The second of ICE's nine Attributes is “Technical and Practical Application of Engineering”, with its following subdivisions.
A) Identify, review and select techniques, procedures and methods to undertake technical/scientific tasks.
B) Contribute to the design and development of technical/scientific solutions.
C) Implement or construct design solutions and contribute to their evaluation.
D) Conduct appropriate research, relative to design or construction and appreciate its relevance within own area of responsibility.
E) Undertake the design and development of engineering solutions and evaluate their effectiveness.
F) Implement or construct design solutions and evaluate their effectiveness.
These should be seen as three pairs, which represent a typical engineering design cycle:
- A/D – Come up ideas on how to solve an engineering problem
- B/E – Do the maths, analysis and iterative designs behind your ideas
- C/F – Deliver your ideas and see whether it worked.
Unlike many types of engineering which may work on a smaller scale – e.g. product design, mechanical engineering, electronic engineering etc. – in civil engineering you are unlikely to be able to build a “2nd version” if the first one was not so good (unless you had designed it in a BIM model…). Even if you performed a “lessons learned” review afterwards, there may be a limited number of things you can carry forward to the next project.
Therefore this attribute will be probed very deeply in your Professional Review. It is very important to demonstrate the complex technical aspects of your projects in your Career Appraisal and throughout your Professional Review Report, especially if you are in working in a role where you do not frequently perform a lot of technical aspects of engineering behind projects. Ultimately you need to demonstrate to your reviewers that you can solve a complex civil engineering problem of your specialist field.
The Civil Engineering Exam recommends the following reading: (please disable ad-blockers for this site if you cannot see anything below)
Be sure to include many photos or drawings where it would be easier to interpret than writing lengthy text. A picture paints a thousand words. Unless you are inventing something totally radical, your designs are more likely to be an evolution of a standard design with the specific details governed by constraints in your project. If this is the case, making a side-by-side comparison to draw attention to assist your reviewers will make a good impression!
Back to Attribute 1 – Knowledge and Understanding of Engineering
Forward to Attribute 3 – Management and Leadership
