The Art of Engineering

The short version (my "elevator pitch"):

Compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) use about a fifth of the energy of a normal (incandescent) bulb to produce the same amount of light, so switching to CFLs means more money in your pocket every month (lower energy bills). Even though they are more expensive to purchase, the upfront cost of a CFL is recovered within six to twelve months (depending on the price of your electricity). Incandescent bulbs only last for about eight months, while CFLs can last for up to 4 years or longer, which is an extra saving (fewer bulb replacements).

A lot of people say they do not like CFLs because the light is not nice, they flicker, and take time to warm–up. With the new CFLs all of these problems have been solved. They have quick start–up times, no flicker and good light quality. Make sure you choose a light marked "warm white" if you prefer the yellower colour of incandescents. CFL quality can vary quite a bit so buy a good quality bulb like the Philips Genie or Osram Dulux SuperStar.

The long version:

I am really passionate about energy conservation for a couple of reasons (which I'll talk about another time — one of the big ones is that it pays). So when I see people inventing technologies which I think will drive people away from good and practical ways of saving energy, something has to be done.

One of those bad ideas is the BC3 bulb which Dan Lockton's posted about on his blog. It forces people to choose expensive and difficult to find CFLs instead of just allowing them to choose what is best for them (see my comments on Dan's blog).

Education, I believe, is the key to the solution, not controlling people's behaviour. As soon as you understand the huge benefits of CFLs the choice becomes easy.

I was having a conversation recently where I was explaining my passion for energy saving and I was using the example of compact fluorescent lights as a simple energy saving solution that is not generally used. The guy I was chatting to gave me the answer that I expect a lot of people would, "When they can make a CFL which gives the same light as a normal light bulb I'll change."

You probably feel the same way, the first picture that comes to your mind when you think of a CFL is a dimly lit room, and a light that takes a few minutes to get to "full power." Think again.

I believe that there are two critical issues which keep people away from using energy efficient light bulbs — light quality and initial cost.

Unfortunately a bulbs ability to illuminate can not simple be measured by the wattage of the bulb. Firstly, CFLs have a higher efficiency than incandescents i.e. they are better at converting electrical energy into light — that means more light and less heat.

The more confusing thing is that not all light is equal. Light has two important properties: a colour temperature, and its ability to render colour accurately. Basically "warm" light (below 3200k) is yellower, and "cold" light (above 4000k) is bluer. Colour rendering index (CRI) is a measure of colour variation when compared to a reference (for a nice summary I found this on Osram Sylvania, and this on LightSearch). Incandescents typically produce warm white light and have a near perfect CRI, while CFLs are often cool white and have lower CRIs. Many new CFLs do have warm white light and higher CRIs, and the light they produce is comparable to incandescents.

I have yet to see a CFL that is marked with the CRI, so when you are standing in a store the best thing to look out for is the light colour which should be marked on the packaging (normally it will say "warm white" or "cool white" — if this is missing then the light is probably cool white). Also, buy a better CFL rather than the cheapest one.

The higher quality CFLs, like the Philips Genie or Osram Dulux SuperStar, are more expensive, but you can expect to get a longer lifetime, as well as a higher quality light — including flicker free start–up and short warm–up times. The price difference is really insignificant when you look at the lifetime of the bulbs.

So how much do you save, and how quickly do you recover the costs of the bulb? This varies from country to country depending on the price of electricity, as well as the price of the bulbs. Obviously the higher the cost of your electricity the faster you will recover the costs of the bulb and start saving.

South Africa happens to have some of the cheapest electricity in the world at about 0.43ZAR/kWh (kilowatt hour), but even for us the extra cost of the bulb is quickly recovered. In fact, if your light is on for 3 hours a day, and you replace a 100W incandescent with a 18W CFL, it only takes about 7 months to recover the initial costs, and you still have 60 months of savings to go (for a 6000hr lifetime bulb).

I have set up a little spreadsheet that you can use to calculate the savings (let me know if you spot any errors). I think that switching to energy saving technologies makes so much economic sense that I even sent a "Tip for Trevor".

The conclusion

You can put money back into your pocket, AND have good light — what more needs to be said? It is definitely worth trying out one of the new CFLs. Start today.

For lots of information about light, and lighting have a look at LightSearch's light guides.

[Update] I came across this on Digg, 10 things worth knowing about CFLs.

[Update] Just a quick comment on the burden on the planet (which Arash mentioned). I am trying to avoid making energy savings about reducing carbon emissions for a couple of reasons, mainly that I am not particularly convinced that this argument is going to change a lot of people's actions. Seth has some things to say about More or Less. There are some more compelling (and also more frightening) reasons to act other than carbon emissions reductions. More to come on this, but for now have a look at this.

Technorati tags : cfl, compact fluorescent, energy efficiency, incandescent, lighting. Trackback

Special thanks go out to Paul Jacobson for his Featured Business of the Week post on Engineer Simplicity, on BizTips (solo and small business tips and ideas). Paul, it is a wonderful experience to see other people talking about my business.

For those of you who would like to see your business featured, send Paul some interesting information about your business!

