engineering skills capacity in the road and rail industries consolidated... · engineering skills...

Engineering Skills Capacity in the

Road and Rail Industries

Prepared by: Workplace Research Centre, University of

Sydney, and National Institute of Labour Studies,

Flinders University

For: Australian National Engineering Taskforce (ANET)

6 April 2011

Authors:

Sarah Wise & Hanna Schutz (WRC) and Josh Healy & Darcy Fitzpatrick (NILS)

Contact:

Sarah Wise

P: +61 2 9351 5626

E: [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .................................................................................................................... I

1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 1

2 QUANTITATIVE MAPPING .................................................................................................... 3

2.1 Methodology....................................................................................................................................... 3

2.1.1 Research Aims ....................................................................................................................................... 3

2.1.2 Definitions ............................................................................................................................................. 3

2.1.3 Data Sources ......................................................................................................................................... 5

2.2 Results ................................................................................................................................................ 7

2.2.1 What does the road and rail engineering workforce look like? ............................................................ 7

2.2.2 How does the road and rail engineering workforce compare? .......................................................... 11

2.2.3 Updating the engineering workforce estimates ................................................................................. 21

2.2.4 Other labour supply considerations .................................................................................................... 26

3 THE ENGINEERING CAPACITY CRISIS IN RAIL: OVERVIEW ..................................... 30

3.1 The Rail Engineering Shortage ........................................................................................................... 30

3.1.1 Demand and supply mismatch ............................................................................................................ 30

3.1.2 Market Structure ................................................................................................................................. 31

3.1.3 The Nature of Rail Engineering ........................................................................................................... 32

3.2 The Case Studies ............................................................................................................................... 33

3.3 Interviewee Profile ............................................................................................................................ 34

3.4 Methodology, Analysis and Confidentiality ....................................................................................... 35

4 MAP OF RAIL ENGINEERING ROLES ................................................................................ 36

4.1 Common Job Roles ............................................................................................................................ 36

4.1.1 Technical Specialists ............................................................................................................................ 37

4.1.2 Design Manager .................................................................................................................................. 38

4.1.3 Project managers ................................................................................................................................ 38

4.1.4 Drafters ............................................................................................................................................... 39

4.2 Career Pathways ............................................................................................................................... 40

5 WORKING AS LEARNING ..................................................................................................... 42

5.1 Key Concepts ..................................................................................................................................... 42

5.2 Teamwork: Horizontal Learning ........................................................................................................ 44

5.2.1 Inter-disciplinary dimension................................................................................................................ 44

5.2.2 Inter-organisational dimension ........................................................................................................... 46

5.2.3 Maximising Horizontal Learning .......................................................................................................... 48

5.3 One-to-one knowledge transfer: Vertical Learning ............................................................................ 51

5.3.1 Early Career Engineers ........................................................................................................................ 51

5.3.2 Succession Planning ............................................................................................................................ 52

5.3.3 Maximising vertical knowledge transfer ............................................................................................. 53

5.4 Transition from Novice Engineer ....................................................................................................... 56

5.4.1 Transition from novice to productive engineer .................................................................................. 57

5.4.2 Exposure to different work experiences ............................................................................................. 59

5.5 Working as Learning: SUMMARY ....................................................................................................... 63

6 EDUCATION AND TRAINING .............................................................................................. 66

6.1 Approaches to off-the-job learning ................................................................................................... 66

6.2 Short courses .................................................................................................................................... 68

6.3 Initiatives in Rail Engineering Education ............................................................................................ 70

6.4 Education and Training: SUMMARY .................................................................................................. 72

7 CAPACITY ISSUES ................................................................................................................... 74

7.1 Workload: A Skills Shortage Vicious Cycle ......................................................................................... 75

7.1.1 Balancing multiple projects ................................................................................................................. 75

7.1.2 Consequences of over-commitment ................................................................................................... 77

7.1.3 Managing workload through managed demand................................................................................. 78

7.2 Project Scoping and Planning ............................................................................................................ 79

7.3 Engineering Authority and Standards ................................................................................................ 81

7.3.1 Engineering Authority ......................................................................................................................... 82

7.3.2 Engineering Standards ........................................................................................................................ 84

7.3.3 Long-term Structural Solutions ........................................................................................................... 87

7.4 Capacity Issues: SUMMARY ............................................................................................................... 88

8 KEY FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS .................................................................... 91

8.1 Road and Rail Engineering Workforce Profile .................................................................................... 91

8.2 Engineering Labour Supply ................................................................................................................ 92

8.3 Workplace Learning .......................................................................................................................... 93

8.4 Education and Training ...................................................................................................................... 95

8.5 Skill Utilisation .................................................................................................................................. 97

8.6 Relevance to the national engineering capacity crisis........................................................................ 99

REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................. 101

APPENDIX 1 DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF OCCUPATION CATEGORIES FROM THE

AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND STANDARD CLASSIFICATION OF OCCUPATIONS

(ANZSCO) 2006

APPENDIX 2 DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF INDUSTRY CATEGORIES FROM THE

AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND STANDARD INDUSTRY CLASSIFICATION

(ANZSIC) 2006

TABLES AND FIGURES

FIGURE 1 ENGINEERING PROFESSION SUB-POPULATION GROUPS.................................................................. 4

TABLE 1 OVERVIEW OF THE ROAD AND RAIL ENGINEERING WORKFORCE IN 2006 ........................................... 8

FIGURE 2 COMPOSITION OF THE ROAD AND RAIL ENGINEERING WORKFORCE, BY QUALIFICATION, IN 2006 .

.......................................................................................................................................................... 9

FIGURE 3 COMPOSITION OF THE ROAD AND RAIL ENGINEERING WORKFORCE, BY STATE/TERRITORY, IN

2006 ........................................................................................................................................................ 10

TABLE 2 MIGRATION PATTERNS OVER TIME (SINCE 2001) FOR THE ROAD AND RAIL ENGINEERING

WORKFORCE IN 2006 ................................................................................................................................... 11

TABLE 3 OVERVIEW OF COMPARISONS BETWEEN THE ROAD AND RAIL ENGINEERING WORKFORCE AND THE

WHOLE ENGINEERING WORKFORCE IN 2006 .............................................................................................. 12

FIGURE 4 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE ROAD AND RAIL ENGINEERING WORKFORCE AND THE WHOLE

ENGINEERING WORKFORCE, BY SEX AND AGE, IN 2006 .............................................................................. 14


ENGINEERING WORKFORCE, BY QUALIFICATION AND AGE, IN 2006 .......................................................... 15


ENGINEERING WORKFORCE, BY WEEKLY WORKING HOURS AND AGE, IN 2006 ......................................... 16


ENGINEERING WORKFORCE, BY WEEKLY WORKING HOURS AND QUALIFICATION, IN 2006 ...................... 17


ENGINEERING WORKFORCE (FULL-TIME WORKERS ONLY), BY WEEKLY INCOME AND SEX, IN 2006 ......... 18


ENGINEERING WORKFORCE (FULL-TIME WORKERS ONLY), BY WEEKLY INCOME AND QUALIFICATION, IN

2006 ........................................................................................................................................................ 20


ENGINEERING WORKFORCE, BY COUNTRY OF BIRTH AND QUALIFICATION, IN 2006 ................................. 21

TABLE 4 DISTRIBUTION OF USUAL WEEKLY EARNINGS WITHIN THE ENGINEERING WORKFORCE (FULL-TIME

WORKERS ONLY), BY QUALIFICATION, IN 2009 ........................................................................................... 22

TABLE 5 DISTRIBUTION OF CUMULATIVE DURATION OF EMPLOYMENT IN CURRENT OCCUPATION WITHIN

THE ENGINEERING WORKFORCE, BY QUALIFICATION, IN 2009 ................................................................... 23

TABLE 6 SELECTED COMPARISONS BETWEEN THE ENGINEERING WORKFORCE IN 2006 AND 2009 ............... 24

FIGURE 11 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE ENGINEERING WORKFORCE IN 2006 AND 2009, BY AGE AND

QUALIFICATION ............................................................................................................................................ 24

FIGURE 12 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE ENGINEERING WORKFORCE IN 2006 AND 2009, BY WEEKLY

WORKING HOURS AND QUALIFICATION ...................................................................................................... 25

TABLE 7 LABOUR FORCE PARTICIPATION RATES IN 2006, BY AGE AND QUALIFICATION TYPE, FOR PEOPLE

WHO HAVE OBTAINED AN ENGINEERING QUALIFICATION ......................................................................... 26

TABLE 8 UNEMPLOYMENT RATES IN 2006, BY AGE AND QUALIFICATION TYPE, FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE

OBTAINED AN ENGINEERING QUALIFICATION............................................................................................. 27

TABLE 9 OVERVIEW OF LABOUR FORCE STATUS IN 2006 FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE OBTAINED AN

ENGINEERING QUALIFICATION .................................................................................................................... 28

FIGURE 13 COMPARISON OF QUALIFICATION COMPOSITION IN 2006 FOR EMPLOYED PEOPLE WHO HAVE

OBTAINED AN ENGINEERING QUALIFICATION, WHO ARE AND ARE NOT EMPLOYED IN ENGINEERING JOBS

........................................................................................................................................................ 29

TABLE 10 CHARACTERISTICS OF ENGINEER INTERVIEWEES ........................................................................... 34

TABLE 11 EXPANSIVE RESTRICTIVE LEARNING FRAMEWORK ......................................................................... 57

i

Executive Summary

Introduction

In 2010, the Australian National Engineering Taskforce (ANET) commissioned this study of

engineering skills capacity in the road and rail industries. The research was undertaken in a

partnership between the Workplace Research Centre (WRC) at the University of Sydney and

the National Institute of Labour Studies (NILS) at Flinders University.

The aims of the research were to: (a) quantify the supply of engineers in the road and rail

industries, and (b) examine in detail engineering job roles and how these relate to each other

at the workplace.

The quantitative mapping of the road and rail engineering workforce was undertaken by

NILS. This part of the research involved analysing data collected by the Australian Bureau

of Statistics (ABS) to identify and describe the attributes of road and rail engineers, and to

compare them with the engineering workforce as a whole. The analysis focuses on employee

attributes that are closely connected to the acquisition and utilisation of engineering skills,

including educational attainment, employee age, working hours, wages and job tenure.

The examination of engineering job roles was undertaken by WRC. This part of the research

involved qualitative case studies at three sites chosen to represent the range of organisations

operating at various stages of the project life cycle within rail engineering. The three case

studies are a public sector asset-owner (‘Owner’), a consultant engineering firm (‘Consult’),

and a rail construction contractor (‘Contract’). In-depth interviews were undertaken with a

sample of 18 engineers from a range of rail engineering disciplines (signalling, electrical,

track design and civil) and a further 6 interviews with senior operations managers and those

responsible for workforce development in each organisation. Anonymous verbatim quotes

have been used to illustrate the experiences of these interviewees.

This report consolidates the results from the quantitative mapping of the road and rail

industries and the in-depth case studies on skill utilisation and acquisition in the rail

industry. Our key findings and recommendations are summarised below.

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1. Workforce profile

The road and rail engineering workforce represents a small proportion (about 4%) of the

engineering workforce in Australia. Except in the Rail Transport industry, it is concentrated

in private-sector workplaces. The road and rail engineering workforce mostly contains male,

full-time, highly-educated and well-paid workers. It is distributed roughly in proportion to

the population of the States and Territories, but with some evidence of over-representation

in Queensland and Western Australia. The workforce is mostly Australian-born, but people

from non-English speaking backgrounds represent a significant supply of the engineers with

postgraduate qualifications. About one-tenth of the workforce is made up of people who

moved to Australia from overseas in the five years to 2006. The road and rail engineering

workforce resembles the whole engineering workforce in many respects, suggesting that its

skill capacity problems may reflect broader structural and labour supply problems afflicting

the engineering profession as a whole.

2. Engineering labour supply

Labour force participation and employment rates are high among people with engineering

qualifications, implying that there is limited ‘spare capacity’ for engineering skills within the

current population. While many people with engineering qualifications are not employed in

engineering jobs, differences in their levels of education suggest that significant investment

in (re-) training would be needed to bring these people back into the engineering workforce.

About half of all engineers had been in their occupation for more than five years, and some

14 percent were new entrants with less than one year’s experience on the job. In the road and

rail sectors, only 6 percent of engineers are women and they are lower paid than their male

counterparts for reasons that are not related to differences in education levels.

Recommendations:

2A: Any increase to the numbers of engineering graduates must be complemented with strategies

to attract and retain them in engineering roles. There may be some scope for ‘return to

practice’ initiatives to re-skill people who are not currently utilising their engineering

qualifications.

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2B: The underrepresentation and poor retention of female engineers is a significant barrier to

labour supply. Initiatives to increase the number of women entering the profession need to be

complemented with workplace practices which retain women (and indeed men) through the

life course and address the gender pay gap. Rising working hours due to the skill shortage

present significant barriers to this process.

3. Workplace learning

The workplace is the main site of learning for engineers. Their learning occurs horizontally,

between peers through teamwork, and vertically, from experienced to more junior engineers

though supervision and delegation. Teamwork is central to this knowledge generation and

knowledge transfer process. It is through teamwork and human interaction that engineers

achieve their tasks. A major challenge in engineering work is harnessing the knowledge and

skills that are often distributed across the organisations responsible for different elements of

a project. Information technologies facilitate the flow of information, but face-to-face contact

is still seen by engineers as the most efficient mode of decision-making and problem-solving.

Vertical knowledge transfer between generations of engineers is fundamental to how novice

engineers become practitioners. Current processes, however, are ad hoc, dependent on older

engineers’ personalities, and impeded by heavy workloads. The imminent retirement of a

large cohort of older technical specialists has amplified the need for organisations to extract

and preserve the tacit knowledge that these specialists hold.

