My colleague over at Control Magazine, Walt Boyes, has a couple of issues near and dear to his heart and one of them is the coming crisis when all the baby boomers retire and there is a significant knowledge gap. How, he often asks, are companies going to survive?
Well, I think companies are always looking at what will happen when people retire, so there really shouldn't be a discontinuous catastrophe. In fact, over the past 5 years or so, companies are already making provisions for the coming "knowledge shortage." In fact, they are expediting it--by laying off talented, experienced, and yes expensive, professionals and replacing them with recent college graduates.
Here is a note from a friend in the "real world." No names or companies to protect his identity. But the story is real and in his own words:
"In a fixed-cost reduction effort, I am being laid-off from my Control Systems Engineer job effective the end of this year. I guess once he has trained the youngsters, held their hands, and mentored them, the higher-paid, experienced guy is no longer needed. Surely someone needs someone like me with 22 years in the industry, working with DCS (Bailey Network/Infi 90 and Emerson DeltaV), PLCs (primarily Modicon), Foundation Fieldbus, AS-i, Modbus and Modbus Plus networks, LONworks, measurement instrumentation and final elements, automation project management, etc."
I'm not running a job placement service, but if you know someone hiring you can drop me a line. And yes, I know about Automation Techies.
This is a story line I've been pondering for a few years. I think (open for other hypotheses) that process control professionals have done their jobs--very well. Most things that can be automated have been. The tasks of upgrading the systems either have not been very well explained to management in order to receive funding or else they just don't require as many engineers as the original task of implementing control. Plus a lot of jobs have moved from the manufacturer to contractors as companies choose to reduce fixed overhead and just buy what they need.
And don't discount the "kids." After all, these older process engineers were young, curious, innovative and accomplished much. Who is to say that the new generation, with a different background and training, won't put their stamp on process control in time?
I think that this new generation raised on the great graphics of computer games and the information capabilities of computing will take things in a different and better direction. That's the way life has always been. On the other hand, there still must be a place for us old, experienced and knowledgable (and not yet ready to go to pasture) codgers.
11:20:03 AM 
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