3 Engineering Trends Shaping the Industry

The engineering industry is evolving. Advancements in technology and a global shift towards sustainability will continue impacting the engineering profession. In this blog, we’ll help you identify the top three engineering trends shaping the industry and how you can educate your workforce to stay ahead of the curve.

Engineering Trend 1: Sustainability

Sustainability is at the forefront of modern engineering. The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is now prioritizing sustainability-related challenges more than ever, deeming them necessary to ensure the future of the industry. Current engineering trends reflect this focus, emphasizing the importance of sustainable practices.

What is Sustainable Engineering?

Sustainable engineering is the process of designing systems that use energy and resources at a rate that minimizes environmental impact while enhancing efficiency.

Sustainable engineering trends include the use of:

• Green engineering practices. Energy-efficient designs, waste minimization, water conservation, and pollution prevention are some main examples of engineering sustainability practices.
• Renewable energy. 83 percent of all power capacity produced in 2022 was produced by renewables. Innovations in solar, wind, hydroelectric, and geothermal energy are dominating the conservation landscape in engineering.
• Sustainable materials. Materials include biodegradable plastics, recycled metals, and sustainably sourced wood, which help reduce organizations’ carbon footprints and promote renewable resources.

Engineering Trend 2: Advancements in Technology

The use of new technologies has emerged as a prominent trend within the engineering industry. In this section, we’ll dive deeper into some of these technologies and their implications for engineering employees.

Artificial Intelligence in Engineering

New AI programs are beginning to chip away at the billable hours business model by spending minutes on tasks that would take the average engineer hours to complete. Some examples of AI capabilities include:

• Digesting project documents. AI can work through these documents much faster than any human employee is capable of.
• Providing near instant answers to workers. By asking specific questions about project data, AI can provide explanations for practically any component of an engineering project.
• Predicting problems before they occur. For instance, AI can analyze data from machine sensors and predict equipment failures in advance.
• Informing future projects with past lessons. These lessons were once held as proprietary institutional knowledge, and now they’re becoming more accessible to other engineers via shared cloud-based software.
• Allowing for timely maintenance and limited downtime. This saved time is a natural cause of the efficiency with which AI completes tasks.

AI is challenging the current structure of the engineering industry by speeding up certain projects. While this is a huge shift, it may benefit engineers by significantly reducing their busy work and providing more time for valuable tasks.

To learn more about how AI can improve workplace safety in your organization, check out our on-demand webinars.

Digital Twins

A digital twin is a virtual representation of an object or system that reflects a physical object, such as a building, accurately. This technology is changing the engineering industry by speeding up certain processes and improving accuracy.

Helpful services provided by digital twins include:

• Spanning the object’s lifecycle
• Receiving updates from real-time data
• Analyzing performance problems
• Creating potential enhancements
• Using simulations, machine learning, and reasoning to make decisions

Engineering Trend 3: The Evolution of Training

89% of learning and development (L&D) professionals agree that proactively building employee skills will help navigate the evolving future of work.

Engineers have always needed professional development hours (PDH) to maintain their licenses. But it’s no longer enough to merely check the box. With rapid advancements in engineering technology and sustainability goals, engineer training must evolve too.

Allowing engineers to select their own training to meet state requirements leaves a lot to be desired. It prevents your firm from being able to select the quality of the training and the topics that matter most.

Training to Close Skills Gaps

Many young engineers lack important soft skills. A 2021 survey shows that 46% of engineering employers believe that new entrants lack necessary soft skills. Other reports found that 40% of early-career engineers hired by large enterprises in 2021 lacked leadership and other soft skills.

Examples of these essential soft skills include:

• Communication
• Teamwork
• Leadership
• Management
• Professionalism

This current trend is the result of a variety of factors. For one, engineering programs typically emphasize technical skills, theoretical knowledge, and problem-solving abilities over soft skills. Additionally, engineers who are early in their careers haven’t had many opportunities to practice or develop soft skills, leading to an overall deficiency in new generations of workers.

Employee skills assessments can help verify that young engineers are learning the soft skills they need. With Vector Solutions’ Competency Assessment Tool, you can ensure that your employees are retaining valuable information for the workplace.

Why Engineering Firms Choose Vector

“I would say the biggest benefit the solution has helped us achieve is to remain on the leading edge of our industry as a firm of choice because we invest in the development of our people and practice.”

– Training and Development Manager

Vector Solutions is the leading provider of award-winning, intelligent SaaS solutions that help organizations prepare for the future of the industry.

Our learning management software (LMS), paired with our extensive and curated content for engineering employees, meets the unique needs of engineers. We provide skills training, accredited continuing education courses, and professional development courses to close skills gaps and keep your engineers on the cutting edge of the industry.

Benefits of using our LMS include:

• Improved worker skills. Most skills degrade after just five years without training to reinforce them, and this falls to two and a half years for more technical skills.
• Increased performance and worker productivity. By providing employees with the knowledge and skills they need to do their job confidently and effectively, you directly impact the productivity and output of your workforce.
• Boosted rate of new hires. The engineering industry is facing a severe labor shortage, but better onboarding training speeds up the time it takes new employees to acclimate to their role and start adding value.
• Lower employee turnover. Studies have found that at companies that don’t offer employee training, only 21% of new hires intend to stay there. At companies that do offer training, 62% intend to stay.
• Improved company reputation. Offering employee training and growth opportunities is a highly sought-after benefit. Growing your reputation as a company that develops its people and invests in continued growth will also make you more competitive and able to attract top talent.

To efficiently train your employees for the future of engineering trends, request a demo today.