Structured graduate programs facilitate the progression of novice engineers into competent,

independent professionals. This is done mainly through on-the-job exposure to a variety of

projects, disciplines and roles, with the dual purpose of developing a broad knowledge base

while helping graduates to identify their strengths and preferences. Some of the graduates in

our study were underutilised, while others had been given too much responsibility for their

level of experience and skill.

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Recommendations:

3A: Organisations need to consider how to maximise knowledge transfer within teams, allowing

rail engineers themselves to develop their community of practice across disciplines and

organisations. The co-location of multi-organisation project teams and relationship

contracting arrangements appear to facilitate this process. Workloads need to be managed so

that essential meetings between engineers from different disciplines and organisations can

occur.

3B: A healthy workplace learning environment sees ‘knowledge sharing’ embedded into the job

design and workloads of engineers. If this is not done, the overburdening of senior engineers

continues and the development of engineers required to meet demand is impeded. Supervision

and mentoring should be incorporated into performance assessment reviews. Engineers

require feedback on how they can improve these skills so that development needs, including

off-the-job training, can be identified.

3C: To retain and develop the future rail engineering workforce, organisations need to closely

monitor the experience of their graduates, to ensure that their interest is maintained through

meaningful work without being burnt-out before their graduate program is complete.

4. Education and training

The composition of the engineering workforce is shifting towards higher education levels, as

a result of workforce ageing and the formalisation of engineering training in universities.

Younger and more highly-qualified engineers benefit from opportunities to reflect on and

develop their practice. While the workplace is the main site for this learning to take place,

off-the-job learning is also vital for engineers’ exposure to new ideas and technologies, and

the maintenance of a healthy skills base across the profession. Short technical courses, ‘soft

skills’ and project management, conferences and manufacturers’ presentations all contribute

to the professional development of engineers. Limiting access to these training opportunities

is a symptom of staff development being omitted from project costs and workloads. Yet the

v

business case for an appropriately targeted staff development strategy is clear in an industry

facing a chronic skills shortage.

Rail Innovation Australia (RIA) has developed an alternative model of rail engineering

education through two post-graduate/post-experience qualifications that are specific to rail

(signalling and track design). A key feature of both courses is that they are grounded in rail

engineering practice, with content developed by industry experts. This approach is ideal for

an industry needing to quickly increase the supply of specialist skills.

Recommendations:

4A: The capacity crisis in engineering cannot be resolved without investment in skill

development, including appropriately targeted off-the-job training and development.

Organisations (and the industry more broadly) need to consider how time for skills

development is incorporated into the workload and the cost structure of projects. To

incentivise skills investment, the contribution a firm makes to the skill base of the industry

should form part of decisions to award contracts. The role of ‘relationship contracting’ in the

development of industry skills should also be explored.

4B: Industry might consider whether other areas of specialist engineering (e.g. rail power supply)

would be suitable for the RIA model of post-graduate/post-experience qualification.

5. Skill utilisation

The vast majority of interviewees felt that their skills were being well-utilised, and we found

little evidence of need for significant role redesign to improve skill utilisation. However,

engineers at both the reviewing and design management ends felt that they were spending

too much time drafting and/or making drafting amendments to drawings, suggesting that

there is a shortage of drafters.

Large demand fluctuations over the past 30 years (i.e. government investment in rail) have

produced and perpetuated the current skills shortage. Many rail engineers in our case study

organisations have high workloads and are working on too many projects, increasing the

vi

likelihood of delays, errors and reworking. Our statistical evidence indicates that road and

rail engineers work longer hours than the typical engineer, particularly in the younger age

cohort. The evidence we have of recent changes in engineering employment suggest that the

demand pressures that have contributed to long working hours are still in force and may be

intensifying.

There are clear benefits to be gained from involving engineers earlier in project scoping and

planning. More accurate scoping from a technical perspective will improve engineering skill

utilisation and overall project performance. The timeliness of project completion would also

be improved by taking proper account of the actual requirements for – and availability of –

engineering labour, as well as by efforts to integrate finer, technical details, such as how the

various engineering disciplines will interact over the project life cycle.

Labour utilisation and flexibility is greatly restricted by the project-by-project, jurisdiction-

specific regime of engineering authority. As long as risk rests with asset-owners, then the

inefficiencies of the private sector emulating public sector practice will continue. Placing risk

where it belongs – with those responsible for the work – has the potential to allow for less

prescriptive engineering standards and more cost-effective engineering solutions, provided

that any deregulation is balanced against system-wide management and safety imperatives.

Recommendations:

5A: Increasing the supply of drafters could free up engineering capacity in the rail industry.

5B: At the workplace level, managers need to avoid engineers being in ‚fire-fighting‛ mode. By

blocking out time for specific projects, engineers can exercise control over workflow, allowing

them to focus their attention, and thus improve the quality and timeliness of their work.

5C: At the government level, the demand for rail infrastructure needs to be paced in a way that is

predictable and sustainable, allowing asset-owners and industry to build quality

infrastructure on time and on-budget and grow a solid skill base for the future. The current

situation is evidence that simply expecting industry supply of labour to catch up does not

reflect the reality of the time it takes to develop key skills.

vii

5D: Specialist, technical engineering input needs to routinely occur at the scoping stages (i.e.

before they are contracted out) and at the more detailed planning phase (i.e. when work plans

are being set) to avoid inappropriate, avoidable decisions being made which are expensive to

rectify when the project has commenced.

5E: In the long term, establishing common rail engineering standards and a competency

framework to allow a national licensing system for rail engineers would provide an important

sense of professional identity and a career pathway within rail engineering which is not

reliant on project-by-project or employer-determined approval to perform certain work.

5F: In the short to medium term, improvements to approval processes and a more transparent

system of competencies are being developed. These initiatives might be complemented by a

review of how standards are being applied.

6. Relevance to the national engineering capacity crisis

Resolving the capacity crisis in rail engineering is a particularly challenging task because rail

comprises a number of disciplines that are highly specialised and largely unique to it. The

pace of knowledge development for rail engineering is therefore slow and the transferability

of skills from other areas of engineering, and even within rail, is limited. The causes of the

skills shortage and the impediments to resolving the capacity crisis are largely structural,

beyond the control of individual organisations. They are rooted in the nature and patterns of

demand set by governments, the complex market structure, and rail safety legislation which

apportions risk.

Despite these specific challenges, most of the recommendations arising from our case studies

in the rail sector are applicable across engineering sectors, and especially civil infrastructure.

The model of work organisation based on multi-disciplinary, multi-organisational teams is

common to many fields of engineering. The limited research on engineering practice shows

that the challenges of workplace learning and knowledge transfer are widespread. The effect

of high workloads on skill utilisation and output quality is a problem across the economy.

viii

Increasing the supply of engineers, workplace initiatives to improve skill utilisation, and

knowledge transfer and enhanced professional development opportunities will go some

way to easing the engineering capacity crisis. However, to escape the vicious cycle of skill

shortages contributing to errors and project overruns, industry and governments need to

look more seriously at the role of demand in perpetuating the capacity crisis. This research

suggests that involving engineers earlier in the project lifecycle and integrating the actual

supply of engineering skills into investment and contracting decisions would result in more

infrastructure projects being delivered on time, on budget and to a higher quality.

1

1 Introduction

In 2010, the Australian National Engineering Taskforce (ANET) commissioned the

Workplace Research Centre (WRC), University of Sydney, in partnership with the National

Institute of Labour Studies (NILS), Flinders University, to undertake research mapping the

current and future engineering profession in the road and rail industries. This research is

part of ANET’s foundation project and aims to assist the Taskforce in formulating its policy

approach and strategy to promote workforce development solutions to the engineering

capacity crisis.

The aims of the projects were to examine engineering job roles and how these interrelate at

the workplace and to quantify the supply of engineers in road and rail industries. The key

research questions guiding the research were:

What does the professional engineering workforce look like today and how has

this profile been changing?

How are engineering skills defined and utilised at the workplace?

How are engineering skills acquired?

In order to answer the key research questions, the project was divided on methodological

lines into two parts, which are outlined below.

Quantitative Mapping: Profiling the Road and Rail Engineering Workforce

The quantitative mapping aimed to explore what the road and rail engineering workforce

looks like today and how has this profile been changing. This was conducted by NILS and

adopted a quantitative approach which involved a numerical ‘mapping’ of the supply of

engineering labour using Census Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). The

core workforce attributes that were examined include: age/gender demographics; and

employment arrangements including categories of employment, hours, formal qualifications

and weekly earnings.

2

Qualitative Mapping: The Engineering Capacity Crisis in Rail

The qualitative study was undertaken by WRC and explored the nature of rail engineering

job roles, how engineering skills are defined and utilised and how they are acquired. The

research comprised of interviews with engineers, management and workforce development

representatives at three engineering firms including an asset-owner, a construction firm and

a design firm. Budget constraints meant this study was confined to the rail industry.

Report Structure

Chapter 2 presents the methodology and findings of the quantitative study.

The remainder of the report presents the analysis of the qualitative study analysing in-depth

the nature of the capacity crisis in the rail industry.

Chapter 3 provides an overview of the key aspects of the skill shortage in rail engineering as

well as the methodology employed.

Chapter 4 provides a map of common engineering job roles in rail engineering and their

associated career pathways.

Chapter 5 looks at the key aspects of workplace learning including: how engineering skills

are utilised and knowledge generated through the process of team work; the role of

supervision and mentoring; and the experience of graduate engineers.

Chapter 6 examines organisational approaches to off-the-job training and some initiatives in

rail engineering education.

Chapter 7 looks at critical skill utilisation and capacity issues in the rail industry including:

high workloads; problems with demand; the process of project scoping and planning; and

the role of rail regulations.

The report concludes with key findings from both studies and recommendations for the rail

industry.

3

2 Quantitative Mapping

2.1 Methodology

2.1.1 Research Aims

The purpose of the quantitative research component was to identify and analyse appropriate

secondary data to answer the following question for Australia and, as far as possible, for the

road and rail industries specifically:

What does the professional engineering workforce look like today and

has this profile been changing?

This analysis evaluates the attributes of the Australian engineering profession with

particular emphasis on the engineering workforce engaged in the road and rail industries, as

well as the broader engineering workforce. Using information from the Australian Bureau of

Statistics (ABS) data sources, we examine the demographic, geographic, labour force and

skills characteristics of the engineering profession. Where possible, the information obtained

from the workforce characteristics profile is used to examine how these might influence the

labour supply.

2.1.2 Definitions

Key to this research is the ability to appropriately identify the target sub-population with a

high degree of accuracy. In the first instance, instead of creating our own criteria for defining

a ‘professional engineer’, we adopted the methodology used by the peak engineering

organisation in Australia, Engineers Australia, in its publication, The Engineering Profession in

Australia (Kaspura, 2010), to establish the ‘engineering labour force’ and the ‘engineering

workforce’. The methodology developed by Engineers Australia draws on their intimate

knowledge of the engineering profession in Australia. We then build on this procedure to

further identify the engineering workforce in the road and rail industries.

The methodology developed by Engineers Australia defines various engineering sub-

populations in a multi-layered fashion, where each sub-population is a subset of the

4

previous one, as illustrated in Figure 1. The first group, the ‘engineering population’, is

restricted to individuals whose highest level of education attainment is at least at the level of

a Diploma or Advanced Diploma qualification, and is in the field of Engineering and

Related Technologies (03) (but excluding Geomatic Engineering (0311)) as defined by the

Australian Standard Classification of Education (ASCED) (ABS, 2001). The second group,

the ‘engineering labour force’, further restricts those in the engineering population to the

employed and unemployed.1 The third group, the ‘engineering workforce’, is then restricted

to those employed in any of the 51 occupations determined by Engineers Australia as being

an engineering occupation, as defined by the ABS Australian and New Zealand Standard

Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO) (ABS, 2006a). A complete list of the relevant

engineering occupations (ANZSCO 4-digit levels) is provided in Appendix 1. Finally, we

define the ‘road and rail engineering workforce’ as those engaged in the engineering

workforce and employed in either the Heavy Civil Engineering Construction (31), Road

Transport (46), or Rail Transport (47) industries, as defined by the ABS Australian and New

Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC) (ABS, 2006b).

Figure 1 Engineering profession sub-population groups

1 ‘Unemployed persons are defined as all persons 15 years of age and over who were not

employed during the reference week, and had actively looked for full-time or part-time

work at any time in the four weeks up to the end of the reference week and were available

for work in the reference week; or were waiting to start a new job within four weeks from

the end of the reference week and could have started in the reference week if the job had

been available then’ (ABS, 2007, chapter 6, paragraph 13).

Engineering population:

Highest level of education is a Diploma/Advanced Diploma qualification and above; and

the qualification is in the field of engineering.

Engineering labour force:

Employed or unemployed.

Engineering workforce:

Employed in an engineering occupation.

Road & rail engineering workforce:

Employed in a road and/or rail industry.

5

As the ANZSIC does not explicitly define a road and rail industrial classification, we

selected Heavy Civil Engineering Construction (31), Road Transport (46), and Rail Transport

(47) as representative of the road and rail sector. This process was determined mainly by the

description of the ‘primary activities’ undertaken (or excluded) within these three industries.

A detailed description of the relevant industry classifications is provided in Appendix 2.

Essentially, the three selected industry classifications were those most closely aligned with

the construction of road and rail infrastructure (excluding the manufacture of input

materials) and the operation of road and rail assets. The benefit of this approach it that it

provides more accurate characteristic information, such as hours and earnings distributions,

on engineers whose work is strongly associated with road and rail. The chief limitation of

this approach is that it excludes road or rail engineers employed in industries where road or

rail activities are not identified as a primary concern, and, thus, may under-enumerate the

true number of engineers working in the road and rail sector – as noted in the BIS Shrapnel

report, Australia & New Zealand Roads Capability Analysis 2009-2019 (Hart, 2010, p.10).

