E-Portfolio 1 - Engineer’s Approach in Designing Solutions

According to the Dean of Engineering at NUS, Prof Seeram Ramakrishna(2007, August 5), with the advent of service-oriented economy, engineers are not only people who build high-rise buildings, dig underground tunnels, manufacture electronic goods and medical devices, they are now also highly sought after to design and manage health care systems, run data and information management systems and design and run complex logistics and supply chain systems. In addition to this, they run transportation systems, manage efficient distribution of water and energy supplies, manage large-scale projects/mega developments and they also design early-warning systems against natural catastrophes.

I believe that the processes and principles of problem solving and approaches of designing solutions will always remain the same, regardless of which area the engineers are involved in. As an engineering student, we were taught that there will always be a solution for a problem.

Engineers always begin with understanding the definition of the problem thoroughly prior to designing the solution. They are trained to study and break down a complex problem into bite - sizes, and start to gather the relevant information in order to analyze the current situation of the problem. From the results of these researches, they will be able to draft a few possible solutions for the problem. Engineers will then conduct the feasibility studies on every possible solution, and select one which is most practical and which meets most of the criteria required for the solution. This is followed by a detailed design to fulfill all major and minor specifications of the full solution. After that, evaluations of the solution will take place to investigate if the solution meets its ultimate objectives.

Evaluation is not the final step of designing the solution, but it serves as a bridge for the engineers to continuously observe the performance of the designed solution until it is outdated sometime in the future. This will lead the engineers to re-run the cycle of designing the solution.


Ramakrishna, S. (2007, August 5). The expanding world of engineers. The Sunday Times, p. 25.