| An Institute for the 21st Century? |
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An Institute for the 21st Century
1. Introduction
i. achieve the status of the Preferred UK Body for Measurement and Control Technology The aims were endorsed by Council in January, and the President set up three working parties to progress them, with each working party being chaired by a past president of the Institute. Rapid progress was mandated, with each working party instructed to provide a report to the Institute Management Board before 26 March 2007. The PUB Working Party, membership of which is listed in the Appendix, was tasked to undertake a fundamental review both of the Institute’s reasons for existence and of what its objectives should be in today’s world. This paper, based on the report agreed by Council in April 2007, sets out a strategic direction for the Institute in the 21st century. 2. The Institute’s science base The Institute is the custodian of a unique and coherent body of knowledge that allows its practitioners to understand the workings of systems large and small across an exceptionally wide range of fields, both natural and engineered, and to optimise the operation of those processes where human influence is possible. Understanding and optimisation are based on the interlinked sciences of measurement and control: control is essential if the system is to be operated optimally, while measurement of the phenomenological attributes of the system is a prerequisite both for deep understanding and for control. A further strength of the Institute is that it covers the interface between the science base and the commercial implementation of the resultant technology in many important industries. For example, the very large, integrated plants typical of the process industries are now controlled by large, computer-based, data acquisition and control systems that may communicate their results hundreds of miles to a central co-ordination facility to allow global optimisation of production. Similarly, the Institute covers within its remit the avionics expertise necessary to keep a jet fighter within its operating limits so that it can execute even the most demanding manoeuvres without breaking up or crashing. The Institute is thus based on the two important scientific and philosophical concepts of measurement and control, and it is committed to promote their furtherance. Its primary function is to provide fora where practitioners and theorists in measurement, control and the integrating discipline of system science may meet and exchange information and views so as to facilitate the advance through synergy of the knowledge base and its applications. The fora may take the form of local technical meetings, local and national symposia, national and international conferences, learned journals (e.g. Transactions) and popular, technological journals (e.g. Measurement + Control). In addition, the Institute acts as a conduit through which industry may express its views, particularly via the Companion Company Scheme, and it also provides an interface where Government may interact with measurement and control specialists, for example in setting priorities for national research policy. 3. Organisation, history and competing bodies. In theory, the function of providing such fora might be carried out on an informal basis, but only for a short time. Long-term fulfilment of the objective requires the setting up of a dedicated body. The tradition in the UK is for practitioners in science and engineering to establish and run institutes on a voluntary basis, but with a professional secretariat. This pattern of working began in the 1660’s with the establishment of the Royal Society, where Robert Hooke was an early paid official. It continued in engineering with the foundation of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) in 1818, followed by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) in 1847 and the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) in 1871. In the middle of the twentieth century, the increasing complexity and multi-disciplinary nature of engineered systems in fields as diverse as chemical processes and anti-aircraft gunnery highlighted the need for an institute dedicated to the science of measurement and control (Finkelstein, 2006). The Institute of Measurement and Control was created in 1944 in response to this need, with Nobel prize-winner, Sir George Thomson as its first President. Over 60 years later, it is still vital that such a body should exist and promote the concepts outlined above, not only for the health of the UK’s industry, where improved integration within large processes and engineered systems will be essential for the UK to maintain its industrial competitiveness, but also to improve the quality of the UK’s governance, where the cost of a bad decision can be immense in one of the massive and interlinked systems that Government has to manage. No other engineering institution is equipped to take the same, broad philosophical view across a whole range of disciplines in science and engineering. Thus, for instance, the IMechE and the IChemE have active sections dedicated to control engineering, but their parent technologies and consequent Royal Charters mean that they are restricted in their ability to extend into the realms of social science that might be needed, for instance, for solving organisational problems within the National Health Service. The Institution for Engineering and Technology (IET), successor to the IEE, aims now to cover a significantly larger range of engineering and technology than its original electrical and electronic remit implied, but it faces similar