2.1.3 Data Sources

Our analysis brings together information collected from the Australian Bureau of Statistics’

2006 Census of Population and Housing and the 2009 Survey of Education and Training

(SET).

2006 Census of Population and Housing

As a full enumeration of the Australian population, the Census provides the unique ability

to identify small population groups that cannot be reliably identified from sample surveys

(such as the Labour Force Survey). It enables the identification of all four population groups

noted earlier, including the road and rail engineering workforce, which is the focus of our

analysis. Drawbacks of the Census include its age (conducted in 2006), the limited range of

variables available from it, limited flexibility in terms of how variables are categorised (e.g.

age and income ranges), and the fact that the data are self-reported and thus subject to some

reporting errors that are not present in data collected in structured interviews.

The ABS has policies to reduce collection and processing errors occurring in the Census. In

2006, the ABS Census Post-enumeration Survey (PES) indicated that there was a net

6

undercount of 549,486 Australians (approx. 2.7% of the estimated population). While this

may slightly under-estimate the numbers for each occupational category, the size of the ABS

Census and the sampling technique used ensures that the underlying characteristic

distributions are a true reflection of the population. With a 97.3% response rate, the Census

was considered to be the most accurate and comprehensive data source for describing the

characteristics of the road and rail engineering workforce.

2009 Survey of Education and Training (SET)

The 2009 SET is used to overcome some shortcomings of the 2006 Census and extend the

quantitative analysis. Unlike the 2006 Census, the data from the 2009 SET was collected by

personal interview, lowering the incidence of misreported information and improving the

detail of information available. Furthermore, the 2009 SET is more recent than the 2006

Census, providing more up-to-date information and allowing (to an extent) the examination

of changing employment patterns. The SET has all the information on qualifications and

occupations needed to match Engineers Australia’s definitions of the engineering workforce.

The chief limitation of the 2009 SET is that it is a small, but representative, sample survey of

the Australian population (approximately 24,000 respondents).2 The estimates cannot be

used to identify small population groups without compromising the statistical accuracy and

quality of the estimates. Consequently, it is not feasible to produce estimates specifically for

the road and rail industries using the 2009 SET. Instead, we only use the 2009 SET to analyse

the broader engineering workforce. However, if the analysis if the 2006 Census information

establishes a degree of similarity between characteristics of the engineers employed in the

road and rail industries with those employed in the broader engineering workforce, then the

inability to generate estimates specifically for the road and rail industry sectors using the

SET is of less importance.

Compatibility between the 2006 Census and the 2009 Survey of Education and Training

Given that the ABS administers both the 2006 Census and the 2009 SET, the estimates from

both are readily comparable with few caveats. Both sources of data are subject to the same

rigorous collection procedures and classification standards (e.g. ANZSCO, ANZSIC and

2 See ABS (2009, p.51).

7

ASCED) used by the ABS. For the purposes of our analysis, it means that the criteria for

identifying and isolating the same target population (i.e. the engineering workforce) across

both data sources match almost perfectly. In most instances, this also allows for the

distributions of particular characteristics, such as education attainment, hours worked and

age to be aligned. However, due to the differences in the degree of detail in the questions

asked between the 2006 Census and the 2009 SET, some of the comparisons are not strictly

comparable. For example, in our analysis the distribution of weekly income is used as a

measurement instrument, yet the treatment of income varies between the 2006 Census and

the 2009 SET. Where this occurs in our analysis, the results from both data sources are stated

separately and further explanation defining the instrument variable is provided.

2.2 Results

2.2.1 What does the road and rail engineering workforce look like?

We begin with an overview of the road and rail engineering workforce based on data from

the 2006 Census of Population and Housing. Table 1 shows a range of characteristics about

this workforce, both in total, and separately for the three industry sectors that constitute it.

The road and rail engineering workforce contained approximately 5,400 people in 2006.

Most of these – approximately 3,600 (68%) – were employed in Heavy and Civil Engineering

Construction. Another approximately 1,300 (25%) were employed in Rail Transport, and the

remaining approximately 400 (8%) were employed in Road Transport. In combination, the

road and rail engineering workforce represented only a small proportion (4%) of the whole

engineering workforce in 2006 (see below at Table 3).

The estimates in Table 1 show that the road and rail engineering workforce in Australia is

predominantly male (94%), employed full-time (92%), and employed in the private sector

(81%). The workforce is typically highly educated (77% having attained at least a Bachelor’s

Degree), Australian-born (61%) and living in major cities (86%). Road and rail engineers are

mainly of prime age (defined as 30-54 years old), with 20 percent aged less than 30 years and

15 percent aged 55 years or older. Consistent with its high average level of education, this is

8

also a well-paid workforce, with approximately one-third (35%) of road and rail engineers

reporting (gross) income in excess of $2000 per week (in 2006 dollars).

As well as differences in the numbers of workers found in each of the three industries that

comprise the road and rail engineering workforce, there are other important differences in

their characteristics. Engineers in the Road Transport industry are, on average, older, less

educated and lower paid than engineers in the other two industries in Table 1. Public sector

employment is commonplace for engineers in the Rail Transport industry (67%) but nearly

absent in the other two relevant industries (3-5%). Income is highest in the Heavy and Civil

Engineering workforce (with 39% of these engineers reporting income above $2000 per week

in 2006), a likely consequence of their high education levels and overwhelming tendency to

work full-time (93%). There is no evident difference across the three constituent industries in

the proportion of the workforce born outside Australia (38-39%).

Table 1 Overview of the road and rail engineering workforce in 2006

Road and

Rail

Engineering

Workforce

Road

Transport

Engineering

Workforce

Rail

Transport

Engineering

Workforce

Heavy and

Civil

Engineering

Construction

Workforce

Number 5,381 412 1,327 3,644

% Male 94 96 93 94

% Aged less than 30 years 20 14 16 22

% Aged 55 years or older 15 21 16 15

% Bachelor degree or higher 77 57 80 79

% living in Major cities 86 79 91 84

% Born in Australia 61 61 62 61

% Working Full-time 92 82 91 93

% Working in Public sector 19 5 67 3

% Income above $2000 per week 35 21 30 39

Source: ABS Census of Population and Housing 2006.

Figures 2 and 3 provide further information about the composition of the road and rail

engineering workforce by qualification and State/Territory. Bachelor’s Degrees were by far

the most commonly held qualification in this workforce (66%), followed by Diplomas and

Advanced Diplomas (23%) and Postgraduate Degrees, Diplomas and Certificates (11%). It is

important to recognise that these estimates are likely to understate both the absolute number

9

and qualifications profile of road and rail engineers, because the measure of education in the

Census refers only to the level and field of the highest qualification. Individuals who have

completed engineering qualifications at the Diploma or Degree level, but who then complete

studies at a higher level in a non-engineering field, are excluded from the present estimates

and from prior estimates of the engineering workforce that rely on Census information. The

major group excluded by this data feature is likely to be otherwise qualified engineers who

have attained postgraduate qualifications in the business field, such as a Masters of Business

Administration (MBA). This important limitation of the Census data has been recognised for

some time in Engineers Australia’s regular reports on the engineering profession, but there

are at present no estimates of the size of the affected group or accepted adjustments for it.

Figure 2 Composition of the road and rail engineering workforce, by qualification,

in 2006


Figure 3 shows the distribution of the road and rail engineering workforce by State/Territory

in 2006. The distribution is roughly proportional to the whole Australian population, with

the highest numbers in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. However, Victoria and

South Australia appear to be slightly under-represented relative to their populations, while

Postgraduate, 618, 11%

Bachelor, 3530, 66%

Adv. Dip. / Dip., 1233, 23%

Road and Rail Engineering Workforce

10

Queensland and Western Australia are over-represented. This is consistent with the supply

of road and rail engineers gravitating towards the high-growth State economies where there

is significant ongoing road and rail infrastructure investment and construction activity.

Figure 3 Composition of the road and rail engineering workforce, by State/Territory,

in 2006


The static evidence in Figure 3 is complemented by a more dynamic picture of engineering

migration patterns over time, in Table 2. The 2006 Census collected information about place

of residence five years prior, in 2001. We are thus able to trace the movements of road and

rail engineers between States/Territories, and the numbers migrating to Australia from other

countries, between these two points in time. Most road and rail engineers (82%) remained in

the same State/Territory between 2001 and 2006. Approximately 6 percent of them changed

location within Australia, and the remaining 12 percent migrated to Australia from another

country. Looking at the estimates for the separate jurisdictions, there is confirmation of the

pattern hinted at in Figure 3, with the higher-growth economies in Queensland and Western

Australia being more likely to attract road and rail engineers from other locations, typically

from within Australia in the case of Queensland and from outside Australia in the case of

NSW, 1846, 34.3%

VIC, 1125, 20.9%

QLD, 1317, 24.5%

SA, 210, 3.9%

WA, 765, 14.2%

TAS, 65, 1.2% NT, 16, 0.3%

ACT, 36, 0.7%

Road and Rail Engineering Workforce

11

Western Australia. These migration patterns suggest shortages of road and rail engineering

capacity particularly for these two States in 2006.

Table 2 Migration patterns over time (since 2001) for the road and rail engineering

workforce in 2006

Usual Place of Residence

in 2006

Usual Place of Residence in 2001

State/Territory Same as in 2006 Migrated

(% of each row) From

Interstate

From

Overseas

Total

NSW 85 4 10 15

VIC 83 5 12 17

QLD 80 9 11 20

SA 88 6 6 12

WA 74 5 21 26

TAS 84 16 0 16

Australia 82 6 12 18


Note: Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory not shown separately, due to small numbers. Values

for these jurisdictions are included in the totals.

2.2.2 How does the road and rail engineering workforce compare?

Although the road and rail engineering workforce can be examined in isolation, as above, it

is instructive for the purpose of understanding skills capacity issues to make comparisons.

This approach is dependent, however, on finding an appropriate comparator. The whole

Australian workforce is not very suitable as a comparison for the road and rail engineering

workforce, because there are many notable differences. Among other things, the Australian

workforce has a very different appearance from the road and rail engineering workforce

with respect to its gender composition, age distribution and full-time/part-time composition.

A more suitable comparator, and the one used throughout this section of the findings, is the

whole engineering workforce (as defined in Section 2.1.2). Our aim is to determine whether

there are particular characteristics of the road and rail sectors that appear to expose them to

different, or more severe, types of skills capacity problems than those being faced by the

engineering profession as a whole.

Table 3 summarises the main findings from this comparative analysis. The picture is one of

generally close similarity between the road and rail engineering workforce and the broader

12

engineering workforce. The two workforces are largely indistinguishable in terms of the key

demographic indicators – gender, age, country of birth and area of residence. When looking

at the work-related indicators, some differences are apparent, but their magnitude is mostly

small. Compared with the total engineering workforce in 2006, road and rail engineers were

slightly more likely to be university-educated and working full-time, and as a consequence

they also had a somewhat higher proportion receiving incomes in excess of $2000 per week.

The finding that the road and rail engineering workforce resembles the whole engineering

workforce in many major respects is important for at least one practical reason. It is that

skills capacity problems which confront the road and rail sectors are likely to derive, in part,

from broader labour supply problems that afflict the whole engineering profession. The road

and rail sectors will therefore benefit, in turn, from initiatives that remedy skill inadequacies

for the engineering profession generally.

Table 3 Overview of comparisons between the road and rail engineering workforce

and the whole engineering workforce in 2006

Road and Rail Engineering

Workforce

Whole Engineering

Workforce

Number 5,381 142,822

% Male 94 93

% Aged less than 30 years 20 18

% Aged 55 years or older 15 15

% Bachelor degree or higher 77 72

% living in Major cities 86 83

% Born in Australia 61 58

% Working Full-time 92 89

% Working in Public sector 19 20

% Income above $2000 per week 35 29


The remainder of this section examines more closely the nature of similarity and difference

between the road and rail engineering, and broader engineering, workforces. We present a

selection of stacked-bar graphs that check for potential differences in the composition of the

two groups. The characteristics we focus on represent a selection of the many comparisons

that could be made using the 2006 Census data. We present results only for those variables

(and combinations of variables) that we consider most useful and instructive for the purpose

of understanding current and potentially emerging skills capacity and utilisation problems.

13

These include comparisons by: age, sex, qualifications, working hours, income and country

of birth.

Figure 4 serves as an illustration of our approach. It compares the male/female composition

of the road and rail engineering workforce and the whole engineering workforce, and shows

separate results for the three main age categories within both workforces. The inclusion of

age in this way allows the male/female composition to be compared for groups of workers

who are in the same broad part of the life-course (i.e. ‘controlling for’ differences in age). The

bars in Figure 4 show the proportional split between men and women employed in each

group (with the male proportion being the more darkly shaded). The left-hand side axis

displays these proportions from 75 to 100 percent (75 is the minimum as all of the groups are

at least 75% male). The numbers displayed on the bars are the Census estimates of the

numbers of men and women in each workforce in 2006. For instance, among road and rail

engineers aged less than 30 years in 2006 (the first bar in Figure 4), there were 944 men and

133 women. The gender composition of this group was thus approximately 88 percent male.

The main pattern apparent in Figure 4 is that the female share of employment in engineering

declines as age rises. Women represent at least 10 percent of those employed in the younger

age group (under 30 years), whereas the older age group (55 years and over) is almost

exclusively male. While the female share of employment is low for all groups compared in

Figure 4, there is evidence that younger cohorts of women are employed in engineering at a

rate that exceeds that of the older female cohorts. This gender ‘rebalancing’ will be of major

importance to the future of engineering, since women still represent an underutilised supply

of potential engineers. What we cannot know from the snapshot in Figure 4 is whether those

younger women who were in engineering in 2006 will remain in the profession throughout

their careers. The decline in the female share of employment after the age of 30 suggests that

many women who leave the engineering workforce to raise children do not return. There

may be grounds here for engineering firms to develop or reassess their policies for retaining

these mid-career women, including the availability of part-time employment while children

are of pre-school age.

