The Australasian Engineer

Dowling’s Engineering Your Future: An Australasian Guide, Fourth Edition is used for first year, core subjects across all Engineering disciplines. Building on the previous editions, this text has been updated with new references, while still maintaining a strong and practical emphasis on skills that are essential for problem solving and design. Numerous topical and locally focused examples of projects across engineering disciplines help demonstrate the role and responsibilities of a professional engineer. Themes of sustainability, ethical practice and effective communication are a constant throughout the text. This full-coloured print with interactive e-text resource has a variety of digital media embedded at the point of learning such as videos and knowledge-check questions to engage students and to help consolidate their learning.

This book sets out the principles of engineering practice, knowledge that has come to light through more than a decade of research by the author and his students studying engineers at work. Until now, this knowledge has been almost entirely unwritten, passed on invisibly from one generation of engineers to the next, what engineers refer to as “experience”. This is a book for all engineers. It distils the knowledge of many experts in one volume. The book will help engineers enjoy a more satisfying and rewarding career and provide more valuable results for their employers and clients. The book focuses on issues often seen as “non-technical” in the world of engineering, yet it shows how these issues are thoroughly technical. Engineering firms traditionally have sought expert advice on these aspects from management schools, often regarding these aspects of engineering practice as something to do with psychology or organisational behaviour. The results are normally disappointing because management schools and psychologists have limited insight and understanding of the technical dimensions in engineering work. Little if any of the material in this book can be obtained from management texts or courses. Management schools have avoided the technical dimension of workplace practices and that is precisely what characterises engineering practice. The technical dimension infuses almost every aspect of an engineer’s working day and cannot be avoided. That’s why this book is so necessary: there has not yet been any authoritative source or guidance to bridge the gap between inanimate technical issues and organisational behaviour. This book fills this gap in our knowledge, is based on rigorous research, and yet is written in a style which is accessible for a wide audience.

Engineering Your Future: An Australasian Guide, Third edition, is the ideal textbook for undergraduate students beginning their engineering studies. Building on the success of the popular first and second editions, this new edition continues the strong and practical emphasis on skills that are essential for engineering problem solving and design. Numerous topical and locally focused examples of projects across the broad range of engineering disciplines help to demonstrate vividly the role and responsibilities of a professional engineer. Themes of sustainability, ethical practice and effective communication are a constant throughout the text. This edition extensively covers the concepts of sustainability, design, engineering economics and professional responsibility. In addition, its many exercises and project activities will encourage students to put key engineering principles and skills into practice.