constraints. Moreover its control engineering panels (now professional networks) have displayed an historic bias away from applications and towards academic research. The Institute of Physics has an interest in sensors but not in control and certainly not in the broader aspects of systems in non-physical fields discussed above. Members of this Institute, by contrast, have a long tradition of studying and improving systems in general business, economics and health-care, for example, as well as in the mainstream engineering fields such as the process industries and aerospace. There are a number of smaller institutions devoted to measurement in particular fields, such as the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (IPEM) and the Institute of Biomedical Science (IBMS), but clearly these do not cover the Institute’s range. Meanwhile on the system-science side, INCOSE UK, the UK Chapter of the International Council of Systems Engineering, has established a useful presence in the defence and aerospace industries, but lacks the Institute’s coverage of the measurement and control disciplines. Moving away from the engineering institutions, the Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers (SIM) is a City of London livery company whose aim is to promote education in and furtherance of measurement technology. But while it shares some of the interests of the Institute, it is not constituted and does not possess either the size or the national reach to allow it meet the full set of objectives the Institute was set up to satisfy. Meanwhile GAMBICA, the trade association for the UK’s automation industry, shares also some aims with the Institute, particularly in ensuring that the latest instrumentation technology is available to its member companies, but does not have the right structure for satisfying the wider requirements of measurement, control and system science in the UK. The roles of SIM and GAMBICA are better seen as complementary to that of the Institute, and it may be observed that these three organisations, which interact on a regular basis, confer on the UK the benefits of an uniquely close community in measurement and control. 4. The continuing role for the Institute of Measurement and Control It is therefore plain that the Institute has a continuing and vitally important duty to act as the philosophical home for measurement, control and system science and practice in the UK. Its position cannot be taken by any other engineering institution, and if the Institute does not shoulder the burden, the scientific home for these interlinked subjects will be lost in the UK. We may conclude that there is an important and continuing need to promulgate a clear vision of the Institute founded on its science base. Institute members need to redouble their efforts to communicate the Institute’s exciting and intellectually rigorous mission to all its stakeholders, including not only practitioners and students in appropriate disciplines but also Government, the media and the general public. Papers in the Institute’s journal are a good way of alerting the stakeholders to the issues, especially if they can be used as the basis for the wider dissemination of the message. But it is particularly important to reach out to the wider community and keep people informed of the Institute’s activities and contribution to the development of our important sciences and technologies. 5. The role of System Science within the Institute’s remit System science and cybernetics/control have converged (see, for example, Finkelstein, 2006), and the Institute has long acted on this premise, as evidenced by its creation of the Systems and Management Panel in the 1970’s, reactivated in the past few years. System science recognises that a large-scale venture is best understood not as the mere joining together of a collection of components but as a ‘system’, within which interactions between the constituent parts lead to modes of behaviour that may be unexpected, counter-intuitive and difficult to predict from the properties of the individual elements. Systematic and systemic methods of predicting and understanding these unexpected modes or ‘emergent properties’ have been devised and continue to be developed. They are essential for controlling and optimising the increasingly complex systems met in the modern world. Their importance and the intellectual challenge they present mean that system science should be regarded as ranking alongside measurement and control in terms of its fundamental role within the remit of the Institute. It should be noted that the ‘emergent properties’ discussed above will include the effects of major disturbances or component failures, and this brings risk analysis and management very firmly under the umbrella of system science and thus within the remit of members’ interests. Risk management converges with instrumentation in the case of a protection or trip system, which is a specialised form of control system, using rapid measuring instruments, that ensures safe shutdown of operations such as a nuclear reactor or a chemical process. The Institute has a long tradition of running symposia on high-integrity protection systems, particularly computer-based systems. It should be noted further that risk management is a highly topical subject with direct links into policy making (e.g. Thomas and Stupples, 2006, Thomas and Newby, 2006 and Stupples et al., 2006) The Institute should give higher profile to its system science work through encouraging events and publications in this area (Transactions as well as the Journal), as well as by paying attention to this facet of its work in its public relations and press releases. Consideration