14

Figure 4 Comparison between the road and rail engineering workforce and the

whole engineering workforce, by sex and age, in 2006


Figure 5 shows a similar data arrangement to Figure 4, but with qualification replacing the

gender variable. It allows us to compare the education composition of the road and rail and

whole engineering workforces, again within each of three age categories. The main finding,

for both groups of engineers, is that the younger cohorts of workers tend to be more highly

educated than the older cohorts. In the road and rail engineering workforce, the proportion

of workers with at least a Bachelor’s Degree falls from 89 percent in the group aged less than

30 years to 65 percent in the group aged 55 years and over. Older engineers are significantly

more likely to have a Diploma or Advanced Diploma as their highest qualification, and this

is equally true in the both the road and rail and broader engineering workforces.

These results are open to several different interpretations. The most obvious is that over time

engineering skill requirements have been codified and formalised in university degrees that

now represent the main route to employment in the engineering profession. Such a change

in the modes of delivering and acquiring engineering skills, from an old ‘master-apprentice’

model to the university environment, would explain some of the differences in qualifications

944

3312

815

5071

21295

89470

21372

132137

133

173

4

310

3930

6499

256

10685

75%

80%

85%

90%

95%

100%

Young (15-29 years) Prime (30-54 years) Older (55+ years) Total Young (15-29 years) Prime (30-54 years) Older (55+ years) Total

Road and Rail Engineering Workforce Whole Engineering Workforce

Male Female

15

between the age cohorts in Figure 5. Another possibility is that some of the degree-qualified

workers are leaving the engineering profession in middle age to pursue other career options.

Much like the earlier issue of women’s engagement with the engineering profession during

their child-bearing years, this possibility cannot be tested with the Census data (or any other

Australian data) because these do not follow engineers (as defined here) over time.


whole engineering workforce, by qualification and age, in 2006


Figures 6 and 7 provide evidence about working hours. Because such a high proportion of

engineers work on a full-time basis (for at least 35 hours per week) it is useful to divide the

broad full-time category into more finely detailed working time arrangements. Figures 6 and

7 show four weekly hours categories: part-time (1-34 hours), standard full-time (35-40 hours)

longer full-time (41-48 hours) and very long full-time (49 hours or more). Results are shown

separately for the three main age groups within the road and rail and broader engineering

workforces.

58

435125

6182009

15876 402421909

8992228

403

353019655

52584

9081

81320

120

822

291

1233

3561

27509

8523

39593

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%



Postgraduate Bachelor Adv. Dip. / Dip.

16

Figure 6 demonstrates that most road and rail engineers were working longer or very long

full-time hours in 2006. Approximately 40 percent of these engineers were working in excess

of 48 hours per week, and another approximately 20 percent were working between 41 and

48 hours per week. Road and rail engineers appear more likely than engineering workers

generally to have longer or very long working weeks (60% versus 51%). It can be inferred

that road and rail engineers were in especially high demand at the time of the 2006 Census.

The aggregate differences in working time patterns between the road and rail engineering

and broader engineering workforces are generally maintained across the three age groups

shown in Figure 6. In all three age groups, road and rail engineers are more likely than other

engineers to have long or very long working weeks. The difference is especially apparent for

younger engineers. In the road and rail sectors, 59 percent of engineers aged less than 30

years worked for more than 40 hours per week in 2006. For engineers in the same age group

generally, the proportion was just 44 per cent. The implication is that younger engineers are

working especially long hours to overcome skills shortfalls in the road and rail industries.


whole engineering workforce, by weekly working hours and age, in 2006


36 125

104

265 1625 5486

3803

10914

3861128

268

1782

11883

37338

7137

56358

213

628

128

969

5203

18951

338327537

3921484

2742150

5597

301086179 41884

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%



Part-time (1-34 hours) Standard Full-time (35-40 hours) Longer Full-time (41-48 hours) Very long Full-time (49+ hours)

17

Figure 7 shifts the working time comparisons to qualification types, rather than age groups.

Its main finding is that road and rail engineers with Postgraduate qualifications are the least

likely to have long working weeks, although still more than half of them exceeded a 40-hour

working week in 2006. Engineers with Bachelor’s Degrees are the most likely to be working

long or very long hours, and again this result is more strongly evident among road and rail

engineering workers than is the case for the engineering profession as a whole.


whole engineering workforce, by weekly working hours and qualification,

in 2006


The next step in the analysis is to compare the weekly income distributions for road and rail

engineering and engineering as a whole. We do this first with the data disaggregated by sex

(Figure 8) and then disaggregated by qualification type (Figure 9). Because weekly income is

lower for part-time workers (by virtue of their shorter hours) we exclude them from Figures

8 and 9 and focus on the incomes of full-time workers. Our measure of income here is gross

usual weekly income from all sources in 2006. An important caveat to the results is that the

Census does not contain a pure measure of weekly earnings, but rather an income measure

36 14277 255

1814 54443586 10844

262

1111

4011774

9298

3195214722 55972

107

632

229968

3938

16042 7399 27379

200

1496441

2137

599724273 11280 41550

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Postgraduate Bachelor Adv. Dip. / Dip. Total Postgraduate Bachelor Adv. Dip. / Dip. Total


Part-time (1-34 hours) Standard Full-time (35-40 hours) Longer Full-time (41-48 hours) Very long Full-time (49+ hours)

18

that includes both the irregular components of labour market remuneration (e.g. bonuses)

and other non-wage incomes (e.g. social welfare payments, family tax benefits and interest).

For many full-time workers, wages and salaries will represent by far the largest component

of their personal income, but it should be noted that earnings are not measured separately.

Figure 8 highlights sharp differences in the average incomes of male and female engineers,

even when the estimates are restricted to full-time workers. Focusing on the highest income

band (above $2000 per week in 2006), we see that 37 percent of male, but only 13 percent of

female, road and rail engineers had incomes in this range. This gender difference in income

in the road and rail sector is somewhat more pronounced than in the engineering profession

as a whole, where the comparable figures are 31 percent for men and 14 percent for women.


whole engineering workforce (full-time workers only), by weekly income

and sex, in 2006


Note: Income estimates have not been adjusted for inflation since August 2006.

501

66

567 16352

2122

18474

2393

160

2553

64058

5118

69176

1722

34

175635692

1205

36897

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Males Females Persons Males Females Persons


$1-$999 $1000-$1999 $2000+

19

One possible interpretation of these differences is that women are much less successful than

men in obtaining more senior and highly-paid engineering jobs. This disparity in men’s and

women’s outcomes does not appear to be caused by sex differences in education attainment,

because female engineers are on average more highly qualified than their male counterparts.

Among road and rail engineers working full-time in 2006, 92 percent of women had at least

a Bachelor’s Degree, compared to 77 per cent of men. These figures imply that differences in

educational attainment are unlikely to be an impediment to women’s promotion into highly-

paid engineering jobs.

Differences in qualifications are important, however, in explaining the overall shape of the

income distribution for engineers. This is borne out by Figure 9, which shows a positive

relationship between educational attainment and income for engineers employed full-time

in 2006. Concentrating again on the highest income band (above $2000 per week in 2006),

and within the road and rail sectors, we see that the proportions of engineers in the highest-

income band were: Postgraduate qualification (44%), Bachelor’s Degree (38%) and Diploma

or Advanced Diploma (27%). This pattern is repeated in the engineering workforce as a

whole.

20


whole engineering workforce (full-time workers only), by weekly income

and qualification, in 2006


Note: Income estimates have not been adjusted for inflation since August 2006.

As a final check on the skills composition of the engineering workforce, we look in Figure 10

at differences in country of origin. The main finding here is that persons from non-English

speaking backgrounds make up a much larger proportion of the engineering skills supplied

at high qualification levels. In the road and rail sector – and to a slightly lesser extent in the

whole engineering workforce – people born in non-English speaking countries represent less

than 20 percent of the engineers with Diplomas or Advanced Diplomas, but approximately

half of the engineers with Postgraduate qualifications. A limitation of these data is that they

do not distinguish between qualifications from Australian and non-Australian educational

institutions.

47372 148 567 1804

106785992

18474

272

1650

631

255310346

39102

19728

69176

250

1217

289

1756 703522296

7566

36897

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%



$1-$999 $1000-$1999 $2000+

21


whole engineering workforce, by country of birth and qualification, in 2006


Note: Main English-speaking countries are the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada, the United

States of America and South Africa.

2.2.3 Updating the engineering workforce estimates

In this section, we update and expand some of the Census estimates about the engineering

workforce, by using more recent data from the ABS Survey of Education and Training 2009

(SET). We focus on the broader engineering workforce, because as a sample survey the SET

is unable to identify reliably the very small subset of engineers employed in road and rail.

Where possible, we provide direct comparisons between the 2006 Census data and the 2009

SET data to update the estimates of engineering employment from the previous section. For

some variables, however, such as job tenure and weekly earnings – where comparable data

from the Census are not available – we present estimates only for 2009. All of the SET results

presented in this section are derived from a set of customised data tables purchased from the

Australian Bureau of Statistics in the course of the research. Due to confidentiality concerns,

some data items are not released by the ABS and some of the customised data arrangements

244

2215837

3296

8631

48193

26601

83425

61

473

216

750

2981

10070

6517

19575

312

843

179

1334

10298

23055

6476

39822

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%



Australia Main English-speaking countries Non English-speaking countries

22

within our request have produced estimates with moderate to high standard errors. Affected

estimates are marked with asterisks in our Tables and referred to in the Table footnotes.

Table 4 shows the distribution of full-time earnings among engineers with different types of

qualifications in 2009. In contrast to the Census income data, which referred to income from

all sources, the measure of income used in Table 4 is usual weekly earnings in current (main)

job. Table 4 therefore offers clearer evidence about the earnings structure within engineering

than the earlier Figures based on Census data.

Two aspects of Table 4 stand out. First, engineering is generally a highly-paid profession.

Over one-quarter of full-time engineers (28%) had usual earnings of $2500 or more per week

in 2009, and another 16 percent were earning between $2000 and $2500 at that time. Second,

earnings appear to be higher on average for the more highly-qualified engineers. Although

there is some imprecision in the estimates by qualification, it appears that engineers with a

Postgraduate degree or diploma are more likely to be in the highest earnings category than

engineers with a Diploma or Advanced Diploma as their highest qualification.

Table 4 Distribution of usual weekly earnings within the engineering workforce

(full-time workers only), by qualification, in 2009

Percentages within

columns

Postgraduate

Degree/Diploma Bachelor Degree

Advanced

Diploma/Diploma Total

Less than $1000 n.p. **3 n.p. *4

$1000 to $1499 n.p. 25 n.p. 26

$1500 to $1999 *25 27 *24 26

$2000 to $2499 *17 17 *10 16

$2500+ *41 28 *23 28

Total 100 100 100 100

Source: ABS Survey of Education and Training 2009.

Notes: Estimates marked ‘n.p.’ are not published due to insufficient data. Estimates marked with a single asterisk

have moderate to high standard errors and should be interpreted with caution. Estimates marked with a double

asterisk have very high standard errors and are considered too unreliable for general use.

Table 5 provides evidence about the job tenure of engineers, an aspect of their employment

that was not captured by the 2006 Census. The measure of tenure here is the cumulative

duration of employment in current occupation, rather than in current job. We use a measure

based on occupational tenure, as our interest is in how long the members of the engineering

workforce have been in the profession. Approximately half (51%) of engineers had been in

23

their current occupation for more than 5 years in 2009. Close to one-third (30%) are long-

serving employees who have been in their chosen occupation for more than 10 years. There

also appears to be a healthy supply of new entrants to the engineering profession, with some

14 percent of engineers having been in the occupation for less than a year in 2009. New

entrants to the profession appear to be coming predominantly with university degrees,

rather than with Diplomas, consistent with the general trend towards higher qualification

attainment among engineers. Those with Diplomas or Advanced Diplomas generally have

longer tenure in their occupations, which suggests further that they are an older group.

Table 5 Distribution of cumulative duration of employment in current occupation

within the engineering workforce, by qualification, in 2009

Percentages within

columns

Postgraduate


Advanced


Less than 1 year **12 *13 *15 14

1 to 3 years *15 20 **4 15

3 to less than 5 years *28 18 *22 20

5 to less than 10 years **17 20 *24 21

10 years or more *29 29 34 30

Total 100 100 100 100

Source: ABS Survey of Education and Training 2009.

Notes: Estimates marked with a single asterisk have moderate to high standard errors and should be interpreted

with caution. Estimates marked with a double asterisk have very high standard errors and are considered too

unreliable for general use.

Table 6 shows estimates for the engineering workforce of those selected employee attributes

that are directly comparable between the 2006 Census and the 2009 SET. There is generally a

close similarity between the two datasets, with respect to the age structure, the proportion of

the workforce employed full-time, and the proportion with at least a Bachelor’s Degree. The

percentage of engineers with (full-time) income in excess of $2000 per week has increased

significantly (from 30 to 44%), although much of this increase is likely to be due to the effects

of inflation.

24

Table 6 Selected comparisons between the engineering workforce in 2006 and 2009

Engineering Workforce,

2006

Engineering Workforce,

2009

% Aged less than 35 years 33 31

% Aged 55 years or older 13 14

% Bachelor degree or higher 72 73

% Working Full-time 89 93

% Full-time income above $2000 per week 30 44

Sources: ABS Census of Population and Housing 2006; ABS Survey of Education and Training 2009.

Figures 11 and 12 provide more detailed comparisons between the engineering workforce in

2006 and 2009. Figure 11 looks at the age structure of the workforce divided by qualification

type. There is little evidence of change between 2006 and 2009. The SET data confirm the

Census evidence that: (a) the youngest average age is among engineers with a Bachelor’s

Degree as their highest qualification, and (b) the oldest average age is among engineers with

a Diploma or Advanced Diploma as their highest qualification.