Paul is an attorney who runs Jacobson Attorneys in Johannesburg, and writes their blog. He is also an avid blogger (with numerous other blogs), and new media evangelist.

Technorati tags : marketing, engineer simplicity, chillibean, new+media, paul jacobson,

I would like to share a bit about a small project that I did back in September. Stephan Thiel from Hex Microsystems contacted me about a friend of his who he does off road biking with. His friend, Kobus Raath, has had a below elbow amputation - that is, he has no left hand. Obviously this poses challenges when riding a motor bike, especially an off-road one!

The BMW R1200GS motorcycle

Kobus has been creative enough to overcome all the obstacles to riding so that he can really enjoy his passion. He has modified the left handle bar so that a prosthesis (which he makes himself) can attach to it, and moved the clutch to the right handle bar.

Modified left handle bar	Modified right handle bar

So the next problem he needed to address was the riders controls, such as the indicators and horn. Here are some stock photos of the right and left handle bar controls for the R1200GS from BMW (the bike Kobus rides).

Left hand controls	Right hand controls

As you can see the left indictor, horn, brights/dim, ABS and Trip function buttons are all situated on the left handle bar, making them difficult for Kobus to access while riding (and slightly dangerous too!) - and that is where I come into the picture.

The first thing that I needed to do was analyse what the constraints of the motor bike were so that that I could decide on a plan of attack.

Kobus did his research when he went about choosing which motor bike to buy. The electrical system R1200GS runs on a CAN bus and there is a controller that performs all the functions. This means that it is relatively easy to achieve the required actions by stimulating the inputs of the controller, or in other words, we can trick the controller into thinking that one of the rider controls has been pushed.

The next step was to decide on how Kobus interfaced with the system - in the end we decided to do it like this,

Sequence	Action
Right indicator: single click	Right indicator
Right indicator: double click	Left indicator
Right indicator: push and hold	Horn (until released)
Indicator cancel: single click	Brights/dim toggle

In retrospect we made a mistake by not keeping the indicator cancel as its normal function and then using a double click for the brights/dim toggle. The indicator cancel has an auto cancellation, but it only occurs after a certain distance which can sometimes cause confusion when driving in urban areas. Other than that small oversight the controls turned out to work quite well with this method.

From there on it was all implementation, construction, and debugging.

I managed to find the wiring diagrams r1200gs.info. The switch configuration is relatively simple as each switch simply pulls one of the controller inputs down to ground to activate its function. The final solution was a simple microcontroller to time the inputs from the right hand controls and to switch the controller outputs based on the depression sequence of the controls. I had some trouble with the microcontroller acting a bit erratically when the motor bike was on, but that was solved by making the code more robust to erroneous inputs.

Kobus had this to say about the final system,

"Hi Duncan,

Just a word of thanks for the construction and programming of the control unit for my bike. It makes a world of difference being able to control my electrical systems by one hand. The upgrade made all the difference and the feel of the controls is excellent.

Again, thanks for some fantastic service.
- Kobus"

Kobus taking a ride

I hope that this brief description of a simple project will give you some more insight into what I do (and can do), and how I go about approaching it. I really want the things that I create to serve their user, not the other way around.

Creating simple interfaces and building a better life for my users is the most important aspect of my designs. I hope that I'll be able to do that for you some time soon.

---

Thanks to Kobus for the photos of his bike, H Marc Lewis for providing the great website r1200gs.info and Hex Microsystems (check out their GS-911 diagnostic tool for BMW motorcycles)

The advert ends with the line, "The walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds."

There are a couple of ways to interpret the catch line and it really depends on how you view art and engineering (surprise, surprise). I would say the way that the advertising company wants you to interpret that statement is that BMW have highly engineered cars with wonderful aesthetics. My interpretation? Well, maybe less obvious and possibly more true to the artist's feelings.

Let us start by looking at the word "art". Here are two definitions from Dictionary.com,



So we have two (of many) definitions, one focussing on aesthetics (the "typical" association with art) and another focussing on skill at doing something. I am going to diverge a little to tell you a story about my wife and the dentist - yes maybe you think that is strange, but bear with me for a bit...

My wife really dislikes the dentist (is that applause I hear in the back row?) - until she met a lady dentist in Pretoria. Now the first thing that my wife normally tells a dentist when she sits down in the chair is how much she does not like them and how she does not understand why anyone would like to become a dentist. Luckily this tends to break the ice and lead to a good relationship :). So when the topic of, "Why would anyone want to become a dentist?" came up with this particular dentist she responded by saying that for her it was a form of art. She really took pride in how she did her work so that it would be both aesthetically pleasing and functional. Obviously it requires a skillful dentist to do this well.

So who of you would have said that a dentist was an artist? (that is, other than a torture artist ;) )

Maybe the question that needs to be asked is how far apart art and engineering actually are. In general it seems that people put them at opposite sides of the spectrum with art being all about creativity and engineering all logical and scientific. I think that what Joe Average does not realise is the degree of creativity that engineering requires and that is most likely due to engineers lack of ability to explain what we do (see my previous post on this).

