Engineering Communication Skills

Engineering Communication

• Engineers need clear, efficient, and elegant communication in various tasks like reports, presentations, and lab reports.
• Engineering students must develop strong written and oral communication skills.
• Engineers need to express thoughts effectively.
• Presenting concepts, products, services and problem-solution analyses are essential skills.
• Presenting findings from experimental work is a crucial skill.
• Communication of design ideas through engineering drawings and computer-aided modeling is important.
• Engineers frequently write detailed and lengthy reports.
• Reports may include charts, graphs, and engineering drawings.
• Reports sometimes follow a brief format like progress reports, memos, or executive summaries.

Homework Presentation

• Homework presentations should include:
  • Given: problem statement, extracted information
  • Find: What is to be determined?
  • Solution:
    • Appropriate models
    • Diagrams
    • Step-by-step calculations
    • Answers with highlighted units

Progress Report

• Progress reports are short communications to organization members or sponsors about project status.
• Reports should include work completed, expected upcoming work, and any issues, along with suggested solutions.

Executive Summary

• Executive summaries are brief, concise communications to management about the findings of a study or proposal.
• Summaries usually consist of a few pages.
• They sometimes refer to more comprehensive reports for detail.

Short Memos

• Short memos are used for brief communication to specific individuals.
• A memo example format, including date, from, to, and subject, is presented.

Examples of Design and Technical Reports

• Technical Reports:

  • Contain a title, abstract, objectives, theory and analysis, apparatus & procedures, data & results, discussion of results, conclusions & recommendations, references, and appendix
  • Abstract: The most important section, outlining objectives, procedures, results, and recommendations concisely. This is the last section to write.
  • Objectives: Explicitly state what is being investigated.
  • Theory and Analysis: Outlines relevant principles, laws, equations, and analytical models used.
  • Apparatus and Procedures: Describes the equipment, instrumentation (including details like specifications and IDs), and the experimental procedure in detail, including a schematic diagram.
  • Data and Results: Presents data in tables and graphs, clearly labeled with titles, units, and axis labels.
  • Discussion of Results: Explains the importance of the results and compares with theory when necessary.
  • Conclusions and Recommendations: Summarises results and makes recommendations.
  • References: Properly formatted citations of sources used, organized by category (e.g., books, articles, internet resources).
  • Appendix: Includes supplementary data, sample calculations, or original data sheets.

• Design Reports:

  • Include a title, executive summary, design objectives, design assumptions, limitations & specifications, design summary, and design drawings
  • Include alternative designs and economic analysis
  • Contain conclusions and recommendations, along with references and appendix

Importance of Communication to Engineers

• Communication is vital for expressing engineers' thoughts.
• Communicating design ideas & findings from experimental work, through effective written and oral means, are important.