Figure 11 Comparison between the engineering workforce in 2006 and 2009, by age

and qualification


Note: Due to small sample sizes, estimates of the numbers employed in each age group in 2009 have moderate to

high standard errors and should be interpreted with caution.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%


Engineering Workforce in 2006 (Census) Engineering Workforce in 2009 (SET)

Young (15-34 years) Prime (35-54 years) Older (55+ years)

25

Figure 12 compares working time patterns. The differences between the two data sources

suggest that there has been a significant increase between 2006 and 2009 in the proportion of

engineers working long to very long full-time hours. In 2006, about half of all engineers said

they worked for more than 40 hours in the previous week. By 2009, close to three-quarters

said they worked more than 40 hours in a usual week. The working time estimates are less

reliable when disaggregated by qualification type, but there is reasonably clear evidence that

the incidence of long-hours employment has increased at all qualification levels, especially

within the large group of engineers with a Bachelor’s Degree as their highest qualification.

Figure 12 suggests that the strong demand for engineering skills, which was already evident

in 2006, has not abated in the intervening years, and may have intensified. Many engineers

are working long hours to meet this strong demand for their skills.

Figure 12 Comparison between the engineering workforce in 2006 and 2009, by

weekly working hours and qualification


Notes: Because the engineering workforce is dominated by full-time employment, estimates of the numbers

employed part-time in 2009 are subject to very high standard errors and are considered too unreliable for general

use. Due to small sample sizes, estimates of the numbers employed in other hour groups in 2009 have moderate

to high standard errors and should be interpreted with caution.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%


Engineering Workforce in 2006 (Census) Engineering Workforce in 2009 (SET)

Part-time (1 to 34 hours) Standard Full-time (35 to 39/40 hours) Longer Full-time (40/41 to 48/49 hours) Very long Full-time (49/50+ hours)

26

2.2.4 Other labour supply considerations

In this section we briefly explore a set of ancillary issues relating to the engineering labour

supply. Having focused in detail on the characteristics of the road and rail workforce and its

resemblance to the whole engineering workforce, we now attempt to set those comparisons

against the broader context of the engineering labour market. Among the issues explored in

this section are the unemployment and labour force participation rates of people who have

obtained an engineering qualification. We revert to the 2006 Census data for this final part of

the quantitative analysis.

Table 7 provides estimates of the labour force participation rates in 2006 of people who had

obtained an engineering qualification. This rate represents the proportion of the population

that is in the labour force (either employed, or unemployed and actively looking for work).

For qualified engineers in the young and prime age groups (i.e. aged less than 55 years), the

labour force participation rates are very high – approaching or in excess of 90 percent – and

generally exhibit little variation by type of qualification. There is sharp fall in participation

rates for qualified engineers aged 55 years or over, with only about half of this older group

remaining in the labour force. Moreover, the older participation rate shows great variation

by qualification type. The least-qualified people have the greatest tendency to exit the labour

force after 55 years of age, a result which may reflect the difficulties that some older workers

encounter when forced to change jobs.

Table 7 Labour force participation rates in 2006, by age and qualification type, for

people who have obtained an engineering qualification

% Postgraduate


Advanced


15-29 years 86.7 89.9 86.0 88.6

30-39 years 92.6 94.1 94.2 94.0

40-54 years 96.1 94.1 93.6 94.1

55+ years 63.2 53.3 46.2 50.8

Total 85.9 85.1 76.8 81.9


Table 8 provides estimates of the unemployment rates in 2006 of people who had obtained

an engineering qualification. This rate represents the proportion of the labour force that is

unemployed and actively looking for work. In general, the unemployment rates of qualified

27

engineers were very low in 2006 – between 2 and 3 percent. There is some tendency for the

unemployment rates to be higher for younger people and, within any age category, for the

most highly-qualified people, but in general the differences are small in magnitude. Higher

unemployment rates among young people with an engineering qualification are most likely

transitional in nature, given other evidence of high prevailing demand for engineering skills.

Table 8 Unemployment rates in 2006, by age and qualification type, for people who

have obtained an engineering qualification

% Postgraduate


Advanced


15-29 years 5.0 3.7 4.2 3.9

30-39 years 2.2 2.0 2.1 2.1

40-54 years 2.5 2.4 2.2 2.4

55+ years 2.3 2.0 1.8 1.9

Total 2.7 2.5 2.2 2.4


Table 9 presents a still broader picture of the engineering labour market. It shows estimates

not only of the numbers of people with an engineering qualification who are unemployed or

not in the labour force, but also estimates of the numbers who are employed in occupations

outside the defined scope of the ‘engineering workforce’. Recall from the definitions given in

Section 2.1.2 that the engineering workforce includes a subset of occupations, considered by

the peak engineering organisation, Engineers Australia, to have an acceptable attachment to

engineering work. This definition leaves a second set of occupations in which people with

an engineering qualification can nonetheless be employed but not be counted as ‘engineers’.

Table 9 shows that the engineering population contained a significant number of employed

non-engineers. There were almost 100,000 such people in 2006. They represented 41 percent

of people with an engineering qualification in employment, and approximately 33 percent of

all people with an engineering qualification. There thus appears to be an important supply

of potential engineers that is in the paid workforce but not currently engaged in engineering

work. Could this additional group of workers assist in meeting the demand for engineers?

The key consideration here is whether the skills profile of employed non-engineers is similar

to that of employed engineers. Figure 13 provides evidence on this issue. It shows that the

28

two groups have quite different skill profiles. In total, and within all three age categories, the

group of employed non-engineers is less qualified than the group of employed engineers.

People in the former are much more likely to have as their highest qualifications Diplomas

or Advanced Diplomas, rather than Degrees or Postgraduate qualifications. The differences

cast doubt on the proposition that non-engineers could immediately enter engineering jobs –

even if they wished to – without undertaking further training and preparation.

Table 9 Overview of labour force status in 2006 for people who have obtained an

engineering qualification

Number Subtotal % Total %

Employed (as an engineer) 142,822 58.9 -

Employed (not as an engineer) 99,597 41.1 -

Employed (total) 242,419 100.0 79.5

Unemployed (total) 7,369 - 2.4

Not in the labour force (<65 years) 27,090 49.0 -

Not in the labour force (≥65 years) 28,144 51.0 -

Not in the labour force (total) 55,232 100.0 18.1

Total 305,020 - 100.0


29

Figure 13 Comparison of qualification composition in 2006 for employed people who

have obtained an engineering qualification, who are and are not employed

in engineering jobs


2009

15876 402421909

1584 5834 1624 9042

1965552584

9081

81320

7385

264345881

39700

3561

27509

8523

39593

6442

345979817

50856

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%


Employed (as engineer) Employed (not as engineer)

Postgraduate Bachelor Adv. Dip./Dip.

30

3 The Engineering Capacity Crisis in Rail: OVERVIEW

The qualitative research component of the research focussed solely on the rail industry and

the building and renewing of rail infrastructure specifically. Semi-structured face-to-face

interviews were conducted with engineers and managers from three rail organisations in

one State. Most of the issues raised in the report are common across the rail industry in

Australia and indeed to civil construction more broadly. However, some are localised and

we highlight what those are.

This chapter provides some context for the capacity crisis in rail engineering (3.1), followed

by a brief overview of the organisations participating in the research (3.2), a profile of

interviewees (3.3) and a description of the methodology (3.4).

3.1 The Rail Engineering Shortage

This section provides an overview of the structural drivers for the shortage of rail engineers

as well as a brief outline of the nature of engineering work in rail.

3.1.1 Demand and supply mismatch

Across mature industrial economies, populations are aging and the pool of labour needed to

support the retired population is shrinking. A compounding factor in this labour supply

challenge for the Australian rail industry is that a sustained period of workforce expansion

up to the 1980s was followed by a sharp contraction. It has been estimated that between 1986

and 1998, the number of full-time rail employees (all occupations) fell by nearly 60 percent

from 88,500 to 36,500 (Productivity Commission, 1999). Reduced recruitment during the

down-sizing phase has produced a workforce disproportionately comprised of those

approaching retirement. Research commissioned by the Australasian Railway Association

(ARA 2008) estimated that approximately 40 percent of the rail industry workforce would

leave the industry between 2006 and 2011.3

3 Based on employers whose main operations are in rail and therefore exclude the growth of

rail engineers employed by firms operating in multiple industries (e.g. civil construction,

electrical contractors, consulting engineers).

31

This fall has been attributed to improvements in efficiency through the introduction of

competition as a result of the restructuring imposed by a 1991 Industry Commission inquiry.

States responded differently to the Inquiry and there is now a multiplicity of ownership,

operation and access arrangements within and between States. This variety itself presents

significant problems for the development of rail engineering skills, which we will be

discussed further in Chapter 7. However, common across Australia, and indeed the world,

is the significant lag in the supply of engineering labour required to meet a massive increase

in the demand for rail infrastructure, both passenger and freight. The current resurgence in

rail investment takes place at a time when the demand for engineering skills in other sectors

is high. There are no definitive, reliable estimates of the shortfall of rail engineers in

Australia due to the complexities of estimating both supply (see Chapter 2) and indeed

demand. However, as an indicator of scale, the 11 major rail employers surveyed by the

ARA (2008) estimated that at December 2011, the combined shortfall within their

organisations would be around 1,500 engineers4, significantly outnumbering the estimated

number of engineers expected to be employed in this period (around 900).

3.1.2 Market Structure

As noted above, a variety of market and ownership arrangements exist across Australia both

within and between States. Some networks remain vertically integrated (i.e. operations and

infrastructure run by the same organisation) and owned by government in the form of state-

owned corporations (e.g. the Sydney metro/suburban network), others are vertically

integrated but operated under lease by a private firm with ownership of infrastructure

remaining with the State (e.g. the Melbourne suburban network). Interstate and some State

country networks are leased to the national Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) who

maintain and upgrade the infrastructure and provide access to freight companies and

(mainly public) country passenger providers (i.e. vertically separated). Another market

dimension is the private railways owned by resources companies.

While the process of vertical separation and privatisation initiated by the 1991 Inquiry has

taken different forms in different parts of the country, increased contracting-out in the

4 Professional Engineers in Electrical and Signalling, Mechanical, Civil and Project Managers.

32

building, renewing and maintenance of infrastructure has resulted in a major shift in the

employment of rail engineers from the public to the private sector. This has a number of

implications for knowledge and skill. Firstly, the ongoing funding structure of public sector

organisations permits a longer-term approach to skill development compared to the project-

based nature of private sector firms where resource development is rarely properly reflected

within the price of contracts. Historically, the public sector defined and developed the

technical capabilities required for rail engineering which means capacity in the private

sector is growing from a low base and is heavily reliant, especially at the senior level, on

former public sector employees and overseas-trained engineers. However, the private sector

has brought to the industry greater project management skills, as well as exposure to

alternative engineering solutions to challenge the working practices of traditionally insular

asset-owners.

Finally, asset-owners have a long-term interest in the infrastructure and legal responsibility

through the various Rail Safety Acts. While the extent to which this ownership and control

remains with and is exerted by asset-owners varies, asset-owners are, generally speaking,

more risk averse and have more prescriptive methods of working than private contractors

whose ’relationship‘ with the network is short-term.

3.1.3 The Nature of Rail Engineering

The rail industry mainly employs engineers qualified in electrical, mechanical and civil

engineering but due to the highly specialised nature of rail work, both in terms of the

technical knowledge required and its operating environment, previous education and

experience are less transportable than they are between other areas of civil construction. The

key shortages in the building and renewing of rail infrastructure are in signalling, a

discipline unique to rail and therefore historically reliant on asset-owners for its stock of

skills. The situation is similar in track-design, although the shortages here are less acute

since the volume of work is lower. Rail-specific electrical engineers are also in short supply.

Railways operate separately from the mains grid with their own system of substations and

some networks operate on DC voltage rather than AC (the basis of most engineering

education). Even in civil engineering where the technical knowledge and skills required are

33

of a more general nature, the rigorous safety standards required and the complex and highly

dangerous live operating environment mean that rail-specific experience is required to

operate safely and effectively.

An additional challenge for the development of rail skills is the multi-disciplinary nature of

the work and the complex interface between different components of the infrastructure. This

makes project and design management extremely challenging, requiring a high degree of

knowledge and skills to co-ordinate the different technical elements and resolve interface

issues between them. As in other areas of engineering, this coordination frequently occurs

across organisational boundaries (see Chapter 5).

3.2 The Case Studies

Three case study sites were chosen to represent a range of organisations undertaking

different types of rail engineering at various stages of the project life cycle. The three case

studies are a public sector asset-owner (‘Owner’), a consultant engineering firm (‘Consult’)

and a rail construction contractor (‘Contract’). Both ’Consult’ and ’Contract’ perform work for

’Owner’ as well as other asset-owners within Australia and overseas. A brief description of

each case study is provided below:

Owner: Public sector asset-owner

Owner is the public sector organisation which owns, maintains and operates the assets which

the other organisations are contracted to work on. It performs some of its own infrastructure

renewals but contracts-out large projects. It has a long-serving workforce of highly specialist

rail engineers.

Consult: Consulting Engineers

Consult is a multi-national firm of consulting engineers that has experienced rapid growth in

its rail workforce in recent years. Most engineers have worked in other areas of engineering,

some had limited experience in rail engineering and there were a high proportion of

overseas qualified rail engineers in the workforce. Consult tends to work with clients at the

34

early stages of a project lifecycle (scoping, feasibility and design), although they are often

retained as designers to advise construction teams.

Contract: Construction Contractor Firm

Contract specialises in the installation of rail systems. It is engaged in ‘design and construct’

contracts as well as an alliance arrangement with Owner and other clients.

3.3 Interviewee Profile

We aimed to select a cross section of engineers in terms of their job roles, years of experience

and disciplinary background. The sample of 18 engineers in our research come from a range

of rail engineering disciplines including: signalling, electrical, track design and civil.