For me the art of engineering is so much more than just creativity - it is something that goes to the core of function, aesthetics, and problem solving. I believe that we as engineers need to create solutions that actually enhance people's lives. The point where all of this comes together is the point were we as engineers can start to be artists.

It is more than function and more than beauty - true engineering art should take your breath away and change the way you see the world. That is the kind of art that I want to create.

I've just realised that I can't think of something off the top of my head that embodies those principals. I'm going to have to go scratch around and find some examples of what I think encompasses the art of engineering (I see a "Top Ten" post coming on). Do you have anything that you think stands out as an amazingly engineered product? Let me know by posting a comment!

A final thought - take the time to be an artist at what you do. This will enhance the lives of the people around you, and most importantly your own life, and the ripple effect of that is huge.

PS. If you're looking for a great dentist in Pretoria (or Tshwane, or whatever you want to call it), try Dr. Cornel Cronje (drop me a line if you want her contact details).
__________________

PPS. I've added a "Current Reading" section to the links on the right so that you can check out what I'm (hopefully) enjoying at the moment. The link will take you through to the Exclusive Books website (I'm an affiliate) where you can buy books and have them delivered for free to your nearest Exclusive Books.

Would you take a job with these requirements?

"Up and coming seeks visionary leader to take team to new heights. Great pay and benefits, but you'll have to perform for our clients. Clients and upper management can be very demanding and you will be expected to perform under pressure. You'll be constantly evaluated on past, present and future performance (but mostly on present and future). You'll be expected to stand up to strong critics of the product and make sure that the team functions well at all times.

"Lasting changes will begin with you - starting immediately. If those changes and results are not immediately evident you'll have to answer to evaluation committees. You should be comfortable with your job being under constant threat. Client loss will be directly attributable to you."

You might see this job advertised in the following way,

"South African soccer team seeks new coach"

Soccer? Why am I talking about soccer in an engineering and business blog. Would you mind bearing with me while I look at some of the problems in our sports and the government before applying this to our businesses?

Let's start with sports - a firm favorite in South Africa. It seems like it takes only one loss (at any of our three major sports - soccer, rugby and cricket) and the first words out of everyone's mouths are, "The coach should be fired!" Let's look at this quickly.

Inevitably a new coach enters the system with their own vision of how players should be coached and how decisions should be made. They go about implementing there vision (or at least laying the foundation for it) and then slowly work towards that. First is the excitement of new prospects, then the hard work begins. For a while things start to get a bit messy as the new tactics and strategy are learnt and implemented. Hopefully after that messy time the effects of the work will start to show, all the elements of their strategy start to fit together - and then the team starts winning.

Where it all seems to go wrong is during that messy phase. Commentator, critics, fans and government all get in on the act of telling the coach to sort things out, or else (in the words of The Donald), "You're fired!" And invariably, before things get better, the coach is fired, a new one is hired and we're back at the beginning, but worse off.

Onto the government...

If a brick was laid every time I heard, "The committee for (prisons, health, police etc.) has come up with a plan to deal with the crisis of (escapees, HIV/AIDS, crime)," we would not have a housing crisis in South Africa. It seems like we're always coming up with plans to solve things, but the plan changes every week, and all the useful time is spent coming up with a new plan.

This messes everyone around.

So what is the problem? Could it possibly be that we in South Africa are chronically impatient? Why are we not willing to wait and allow change to take effect?

I would postulate that most people are risk and change averse, that is, they like stability. Each change, each new plan, creates instability, and this makes everyone unhappy. New training, and unhappy workers means lower productivity. Lower productivity equals fewer results, which again equals a committee to solve the crisis in (prisons, health, policing etc.).

This is what Jim Collins would call a Doom Loop - and that's bad (just in case the word Doom didn't give it away).

By now it should be clear how this could apply to your business. Are you chronically impatient when you try or implement something new? Do you expect to have results NOW?

I think there are three things that we need to be very careful about when trying new systems.

1. Are we able to measure the outcomes effectively?
2. Are we measuring the correct thing? (it might not be as obvious as it seems)
3. How long do we need to wait before we see real effects? (not just what we want to see)

This is all really about how we measure the effect of a system, and whether our measurements are reliable. So, I suppose the next question will be, "But how long is long enough?" Well, I don't know, and I'm not too sure that anyone will be able to tell you. Here are a couple of things to do to ease the waiting. (This list can also be applied to new products)

1. Watch it develop
   Try to allow the system to grow on its own and watch where and why this is happening - you'll learn a lot from the people who are using it. Try to release some control and you will probably get something better than you could have thought up on your own.
2. Get rid of inefficiencies
   Instead of reinventing the whole system to get rid of every inefficiency that you can imagine, just get rid of those that are easy to change. Again, watch the system - the people doing the work will quickly let you know what is wasting their time.
3. Create constant feedback
   Always listen to what people are saying - you'll learn more that way than watching your metrics.
4. Be flexible
   You (and I) are not infalable. Adapt and remember that it is outcomes that are important, not whether your ideas are being followed perfectly.