Coordination — The essence of modern engineering

President A. I. E. E. Engineering enterprise has developed so rapidly from the application of individual technical skill to the combined technical efforts of many and variously qualified persons, that it seems propitious to consider briefly one of the most important of the present controlling features. A modern engineering undertaking of any appreciable size whatever involves influencing factors ranging all the way from the purely political to the purely economic; from the purely theoretical to the most simple and practical. Each of these factors of necessity must contribute its share to the ultimate design or structure, each to be interpreted and applied by a skilled technologist. Thus it is that coordination, hackneyed word though it be, comes to the fore as representing a function without which no engineering enterprise of any magnitude may hope to succeed in the full sense of that word.