Technical specialists and project managers made up the two largest job roles in the study,

with electrical engineers (incorporating signalling and energy supply) being the largest

disciplinary group. We have attributed interviewees with generic job titles to protect

anonymity.

Table 10 Characteristics of engineer interviewees Job role N. Estimated Level* N Yrs in Rail N. Discipline N. Qualification N.

Technical Specialist 8 Level One 4 < 5 yrs 5 Electrical 13 Degree 12

Project Manager 7 Level Two 2 5 – 10 yrs 4 Civil 4 Non-degree 6

Design Manager 2 Level Three 2 11 – 20 yrs 2 Mechanical 1

Drafter 1 Level Four 3 > 20 yrs 7

Level Five 6

* Engineers Australia classification of engineers based on interviewees’ description of their role and

responsibilities. Excludes Drafter.

Reflecting the composition of the workforce, most engineers interviewed were degree-

qualified but some number had VET qualifications or, in the case of older engineers, had

been trained and certified to practice by their public sector employer. In addition to the

interviews with engineers, interviews with senior operations managers and those

responsible for workforce development in each organisation were also undertaken bringing

the total number of interviews to 24.

35

3.4 Methodology, Analysis and Confidentiality

The research for this report derives from a qualitative methodology. We conducted a total of

18 face-to-face structured interviews with engineers, taking on average 45 minutes. A

qualitative method was chosen because it allows for a deep exploration of issues on complex

research questions such as the key questions guiding this research. The aims of this research

were firstly, to explore how engineers in rail define and utilise their skills and secondly, to

analyse how they acquire their skills through both on and off the job learning. The benefit of

qualitative research is that it enables participants to share their views and personal

experiences by engaging in face-to-face discussion with the researchers. The downside of

this method however, is only a small group of interviewees could be included from each

case study site.

All of the interviews were audio recorded and verbatim transcribed. The interviews were

then coded thematically using the NVIVO software program. The coded themes were then

analysed and reworked to develop the draft report.

Where possible, anonymous verbatim quotes have been used to illustrate the experiences of

the interviewees. We have developed generic job titles that reflect common job roles; these

are explained in the following chapter. We do not identify which organisation the

interviewee was employed by, unless it is essential to the analysis.

36

4 Map of Rail Engineering Roles

The nature of what engineers do in the course of their work cannot be easily observed,

researched or defined. A small number of previous studies have attempted to examine

engineering practice by using job analysis, questionnaires and log books to track daily work

activities. Aside from a recent study by Trevelyan (2010), these studies have largely been

ineffective in generating coherent and detailed accounts of engineering practices.5 As a

result, there is limited information available on ordinary everyday engineering activities, let

alone those specifically relating to rail engineering.

This study sought to fill some of these gaps by mapping engineering job roles. The preferred

method of researching engineering practice and job roles was through qualitative interviews

with engineers, which asked them to describe in detail their day-to-day activities, how they

work with other engineers and the approximate balance between different types of task.

This chapter describes the common job roles identified in the research and the career

pathways within rail engineering. The next chapter looks at how these different roles work

together within project teams.

4.1 Common Job Roles

We found that the job roles of rail engineers in our case studies fall within four broad job

categories. These are the generic job titles we use when referencing a quote from an

interviewee. They are kept deliberately broad (i.e. excludes employer and position in the

hierarchy) to protect anonymity.

Technical Specialist: ranges from graduate design engineers up to principal engineers;

undertakes highly technical design work and, depending on level, also reviews and

checks the work of others.

Design Manager: responsible for coordinating teams of design engineers; includes

graduates who assist the design manager to senior engineers.

5 This is largely because many of these studied adopted the job analysis method which is now widely recognised

as being more useful for examining wage structures rather than work practices.

37

Project Manager: responsible for daily running of projects, co-ordinating various

aspects of the project; is client and contract focussed; includes project engineers to

project directors.

Drafter: produces engineering designs using CAD software by working closely with

design engineers.

Using the descriptions provided by engineers themselves, we have aimed to describe the

key features of these fours job roles. One caveat is that these descriptions do not provide a

definitive description of all rail engineering jobs, as they are based on engineers working on

building and renewing rail infrastructure. Furthermore, as engineers move from project to

project, it can be expected that there will be some slight variations in how they would

describe their jobs over time.

4.1.1 Technical Specialists

Technical engineers are highly specialised and have a deep technical knowledge of a

particular discipline in rail engineering. They range from graduates to principal engineers.

The technical specialists in our study worked in signalling, sub-station design, power

systems and track design. Technical specialists undertake design work and, depending on

their level of expertise, the checking and reviewing others’ designs. Although most of their

time is spent working on their own, more senior technical specialists in particular will work

closely with other engineers when providing advice, signing off work and delegating tasks

to other engineers. Junior technical specialists tended to be involved in smaller parts of

larger projects and undertook work such as data analysis, programming and writing

reports.

Of the four job types, technical specialists spent the highest proportion of time working on

their own. They were commonly described as being the type of people who enjoy focussing

on the finer detail of design work and usually have limited management and people

responsibilities.

It’s important for the technical people to be comfortable in the role that they’re in to get

the best out of them… Like that [technical expert] I was talking about earlier, he would

talk to people on some days, wouldn’t talk to people on others. He’s very much ‘this is

38

what I do, leave me alone’ type person, but that’s fine because he’s so good at what he

does. But I wouldn’t put him in front of most clients. I would if it was an informed client

who can talk his language…

Manager

4.1.2 Design Manager

The design manager role involves the management and co-ordination of teams that produce

rail designs and liaising with construction teams. The role involves ensuring that the design

produced by the team meets the required standards and that inter-disciplinary interface

issues are resolved. Design managers may not be directly undertaking design work,

however, they are involved in technical aspects such as amending the detail of designs and

implementing changes in order to ensure the design meets specifications.

I mean, strictly speaking I’m not really a designer, I’m more of a design manager, so as a

whole I’ll oversee the design. I work with a designer who works with a modeller and then

basically I link the two together, and doing that I learn a bit of everything … I learn how

to link the two together and the things to look out for, but … I don’t necessarily do all the

number crunching...

Design Manager

There are a number of similarities between the design manager and project manager roles

and they are sometimes combined on smaller projects. Although there is clearly an overlap

in the co-ordination skills required, this manager highlights the perceived difference

between the design and project manager roles:

… good design managers tend to be bad project managers because a good designer is a

problem solver, which is not actually what we’re being paid to do. So there’s always that

sort of clash between the two. It’s very rare actually that good design managers are good

project managers. They tend to be very different people in that respect.

Manager

4.1.3 Project managers

The role of project manager is to manage the delivery of projects.

…the project manager is then the day to day deliverer, he’s the guy who’s responsible for

the project, he runs it.

Manager

39

…my role is delivery, so, it’s making sure that nothing gets in the way of delivery really, I

suppose, and making sure that all the quality and all the other bits and pieces that go with the

design are done in accordance with what we need to do.

Project Manager

Project managers reported undertaking a range of tasks as part of their role. These included

financial administration (invoicing, project costing), labour allocation, client management,

contract management and quality and environment management. On construction projects,

project engineers work under project managers with responsibility for discrete parts of

construction. They translate designs and plans into infrastructure by providing instructions

to the blue-collar workforce.

One of the main functions of the project manager role involves coordinating teams of

engineers. As such, project managers were described as utilising 'human relations' and

communication skills. Project managers are also responsible for negotiating any contractual

difficulties arising in the course of rail projects and ensuring that the project stays on track:

[The project manager is] giving guidance and direction, overall planning strategy, he’s

stronger in the human relations type stuff so once the contract goes sour and you’ve got

arguments on, he’s the one who’s going to be better at patching and mending and finding a

way forward, collaboration, whereas the project engineers are the ones who are doing the day-

to-day passing material backwards and forwards, checking things, maintaining records,

doing the contract administration, payments, targets, scheduling, that sort of thing.

Project Manager

Project managers tend not to develop a technical specialty. They have broad, inter-

disciplinary knowledge having a preference for the big picture rather than the fine detail.

You have to understand the detail, I suppose, but I think with project management it’s

more about the big picture…probably my organisational skills and the fact I seem to be

able to understand how things work helps me with being a project manager, whereas I

think if you’re a designer you’re more focused on a specific area and you’re much more

into the detail of it which I’m probably not that interested in.

Project Manager

4.1.4 Drafters

Unfortunately, we were only able to interview one drafter for the research, despite

requesting more. Drafting work is largely a solo task but drafters work closely with design

40

engineers. This drafter was undertaking signalling design work and described a non-

hierarchical relationship with the design engineer.

…we source our documents from our client and we determine which is the best way to go

about this. It’s just an open communication between the two of us. It’s the best way …

especially if it’s going to take more time and cost us money to fix something that may not be

up to date. He’ll [design engineer] mark up and do some engineering bits and pieces. He’ll

ask me when I’m free next [to do the work] and basically that’s just how it works and … if I

don’t understand anything he’s written or if he may have left something out I’ll just bring

that to his attention.

Drafter

4.2 Career Pathways

In addition to asking about their job roles, engineers were asked to identify their career

aspirations. There appeared to be three main career paths: becoming a principal engineer

(technical specialist), a project director (project management) or an operations manager

(business-focussed). These pathways are well-defined and from early in their careers

engineers appear to identify which they will choose (usually between project management

and technical specialist). In our sample, there was no instance where a technical specialist

expressed a desire to transfer into a project management role or vice versa. They tended to

feel they were in the correct job role for their skill set and personal preferences.

I want to keep working in the role I’m in - learning and getting better at the role... I don’t

have a skill level, a particular specialty that I could be a guru in … maybe in ten years, be at

that top sort of, that project director type level. I’m not particularly fussed in going to

managing people solely. I’m happy, I like dealing with people and I like managing groups,

but I don’t want to be a manager of resources. I’d rather be project based. I think it’s more

satisfying if you have something to deliver. That’s probably the engineer in me.

Project Manager

Many engineers felt that their employer offered good career opportunities and were happy

to stay on at their current organisation. For some, career opportunities related to being able

to work on the type of rail engineering work their organisation does. Other interviewees

noted that the level of workplace learning and training offered by their employer was an

important reason for why they intended to stay. The ability to undertake a diverse range of

41

work was also identified as an important factor in why interviewees wanted to stay on at

their current organisation:

I like working in this environment. Most aspects of engineering or project management

come up one way or another within Owner, so why would I leave?

Project Manager

Historically, the public sector asset-owners have provided the main career pathway for

technical specialists, while the private sector has been stronger on project management. This

division is becoming less pronounced. A small number of engineers also mentioned that

that their career aspirations involved switching from a public to private enterprise —

generally to gain a different experience and/or more money. Others were clear that public

sector employment offered better work-life balance which was a trade-off for lower pay.

This is borne out by statistics from the 2006 Census which show that 19 percent of public

sector rail engineers worked 49 hours per week or more compared to 45 percent of private

sector rail engineers. 26 percent of public sector engineers earned over $2000 per week

compared to 38 percent of private sector employees.

All of the engineers we interviewed were happy to be working in the rail industry and had

no plans to leave. In addition to enjoying the highly specialised and challenging engineering

work, a number of engineers identified the public good in building public infrastructure as a

key reason why they want to stay in rail engineering.

I’m happy producing something that someone builds, that benefits the community.

Design Manager

But it’s interesting because you get to see your end product. You’re designing on paper,

paper, paper. But the satisfaction of putting that thing out and seeing things work is

priceless.

Project Manager

42

5 Working as Learning

This chapter looks at how knowledge is generated and transferred through the process of

work. A traditional understanding of workplace learning distinguishes between ’on-the-job‘

and ’off-the-job‘ (e.g. classroom-based training) learning. While maintaining this distinction,

we expand the concept of on-the job learning. We draw on theories of learning which assert

that work and learning are inseparable, further that knowledge does not only reside in the

head of individuals but exists in a community of engineering practice. How work is

performed is fundamental to understanding how knowledge is generated and transferred

and therefore how skills gaps can be closed.

The chapter begins with an overview of the key concepts which have informed the analysis

(5.1). This is followed by an examination of the ways in which knowledge is generated and

transferred horizontally, through the process of teamwork (5.2) and vertically from senior to

more junior engineers (5.3), including the considerable succession planning challenges

facing the rail industry. Finally, we look at the more structured workplace learning

experience of graduate engineers (5.4).

5.1 Key Concepts

Workplace learning, or the process of ’knowledge transfer‘, has long been synonymous with

’training‘, a pedagogical approach that has come under increasing criticism. Classroom-

based training takes knowledge out of context. Course syllabuses have difficulty capturing

the implicit knowledge and practices that are essential to applying more abstract forms of

knowledge (e.g. the underlying physical principles of engineering) to workplace tasks (e.g.

building a new train station). Further, Blacker (1995) has highlighted that ’knowing‘ how to

perform work is not static: it is situated (specific to particular contexts), provisional (constantly

developing) and pragmatic (purposive and object-orientated).

The notion of ’communities of practice‘ communicates the idea that the knowledge and

skills required to perform work exists within the shared culture and practice of workers

which often transcends organisationally constructed teams. Being a ’learner‘, like a graduate

engineer for example, involves joining a community of practice and becoming an ’insider‘.

43

‚Learners … learn to function in an [occupational] community… they acquire that

particular community’s subjective viewpoint and learn to speak its language….

