Online Technical Session (NSE Ikeja): Engineering, Manufacturing and Nigeria's future

It is no longer news that our country now battle to curtail spread of COVID-19 pandemic. The virus has impacted on various aspects of the economy negatively. As at the time of writing this, oil prices have recoded negative for the first time with its spiral effects on global economy. Most of Nigeria’s business concerns have also been negatively impacted.

At NSE Ikeja, we have also observed the negative impact on manufacturing and knowing the important of manufacturing sector to our profession and also the economy, we have concluded plan to take a look at this important sector, as we invited the Managing Director, Tranos to share with us the direction ahead as we look toward post COVID-19 era.

Brief about the Speaker

Jude Abalaka is the Managing Director of Tranos, Nigeria’s foremost industrial engineering and manufacturing Company that produces Cable Trays and Ladders, Emergency and Special Generators, Electrical Panels and Switchgears, Mechanical and Process Skids, E-Houses, Racks and Storage Systems as well as Sockets and Switches.

He studied Physics with Electronics at the Federal University of Technology Minna, graduating as the best student in his class. He is an alumnus of The Wharton School – University of Pennsylvania, The University of Cambridge Judge Business School, Lagos Business School - Pan African University and so on. He is also an associate member of the Nigerian Society of Engineers.

Jude has built Tranos into a trail-blazing company poised to take the lead in engineering and technology solutions.

Guest Intro

Engineering and manufacturing are synonymous with the development of nations. There is no country that I know of that has developed sustainably without developing its engineering and manufacturing sectors.

 Talk...

Good evening, my name is Jude Abalaka. I manage a Nigerian engineering and manufacturing company called TRANOS. At Tranos, we focus on creating and adding value for our customers by focusing on growing and applying knowledge and technology.

I'd like to thank the leadership of this platform for giving me the opportunity to share insights here. I sincerely hope that today's discourse will birth new ideas that will change the nation.

I don’t think there is a need to talk so much about how important engineering is. As a group of engineers, I believe that we all realise the importance of engineering to individuals, corporate organizations and countries. Whenever you see a device, a machine or a structure on TV, in a movie or while travelling abroad, always remember that it was designed by an engineer.

First, let me confess that I am one of those that are not happy with the current state of engineering in Nigeria. So, I will be speaking today from a position of pain and sadness of unrealised potential.

I have been fortunate to travel across many countries, and one thing that keeps shocking me is how very simple solutions have been implemented to solve problems using engineering and technology. And the phrase I keep repeating to myself is: “they don’t have two heads”.

But the question then is, since we realise the importance of engineering to manufacturing and development, why do we find ourselves in our current situation as a nation, where we have very little evidence of the impact that engineering can make to manufacturing and the general livelihood of citizens?

Whenever I am asked this question, the things that consistently pop up in my mind are KNOWLEDGE, and MINDSET.

After many years of working with and managing engineers, I have consistently noticed that a lot of young engineering graduates do not come out of our universities with the requisite knowledge needed to make their contributions in industry. Experience has also shown that in most cases, the issue is not the young engineers, but the education system in which they have been trained. So here we find our first and possibly the root problem – an education system that is not designed to meet our desired output.

The keyword in my last post is DESIGN. In engineering and technology, the design is the process used for achieving a desired end. For our engineering education system to produce the type of graduates that will move us forward, we must design an education system that will produce that expected output. I think the current output we get is what the system is designed to produce.

One clear evidence of how a lack of knowledge has deprived our engineers of the opportunity to break barriers is the emergence of several Nigerian software engineers and designers. My theory is that because of the ubiquitous nature of software knowledge and training, young engineers are able to train themselves using online resources and provide solutions comparable to the best around the world.

So why haven’t we been able to achieve the same in electrical, mechanical or other engineering disciplines?

One obvious reason is that setting up a learning environment for most engineering disciplines is expensive and cannot be readily achieved like in the case of software development. A lack of such modern learning environments in tertiary institutions leaves engineering graduates without the required knowledge.

We have seen engineering graduates who have acquired skills in the use of CAD software by watching YouTube videos and joining online communities, now imagine if those engineers had adequate opportunities to learn and be tutored by experienced instructors.

These concerns are concerns that we should all share because our abilities to grow as individuals, as companies and as a nation would always be tired to these issues

The question now remains, how do we bridge this gap? What can the industry and the NSE do to change or at least improve this?

I will share some ideas on how to begin to improve on this situation.

1.   We must take knowledge and its acquisition serious. As professionals we must begin to exalt meritocracy. In fact, we should overdo it. If we do not reward knowledge and excellence, people will not value the acquisition of knowledge. Knowledge and the ability to create value must supersede a certificate. Certificates are supposed to signify possession of knowledge, but now we acquire certificates without the knowledge.

2.   There is an urgent need for industry and academia to begin to collaborate. Academia ought to be the feeding industry with the most important resource of all: Knowledgeable personnel. But there is a huge disconnection. For example, the curricula used by universities should be developed based on the requirements of the industry. Because knowledge ought to be applied, and the people applying the knowledge must determine what the students are being taught, otherwise you come out of school with knowledge that is either obsolete or out of demand.

3.    We must understand that our competition is global. So, when we talk about engineering design, knowledge growth or value addition, we must think global. We must therefore approach development of products and solutions trying to be the best in the world.  Remember: they don't have two heads.

4.    Government’s attention needs to be drawn to the need to invest in human capital development. Apart from health, there is no other area that takes precedence. But as companies and individuals, we must commit ourselves to playing our part in growing knowledge and its application.

5.    As engineers, we must understand that learning never ends. We need to form the habit of continuous learning. Choose you field and set a goal to be the best in it. A personal commitment to continuous self-development will be a worthwhile investment. And this is something everyone can do; you cannot blame government or your company or the university for failing to develop yourself.

There are lots of other ideas that can move us forward, but these are foundational. We cannot build without getting these rights.

Jude Abalaka is the Managing Director of Tranos