(310b) Impacts on Management from an Evolving World and Profession
AIChE Annual Meeting
2019
2019 AIChE Annual Meeting
Management Division
AIChE Management Award Recipient Presentation Session: Focusing on Technology and Innovation Management
Tuesday, November 12, 2019 - 1:15pm to 1:45pm
Chemical engineering and the world are evolving; how does that affect management? In some essential ways, not at all: A decision is still a decision, a smile is still a smile as time goes by. Communicating the organization's mission clearly is still essential. So is rewarding people who perform well, not the ones who don't.
In other ways, everything has changed: Staff are expected to be reachable instantly, travel for meetings is slashed in favor of virtual "face-to-face" and audio meetings, and detailed management data on budgets, supply chains, and production are available instantaneously for analytics and decision-making - at least in principle. None of that is chemical-engineering-specific.
The profession-driven changes for chemical engineers are more subtle. The pace of mergers and company re-organizations is due in part to diverse opportunities in material, bioscience, and information technologies. Similarly, employees themselves have more diverse expectations. Perhaps more than in any other engineering discipline, education of chemical engineers is to learn a core of expertise, not a specific job. In recent years, students also learn more about the diverse ways they'll apply their education, and they often look forward to being entrepreneurial. That presents opportunities and challenges for their managers.
In other ways, everything has changed: Staff are expected to be reachable instantly, travel for meetings is slashed in favor of virtual "face-to-face" and audio meetings, and detailed management data on budgets, supply chains, and production are available instantaneously for analytics and decision-making - at least in principle. None of that is chemical-engineering-specific.
The profession-driven changes for chemical engineers are more subtle. The pace of mergers and company re-organizations is due in part to diverse opportunities in material, bioscience, and information technologies. Similarly, employees themselves have more diverse expectations. Perhaps more than in any other engineering discipline, education of chemical engineers is to learn a core of expertise, not a specific job. In recent years, students also learn more about the diverse ways they'll apply their education, and they often look forward to being entrepreneurial. That presents opportunities and challenges for their managers.