Workplace learning is best understood, then, in terms of communities being formed or

joined and personal identities being changed. The central issue in learning is

becoming a practitioner, not learning about practice.‛

Brown and Duguid (1991, p. 48)

The concept of communities of practice is apt for engineering and the multi-disciplinary,

multi-organisational environment of rail engineering in particular. Trevelyan (2010, p.2)

describes engineering practice as a "model of combined human performance, in which expertise is

distributed amongst the participants and emerges from their social interactions." The knowledge

and skills required to build rail infrastructure is distributed among multiple members of a

team, within and across workplaces, and between disciplines, technical experts and project

managers. This notion of communal effort has been described as distributed cognition:

‚Traditionally, the study of cognitive processes, cognitive development, and the

cultivation of educationally desirable skills and competencies has treated everything

cognitive as being possessed and residing in the heads of individuals… But once human

behaviour is examined in real-life problem-solving situations and in other encounters

with the social and technological surrounds, a rather different phenomenon emerges:

People appear to think in conjunction or partnership with the others and with the help of

culturally provided tools and implements.‛

Salomon (1993, p. xii)

Mediating tools in engineering include the computer-aided design and project management

software as well as communication technologies such as the internet, email and telephones,

which facilitate the knowledge-sharing required for teams to complete their tasks.

When these complexities of knowledge and learning are taken into account it becomes

obvious that a strategy which simply indentifies, quantifies and increases the supply of

learner engineers is not adequate. Attention needs to be paid to the systems through which

knowing and doing are achieved, most importantly, the organisation of work. Thus the two

research questions of how engineering skills are utilised and how they are acquired are

intrinsically linked.

It should be noted that this understanding of workplace learning does not mean that off-the-

job training can be abandoned. Indeed, the opportunity to take time away from work tasks

to absorb new information and reflect on practice is an important part of a healthy learning

44

environment (see Chapter 6). Rather, we propose that the workplace is the main site of

learning and that strategies to address a capacity crisis should include maximising

knowledge transfer and generation in the workplace.

5.2 Teamwork: Horizontal Learning

In engineering practice, knowledge is perpetually being generated, reformed, transferred

and applied as client specifications are interpreted, problems are solved and the effort of

individuals and teams are combined. A task such as building a new railway station requires

the co-ordination of knowledge and skills distributed across organisations (client, designers,

constructors) and engineering disciplines (including electrical, signalling, civil and track).

This process is much more complex than most other forms of work, hence engineering has

been at the forefront of developing mediating tools to manage this complexity, such as

computer-aided design, project management and document control systems. Traditionally,

the complexity of engineering work was also managed through hierarchical command-and-

control forms of teamwork. These days, the formalist tradition of following set procedures

and stages co-exists with mainly self-managed teams (Fuller and Unwin, 2010). It is through

teamwork that engineers achieve their tasks and as a result, engineering has a ‚social core‛

(Trevelyan, 2010).

We describe the process of teamwork as ‚horizontal learning‛ since it involves the sharing

of knowledge between peers across two dimensions: inter-disciplinary and inter-

organisational.

5.2.1 Inter-disciplinary dimension

Designing and building rail infrastructure involves combining the designs of different teams

of technical specialists and translating this into work plans for construction. The role of the

design managers at the design phase and the project engineers/managers at the construction

phase illuminate how technical engineering knowledge is deployed.

Being responsible for co-ordinating the work of a range of disciplines, design and project

managers are often working outside their own area of expertise and as such are sometimes

described as ‚generalists‛. Through the process of work they become increasing familiar

45

with the technical concepts of other engineering disciplines as they absorb knowledge from

technical specialists.

I’m trained as a civil engineer but I spend most of my time talking to electrical engineers

these days…I’m competent enough to know what I’m looking at and what outcome we’re

trying to achieve and how to describe it on a drawing, and to know the critical things that

are needed for being approved. I wouldn’t necessarily know what every piece of

equipment does and what specification those need to do.

Design Manager

Over time, generalists build up a holistic knowledge of rail engineering:

[I have] a general knowledge of rail. Because while I’ve been working in the rail industry

it’s almost all been project engineering and project management. So I haven’t say learnt

track design… I don’t have a specific discipline knowledge. I know and understand the

overall issues within most disciplines in the rail industry.

Project Manager

As in other occupations, the knowledge possessed by the technical specialist is often held in

higher esteem than that of the generalist. Interviewees in a design or project management

role often used the derogatory phrase ‚Jack of all trades, master of none‛ to describe their

own engineering skills. There was a sense that ‚real‛ engineering work involved doing

designs and crunching numbers. Yet without the inter-disciplinary knowledge

infrastructure projects couldn’t function.

We had a lot of issues where the civil guys designed tracks in such a way that we don't

have space to put our signalling equipment. And sometimes they actually didn't allow us

to put cables as well. That actually makes the costs higher.

Project Manager

Usually if you are dealing with people who have no understanding of signalling it makes

the job a lot harder because you’ve sort of got to try to give them a rudimentary

understanding as to why we are doing what we are doing, so that then they can

understand and start making sure that they meet the standards. Like a lot of the time

civil guys won’t read the signalling standard for installing cable routes, they are just like

‘well dig a trench, throw some conduits in and back fill it’…

Project Manager

More than just ‚knowing what they’re looking at‛, design and project managers have to

interrogate the work submitted to them by the technical specialists. Ensuring that the design

46

meets the required standards involves significant collaboration between the design manager

and the engineers producing the design.

On a day-to-day basis leading up to a milestone I’d primarily be on the phone asking

how’s your design going, feeding in design parameters, just getting everyone working.

And then I guess towards the back end where things are due, I have to get myself

involved in the nitty gritty and sit down with the designer and critique what he’s done

and have him explain to me how he’s done it, why he’s done it … I just need to be able to

make sure I’ve got an understanding of everything and everything works and ties in

together.

Design Manager

The tying together of the interface between the elements of rail engineering infrastructure

can be considered a field of knowledge in itself. By mediating between different disciplines

and, crucially, ensuring they meet the client’s needs, the design or project manager is

transferring this knowledge to the technical specialists.

I need to be familiar with what the client wants and then the designers design their

separate works… there are multiple disciplines but they don’t necessarily work together,

and I’m the middle person saying that your design needs to integrate with another

person’s design and also meet the client’s requirements.

Design Manager

Another site of knowledge transfer and problem solving is between the design and

construction teams and, in the case of Owner, with those responsible for maintenance. Part of

the design manager role can involve mediating between the design firm and construction

firm. In doing so, design managers noted they need to balance the design solution with costs

and the practicalities of construction and maintenance.

Construction always have their own preferences. So it’s very hard because sometimes we

say you design like this whereas it’s difficult for construction people to build it like that.

The maintenance people, they have a different say because there have been some actual

issues of that so it’s good to go out on site and talk to all these people. I try to do my best

to try to get their input.

Technical Specialist

5.2.2 Inter-organisational dimension

One of the most challenging aspects of engineering work is the harnessing of knowledge

and skills which are distributed across the organisations responsible for different elements

of the project. The sharing of knowledge within this broad community of practice allows

47

problems to be solved, infrastructure to be built and the industry to develop its base of

knowledge and skills.

In the current environment, the team is generally across multiple organisations. So a lot

depends on the team members, the integration of the team, the willingness of the team to

work together...


Commercial realities present a potential impediment to this knowledge sharing but

interviewees noted that generally there is a positive culture around the sharing of

knowledge within the industry’s community of practice.

Q So there's a culture of knowledge sharing in the rail industry?

A Yes. In the railways there is, fortunately. But it's unfortunate that some consultants,

because it's their bread and butter they don't share. There's always that way. But in

general, 90% of the people will share. Because that's how we do it. Because if you help

someone, you never know sometime you need their help back.

Project Manager

Generally, it is easier to co-ordinate and control internal resources, especially in an

environment where there are multiple projects competing for scare specialist skills (see 7.1).

People often prefer to work with people they know. Thus, the successful management of the

social processes involved in inter-organisational working relies on the human relations skills

of the project and design managers.

Without the four of us [project and design managers] overarching and looking at

everything, it would be quite difficult because a lot of [Consult] people only feel

comfortable working with another [Consult] person.

Design Manager

[The construction project manager] is great. He manages it really well, to make sure

that we're sort of co-ordinating with the construction team to make sure everyone knows

what everyone's doing. So, I think that's important, that there’s a good groove of

integration there.

Project Manager

One of the main sites of inter-organisational learning is the transfer of knowledge between

the client (Owner) and their private sector contractors. As described in 3.1 and explored in

greater detail in Chapter 7, the rail industry’s former structure as a series of state-owned

monopolies and a prolonged period of under-investment means that rail engineering skills

remain largely concentrated within public-sector asset owners. Design and construction

48

work is contracted-out but the knowledge and skills required to understand, interpret and

action Owner’s requirements has started from a relatively low base. Up-skilling the private

sector is an explicit part of Owner’s role:

We had to up-skill industry [when investment picked up in the early 2000s], that was one

of our tasks, and we’ve been hiring companies to do design work for us ever since, and

helping them to learn the skills because for years we did it all in-house which meant there

was no rail design industry.

Project Manager

Knowledge about Owner’s rail infrastructure is formally articulated in a system of

prescriptive engineering standards and embodied in the tacit knowledge of its often long-

serving employees. It has been a major challenge to distribute this formal and tacit

knowledge across the multiple organisations now involved in building rail infrastructure.

5.2.3 Maximising Horizontal Learning

The effectiveness of knowledge generation and transfer across teams is reliant on the social

process of engineering. Technologies such as project management and web-based document

control systems facilitate the flow of accurate, timely information but it is through human

interaction, that engineering tasks are achieved.

We talk about [engineering problems] in the office generally, just through discussion

and yeah we work together.. I definitely know it's gotten better and the communication's

very good now and we're very comfortable going out and approaching each other and

discussing things, so it's a collaborative approach.


These interactions occur through a variety of means including email, telephone and,

increasingly, open source technologies and on-line blogs. However, it was widely asserted

by engineers that for projects to remain on track and when difficult issues needed to be

resolved there was no substitute for face-to-face interaction between engineers.

With clients it’s more and more, if you get to a loggerhead you’ve actually got to meet

with them. So, after one comment and one response to say, ‚No, I’m not happy with

that‛, well, you’ve got to bite the bullet and meet with them and come to some agreement

somehow.

Design Manager

49

In this regard, engineers on two different alliance-based projects said the practice of co-

locating the multi-organisational project teams in the same office greatly enhanced the flow

of information between organisations, especially the vital knowledge held by the client.

… at the end of the day the direction of the project is dependent on what the client wants,

so it makes sense that someone’s sitting in the client’s office.

Design Manager

So instead of the civil [contractors] emailing [Owner] ‚can we use these materials, can

we use that materials?‛, they actually can just form a meeting in five minutes. Then

[Owner] will say ‚you can do this, you can’t do this‛. And you can straight away get the

answer.

Project Manager

‚Relationship contracting‛ has been a significant development in industry-level

collaboration in the civil infrastructure sector. Efforts to recast the relationships and

dynamics between client and supplier confront a traditional industry culture which was

highly adversarial and litigious where parties were more focussed on protecting commercial

interests than finding solutions. This style of engagement is not suited to large, complex

projects where risks are difficult to assess and apportion. The most advanced example

relationship contracting is ‚alliance‛ contracting, a concept first developed in the US but

most enthusiastically taken up in Australia. Alliances differ from ‚hard-dollar‛ (fixed price)

contracts or even ‚joint-ventures‛ in that profit is apportioned on the basis of ‚pain sharing

and gain sharing‛. The fact that ‚pain‛ or costs are shared between principal contractors, in

theory, increases the incentive to work collaboratively to resolve problems in the most

efficient way.

There is some debate whether alliances actually represent better value for money than other

forms of contracting but there does appear to be some advantages from a skills development

point of view, especially in rail industry where technical knowledge and skills are so heavily

concentrated with the client. In addition to the practice of co-locating engineers from

different organisations in the same office, one of Owner’s alliances has skills development as

one of its objectives. Engineers working on alliance-based projects felt that there was a

greater sense of team unity which transcended organisational boundaries and therefore

aided the transfer of knowledge, both between contractors and with the client.

50

So trying to talk to each other would have been a little bit harder *if this project wasn’t

an alliance], because you are not part of the same team you are separate. They would

just be saying ‘oh you are delaying our work, so we are going to hit you up for

variations’, or whatever, whereas seeing as we are part of the same team in the alliance,

you can sort of try to explain a bit more as to why they can’t do certain things, and how it

all ties in together.

Project Manager

However, while alliances potentially provide enhanced opportunities for knowledge

sharing, they are not necessarily a teamwork utopia. As this engineer pointed out "There's

still those borders … something goes wrong, they look at who they can blame."

Information technology is often promoted as being at the core of firms ’knowledge

management’ strategies. This research finds that while these supportive technologies are

important, it is still human interaction which actually generates and transfers knowledge.

The social skills and broad technical knowledge of the engineers in a co-ordinating role are

central to this process. It is also telling that face-to-face contact with peers remains

incredibly important when it comes to effective problem solving.

Organisations therefore need to consider how to maximise these opportunities, allowing rail

engineers to develop their community of practice across disciplines and organisations. The

main barrier to this occurring is the very high workloads experienced by most engineers in

our sample. Working on multiple projects with competing demands squeezed out time for

essential project meetings between engineers from different disciplines and organisations.

We return to this issue in greater depth in Chapter 7.

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5.3 One-to-one knowledge transfer: Vertical Learning

According to Trevelyan (2010), engineering is comprised of a ‚large number of different

aspects of practice and specialized knowledge, most of it unwritten, developed through

years of practice, and difficult to transfer to others‛ (p.13). This is an appropriate

description of rail engineering since despite a well-defined system of rail engineering

standards, much of the applied knowledge is held in tacit knowledge of the most

experienced engineers. To a limited extent, organisations can capture and document that

knowledge but one-to-one learning though generations of engineers will always be central

to sustaining the community of engineering practice.

The process of ‘vertical’ knowledge transfer between engineers occurs at all levels (and in

both directions) of the engineering hierarchy, but it is particularly important at either end of

the career life cycle: for the development of early career engineers (5.3.1) and for succession

planning (5.3.2).

