Every semester, a group of Deans from different schools within the Stevens community invites guests to attend the Deans’ Seminar Series. On Wednesday, October 1, Stevens welcomed back a distinguished alumnus and guest, Peter Shainin. The lecture, attended by professors, and graduate and undergraduate students, took place in Babbio 122 and online through Blackboard Collaborate. Shainin, who graduated from Stevens in 1966, is now the CEO of Shainin, a leading company in solving “unsolvable” engineering problems.
The lecture titled “Engineering Problem Solving Beyond Math – Almost,” highlighted the key principles the company follows in order to solve problems. Shainin LCC was founded by Dorian Shainin who drove the company to success with the development of his “Red X” procedure. The method is based off of the Pareto principle, named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. The concept is that 80% of effects are due to 20% of causes. This is a rational way of thinking backwards and solving a problem based on known information and reducing the amount of possible answers. Dorian believed that he was able to solve problems simply by “talking to the parts” rather than the engineers working on the project.
During the lecture, Shainin gave an example of how a car company found out that 1 out of 10,000 engines were exploding in the cars due to welding of the contact plates during high voltage. Shainin suggests that most engineers will immediately adjust to using equations and formulas of all kinds in order to figure out why each of these problems are arising. The “Red X” method, however, is used to eliminate possible answers in a way that does not include complex formulas, but rather simple logic.
Those working on the project recreated the welding of the contact plates in 30 different engines by slowly adding capacitors to see at what voltage the engines would weld. After this, they noticed that it did not matter how high the voltage was because the welding would occur in a very low amount of capacitors and in a high amount. They were then able to eliminate more possibilities by only taking the Worst of the Worst (WOW) engines and the Best of the Best (BOB). All of the others were thrown away unexamined, as to not disrupt the process and lead to numerous causeless observations.
Through examination, they found that welding was caused due to spaces between the contact plates caused by open ended springs pushing too hard on one end. One could not say that only one side would be pushed up because the spring’s placement was random. Then, it was observed that the WOW engines had voids in the plates, which also caused high voltage. This was due to the amount of steps in the plating process. By shortening the steps and replacing the springs with closed ended springs, the issue was solved.
Shainin expresses that theorems and equations are simply not enough but that one still needs to be able to think like an engineer and understand the concepts. This is a great example of how learning concepts in classes are much more important than just memorizing equations. While equations might be important, it is much more important to look at a problem rationally to see if one can find a “Red X.” By process of elimination, one may be able to find an answer sooner and with more success.
