announced his decision to step down from the presidency of MIT.

Thomas Hughes

Mellon Professor Emeritus of the History of Science, University of Pennsylvania
Distinguished Visiting Professor, MIT

David A. Mindell PhD '96

Frances and David Dibner Associate Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing Macvicar Faculty Fellow

David A. Mindell is the Frances and David Dibner Associate Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing, MIT Program in Science, Technology and Society. He received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and a B.A. in Literature from Yale University in 1988. He earned a Ph.D. from MIT in 1996.

Daniel Roos '61, SM '63, PhD '66

Japan Steel Industry Professor of Engineering Systems and Civil and Environmental Engineering

Daniel Roos became the founding Director of the Engineering Systems Division in 1998. Previously, he was Director of the Center for Transportation Studies, and Director of the Center for Technology, Policy and Industrial Development. Roos serves as Founding Director of the International Motor Vehicle Program and as Director of the Cooperative Mobility Program. He is co-author of The Machine That Changed the World, which has been published in 11 languages and has sold more than 600,000 copies.