Sheffi calls for MIT to educate geeks and chiefs

Stresses urgent need for engineering leaders to address environment, globalization, other complex issues

Resilience is important to Professor Yossi Sheffi, best-selling author of The Resilient Enterprise: Overcoming Vulnerability for Competitive Advantage. An international expert in supply chain management, Sheffi recently turned his attention to resilience in engineering education at MIT and its impact on US competitiveness.

“Southeast Asia produces ten times more engineers annually than the US, many comparable to our highest quality professionals. If MIT and other US schools continue to generate a large number of ‘traditional’ engineers, trained for a manufacturing economy, then engineering will become a commodity,” Sheffi warned a standing-room-only audience at the sixth annual Charles L. Miller lecture.

Yossi Sheffi at the April 5th Charles L. Miller Lecture.

Sheffi, ProSheffi, Professor of Engineering Systems, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics referenced recent reports by the National Academy of Science and the National Academy of Engineering to build his argument for how to address the “Sputnik challenge” of the 21st century. He identified that as the design and operation of complex systems aimed at health care provision, education, security, and energy independence.

He said the important challenge is to educate engineers who can go beyond designing complicated technical systems (such as airplanes). They need to be able to design complex systems of which new technologies are part (like air transportation systems), where technology intertwines with environmental, political, economic, managerial and other systems. These engineers will lead complex systems design, whose objectives include many “ilities,” such as flexibility, compatibility, and safety.

Sheffi advocated a two-pronged approach for MIT: continuing to educate world class technical experts – the geeks – to be practicing engineers who design complicated systems, while preparing world-class leaders – the chiefs – to design complex systems.

The new curriculum may include engineering and social science classes taught jointly by SOE and SHASS; engineering courses with imbedded managerial concepts and case studies taught by SOE and Sloan; mandatory studies abroad; and a leadership curriculum. (He referenced the leadership course offered by ESD's Master of Engineering in Logistics program as an example.)

Citing MIT’s Reports to the President, Sheffi pointed out that a 20% reduction in undergraduate engineering degrees and a doubling in management degrees awarded by MIT in the past five years shows students are signaling the need to go beyond technical curriculum.

According to Sheffi, the good news – and the bad news – is that the MIT SOE is #1. Its top ratings, strong faculty and students, culture of merit-based promotion and tenure, entrepreneurial spirit, and unsurpassed reputation are a source of pride. At the same time the SOE suffers from conservatism and calcification.” Many outstanding faculty members are hired – but it’s unclear that they are working on the right problems,” he surmised.

Sheffi acknowledged the many hurdles to implementing a new curriculum alongside “MIT Classic,” specifically identifying knowledge integration, balancing between the two tracks, and faculty recognition. He asserted, however, that MIT presently has an unprecedented opportunity. A new president, new senior administration, and soon all new deans may provide the opportunity for profound changes.

In concluding the event, ESD Professor Daniel Roos called on the audience to “work together to ensure that this issue gets exposure – and action – within MIT now.”