The impact of globalism on the engineering student

The world of engineering has changed significantly over the past ten years due to global competition along with technological advancements. Global competition has forced suppliers in many industries to significantly reduce their cycle time to market because market windows are much shorter now. A study from IBM showed that in a fast moving market, being just three months late can cost over 25% of the product´s potential lifetime revenue. This has caused a demand for engineers to reduce development cycles. Engineers today are tasked to design to meet more requirements in less time. In order to compete in the global market, products must be designed that also meet global requirements. To reduce the design cycle time, companies have begun to outsource the development of new products. The concept of outsourcing development to subject matter experts has created a change in the way students must prepare for a career in engineering. As a result of globalization, a designer can be hired from any part of the world. Thus, today´s engineer has to think in terms of integration. The engineer has to sharpen their skills in terms of integrating other designs into his or her design.