is being given to rewording the Institute’s Royal Charter to make the commitment to system science more explicit. For example, we might seek the ability to grant a post-nominal title such as Chartered System Technologist, which would be the counterpart to the title of Chartered Measurement and Control Technologist, which is in our sole gift. 6. Widen the Institute’s influence on national policy making Instrumentation and control is the enabling technology in almost everything we use today and is present in all industrial sectors. The UK instrumentation and control is the world’s fourth largest and we have a comparative advantage over competing nations and the infrastructure to stay at the cutting edge of technological progress (see Kent, 2007). Historically, many of the Institute’s members have a background in the process industries, and the Institute will continue to provide a high-level service to this important industrial area in the future. However, it should be recognised also that Institute members have access to ideas and technologies with the potential to inform policy-making in a significant and useful way. For example, dynamic simulation techniques applied to chemical, oil, gas and power systems (Thomas, 1999) have been developed as system dynamics for application to economics and organisational systems (Forrester, 1961; Sterman, 2000); similarly risk analysis, developed extensively for reliability engineering, may be applied to a large variety of organisational and human systems (see for example, Thomas and Newby, 2006). There is a strong argument that Institute members have a consequent duty to use their skills to guide national policy or, indeed, international policy making, where system and feedback ideas have been applied for the past 40 years to predict the world’s climate change. Furthermore, it should be noted that young people are extremely concerned with and interested in major societal issues – it is, after all, the society in which they will live that current policy will be affecting in the future. More parochially, it should be remembered these young people represent also the future of the Institute, and getting them excited and inspired by its activities is vital to its future well-being. Increasing the system-science emphasis can only help in this regard. 7. Alliances A merger with another engineering institution, especially one much larger than the Institute, would risk diluting the vitally important science base of which the Institute is custodian. However, alliances short of a merger are a useful way of increasing our coverage and influence and could be developed either with engineering institutions or with bodies that are unregistered with the Engineering Council (UK). 8. Using the internet to leverage our offering Publication of material via the internet offers small and medium institutions the theoretical capability cheaply to take on and match much larger institutions in terms of publicity and influence. Now that the Institute’s website has been set up, the primary challenge is no longer technical but journalistic: the requirement to populate the website with interesting new material on a frequent basis. Interesting leads from members will be at a premium. 9. Set up YGEN Network for the younger generation of Inst.M.C professionals. It is recommended that the Institute should set up a Younger Generation (YGEN) Network for the younger generation of Inst.M.C professionals up to and including the age of 35. This Network should be given a distinct voice within the Institute, with a direct route to its policy-making bodies. The Institute will be seeking expressions of interest from younger members who wish to take up this challenge. 10. Conclusions The Institute has a clear and distinct role, which will develop further as we journey deeper into the 21st century. The most important priority now is to promulgate a clear vision for the Institute founded on its science base. It should be made plain to all stakeholders that this base includes system science, which will allow the Institute to take forward its legitimate interests in policy and management as well as in technical issues. The Institute’s resultant greater impact will accord with the desire of younger professionals to have a more direct influence on the increasingly technological society in which they are living. Additional initiatives to make the Institute more attractive to young people will be the formation of a YGEN Network and a greater emphasis on internet publishing. The Institute may also wish to pursue alliances, but not mergers with relevant bodies, irrespective of whether or not those bodies are registered engineering institutions. 11. References
Finkelstein, L., 2006, "From technology to wider knowledge, understanding and wisdom", Special Feature on Systems and Risk, Measurement + Control, Vol. 39/ 9, 268 – 272, November. The membership was as follows:
Dr Derek Cornish, HonFInstMC |
The Institute is celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the granting of it's Coat of Arms, which incorporates an albatross with lightning in it's beak as a symbol of control concepts. The albatross extracts energy from sea-waves and the varying airflow above them, in order to sustain flight indefinitely by locking their vast wing span in the open position allowing them to glide for hundreds of miles, touching land only for the necessity of breeding with it's life partner. With this metaphor and celebration of Measurement & Control in mind, the President kindly asks that members consider the following report and send in any helpful comments or suggestions to the Institute.
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