5.3.1 Early Career Engineers

As we explore in greater depth in 5.4, the workplace learning experience of an early career

engineer relies on the opportunities to gain experience on different projects and how steep

their learning curve is. At the early stages of their career, engineers also require the active

support of more senior engineers to develop both the technical and behavioural abilities to

apply the theory they acquired during their education. In this regard, engineering can be

seen as an apprenticeship and some experienced engineers saw themselves as part of that

tradition — they would not have progressed to their own level without the support of

others.

At the end of the day I wouldn’t have got where I am if people didn’t invest their time to

teach me the things I know, so I feel I should be doing the same as well.


I just always remember the good bosses you had and how they taught you things ... I

guess in some ways you are almost copying what you were told yourself. I can’t think of

an answer, you go and find out that. Go and see him and he’ll tell you how to find that

out or it’s in that book.

52


The early career engineers we interviewed were not part of a formal mentoring program;

they learned from more senior engineers through the delegation and supervision of tasks.

Therefore, they were entirely reliant on their supervisor’s capacity to transfer their

knowledge and skills. Many of the more experienced engineers we interviewed recognised

the importance of developing skills locally in light of the industry’s skill shortages and took

an active role in passing on their knowledge.

I manage two or three graduates right now, I suppose, and I try to, without being too

corny or anything, I try to make sure I give them the time and if they have any questions

they can come and ask me. I hope I do. There are probably times when I’m a bit busy, but

I try to help them out as much as I can.

Project Manager

This was also reflected in the interviews with graduates or junior engineers, with many

believing that they had received a lot of support from more senior staff.

[My manager] as well as our electrical design manager, we regularly have catch-up

sessions to see how you’re going.


However the research did identify some significant difficulties in the process of vertical

knowledge transfer to early career engineers that are discussed in 5.3.3.

5.3.2 Succession Planning

The history of industry structure and patterns of investment means that much of the

knowledge and skills in rail engineering resides with a large cohort of long-serving technical

specialists approaching retirement age.

We’re noticing that most of them don’t get to 65. We’ve just had a principal engineer

track walk out the door in August. I think he’d been here for 45 years or something, and

we don’t have any strategies or programs in place to actually capture all of his knowledge

before he leaves.

Manager

The loss of these experienced workers represents a significant loss for the industry and it

mainly, though not exclusively, falls on Owner to solve this problem. The case study

53

organisations had begun to utilise a number of strategies aimed at transferring and

maintaining the tacit knowledge of rail engineers before they retire.

So we’re just working on ways to transition employees out. So creating shadow

positions, bringing in assistant engineers to learn from them. We’re looking to set up

study groups, put together a technical library - so we don’t lose all this body of

knowledge. We’re just looking to retain it somehow.

Manager

The main succession planning strategy appeared to involve matching senior engineers with

junior engineers or less senior engineers, or ‘shadowing’.

There’s one technical specialist approaching retirement age and we sort of pinpointed him

as a resource that we probably will miss when he goes. So he wasn’t I guess forthcoming

in his hand out of what information he knows. So we thought we’ll get someone to

shadow him and sit with him. So he sits over there with his one designer who’s supposed

to sort of listen in to everything he says and watch everything he does when he goes out.


By matching two engineers together, it is hoped that the less experienced engineer will act as

a sponge, absorbing the senior engineer’s knowledge:

You need a sponge and you need someone with strong arms to squeeze it out the other

bloke.


Like the support for early career engineers, there are a number of challenges in ‚extracting‛

and transferring the knowledge of impending retirees.

5.3.3 Maximising vertical knowledge transfer

While engineers were general comfortable with horizontal knowledge sharing (i.e. through

teamwork), few were confident in their ability to pass on their knowledge and skills to more

junior engineers. Supporting early career engineers involves taking the time to ensure they

are developing a solid understanding of the technical knowledge and engineering practice

they need to become an independent professional engineer. The ability to select the correct

information to share and formulate an explanation which is appropriate to the learning style

of the person receiving the information is a skill that few people innately possess.

54

Q Are engineers good at that? Are they good at passing knowledge on between

each other?

A That depends. Teaching is a different skill set in itself and passing on detailed

information isn’t always the best way if you can’t learn how to apply it. You can pass on

details, upon details upon details, but if you don’t know how to apply it, then you’ll just

forget what details you were told.


In all our case study organisations, there did not appear to be a feedback system in place to

assess engineers on how well they are supervising and mentoring more junior engineers and

some engineers admitted to finding this difficult.

I’ve actually been thinking about doing a mentoring course because I’m not sure how

good at it I am at present. A few years ago now I had a couple of trainees who decided

they’d prefer to go somewhere else, and I thought hmmm, I haven’t done very well by

them obviously! So I’m quite consciously trying to talk and mentor.

Project Manager

…personally I know that I’m a very bad teacher because I just struggle with the patience

of being able to go through everything, but I mean I try where I can.

Design Manager

A related concern is that some engineers were resistant to sharing their knowledge with

others. The only approach open to managers was to allow responsibility for supervision to

fall on those engineers who tend to be good at it and have the goodwill to do so. However, it

was often the experienced technical specialists who possess the very knowledge that needs

to be transferred who were reticent to pass their knowledge on. This is partially indicative of

the tendency for those who are less inclined towards teamwork being attracted to more

technical roles (see Chapter 4). One manager noted that a specialist rail engineer opted to

leave the organisation rather to have to pass on his knowledge:

He was well recognised internationally but he just didn’t like teaching people. And in

the kind of market place we’re in, we’ve got to develop the skill locally and that means he

had to learn how to teach people and he didn’t want to do it. And so he left rather than

have to take it on.

Manager

The main strategy pursued by organisations to overcome this relied on the personalities of

the engineers working together: selecting the right shadower (junior) suitable to work with

the shadowee (senior). This was seen to be critical when the shadower was charged with

55

‚extracting‛ information for the purposes of succession planning. This is a difficult task as it

is hard to predict how two people will work together.

…so I just had to find somebody with that right personality that [the technical

specialist] was prepared to spend time with and mentor, and that’s what we had to do. I

spent six months searching for one of the graduates who I thought would get that

information out of [technical specialist] and he does.

Manager

One interviewee reported that the relationship between two engineers that had been paired

together for the purposes of succession planning was not working out because of the

personality trait of the shadower:

He’s a very pedantic person and very process driven sort of thing and he just doesn’t

seem to suck up information as well as he could.


The passing of knowledge between generations of engineers is part of the tradition of

engineering and fundamental to how novice engineers become practitioners. Our case

study organisations have only recently begun to regard this key site of learning as

strategically important for the retention and development of skills. Relying on personality

matching is a pragmatic approach necessary in the short-term. However, more engineers

need to see supervision and mentoring as a central part of their role. Organisations can

promote this by incorporating these aspects of work into performance assessments reviews.

Engineers need some feedback on how they can improve their supervision and mentoring

skills so that development needs can be identified. In this instance, off-the-job professional

development is an appropriate way of reflecting on and developing these skills.

Underlying the challenge of vertical knowledge transfer, as in every other aspect of

workplace learning was the skill shortage itself. While engineers were generally happy to

share their knowledge, their workloads were not managed in a way that allowed them to do

so. As a result, knowledge transfer was perceived as an additional burden to their workload.

This problem is exacerbated by a shortage of intermediate level rail engineers so that

responsibility falls on senior engineers with already heavy workloads. The comments from

the following senior engineers illustrate how time constraints impede their capacity to share

their knowledge and skills:

56

It’s just a matter of I haven’t got time to tell them or if I tell them that, they’re going to

want to know the whole story behind it and the 10 minutes explanation turns into an

hour and a half later of the history behind why the decision was made.

Technical specialist

It’s frustrating, because I’m really busy and I feel sorry for them because the work

environment now is much different to when I joined, so we don’t have much time. They

had more time when I joined, the engineers had more time to help you with things, try

and explain it.

Technical specialist

Not having the time to develop early career and even intermediate engineers is part of a

vicious cycle of skills shortage. A healthy workplace learning environment embeds

‘knowledge sharing’ into the job design and workloads of engineers. If this is not done, the

overburdening of senior engineers continues and the development of engineers required to

meet demand is impeded. This involves looking at the structural causes of high workloads

discussed in detail in Chapter 7.

5.4 Transition from Novice Engineer

Increasing the supply and retention of early career rail engineers is crucial to future of the

rail workforce. This is widely recognised by employers who have implemented structured

graduate programs that aim to enable junior engineers to transition from novice to

professional engineer. The experience of early career engineers (defined as graduates and

those with less than five years experience) was highly variable within these programs.

To examine the learning experiences of early engineers, we found it useful to adopt the

‘expansive-restrictive’ framework developed by Fuller and Unwin (2010), which is based on

research that included a study of engineering. This framework provides a continuum for

understanding the learning environment experienced by employees. Organisations that

offer an expansive approach to learning enable employee to engage in a deeper form of

learning. The attributes of an expansive approach include employees being given time to

undertake both on and off the job training and having opportunities to gain a range of work

experiences. Early career employees properly have the status of ‘learner’ and are given time

to reflect on their learning to become creative and critical thinkers.

57

In a restrictive learning environment, workers have limited opportunities to undertake off

the job learning or gain different work experiences. Early career employees are ‚fast

tracked‛ into becoming fully productive workers. The outcome of the restrictive approach

to learning is that employees develop narrower skills. The key attributes of the expansive-

restrictive approach are highlighted in the table below.

Table 11 Expansive Restrictive Learning Framework Expansive Learning Environment Restrictive Learning Environment

Workforce development used as a vehicle for aligning

goals of the organisation and of the individual.

Workforce development used only to tailor individual

capability to organisational goals.

Recognition of and support for workers as learning –

newcomers (including trainees) given time to become

full members of the community; Vision of workplace

learning – career progression.

Workers only seen as productive units – fast transition

from newcomer/trainee to fully productive worker;

Short-termism – get the job done.

Managers given time to support workforce

development and facilitate workplace learning.

Managers restricted to controlling workforce and

meeting targets.

Adapted from Fuller and Unwin 2010 p.208

In the previous section, we noted that supervision and mentoring are central to the

development experience of early career engineers and that this was highly reliant on the

engineers supervising them. While most engineers are willing to share their knowledge and

skills, many lack the time and capacity to do so. As the table above shows, Fuller and

Unwin (2010) also emphasise the importance of supervisors and managers in fostering

workplace learning.

Off-the-job learning also plays an important role in the development of early career

engineers and will be discussed in detail in Chapter 6. In the remainder of this chapter we

look at the opportunities for early career engineers to gain a range of work experience and

the speed of transition from novice to production worker.

5.4.1 Transition from novice to productive engineer

As graduates learn and develop, they transition from being novices at the periphery of the

community of engineering practice to becoming experienced practitioners. A key aspect of

an expansive approach to learning involves the graduates being recognised as learners and

58

being transitioned at a reasonable pace; being given the time to develop their confidence and

skills to take on their own workload and make judgements independently of others. A

reasonable balance needs to be struck, where the novice engineer is neither overly sheltered

nor given too much responsibility too quickly.

Among the graduates we interviewed, there were clear differences in how quickly their

organisation transitioned them to productive worker, which affected their learning

experience. Overall, the learning curve at Owner was much less steep. Graduates are given

time to learn through observation and small delegated tasks. The early career engineer

below said he had declined other job offers because of this learning environment.

You spend usually the first few months just reading material and going out on site with

engineers, not really doing anything specific usually. It’s like an induction process,

you’ll read standards, technical documents, ask questions, go out on site… It’s funny

because I used to go home and people used to ask me ‚What are you doing at work, what

do you do?‛ and I’d just say ‚I watch and learn‛, and I did that for a year and it didn’t

really feel that you were contributing but you have to go through that which is very

typical.


Owner had slowed this transition further by introducing an ‚assistant engineer‛ position

between the graduate program and a substantive post as a professional engineer. In the

assistant engineer role, the employee retaining their status as a learner but they are assigned

to a particular team to undertake more complex delegated tasks (rather than rotating

between teams, see following section).

The transition from graduate engineer was found to occur faster in the private sector, where

there is greater pressure to become a productive worker quickly.

I have to admit, I think we give our graduates quite a lot of experience and in doing that I

think we throw them in, but we give them support as well, so I think that helps a lot.

Project Manager

…we quickly identify where graduates are capable of doing the work themselves and the

senior person doesn’t have to do it. So after running through it once or twice the

graduates normally run off and handle a lot of the engineering tasks on their own and

then they come back and they actually take a huge amount of workload off the seniors by

doing it that way and they very quickly pick up bits of skill in small areas.

Manager

59

The ongoing funding structure at Owner and high concentration of experienced rail

engineers facilitated their slow transition process. By comparison, the commercial

imperatives and more acute skill shortages in the private sector meant there was pressure to

transition graduates more quickly.

I think now we do use graduates well, probably maybe because of the shortage that we

have, that we have to skill them up quicker and give them more responsibility sooner, so

that we can just get projects delivered, I suppose.

Project Manager

Given the complexity of rail engineering work there are clear risks in this approach. Too

much responsibility too soon can mean graduates are not developing sufficiently broad and

deep skills, increasing the risk of errors on projects as well as potential burn-out for the

individual.

I was doing ridiculous hours, like probably 60 hours a week average, but I’d do 80 hours

on busier weeks, sometimes even 100 hours a week if I needed to... it got to a point where I

knew I was reaching my breaking point where I was about to… it got to a point where all

I did was work, I didn’t really get the chance to do anything outside of work and see my

mates.

Design Manager

However, there are also risks to graduates being transitioned too slowly. While early career

engineers at Owner appreciated the learning opportunities they were being given, they were

more likely to feel they weren’t being sufficiently challenged. As we explain in the next

section, managers identified that the organisation sometimes did not give their graduates

sufficient meaningful work.

5.4.2 Exposure to different work experiences

All case studies in the research offered graduates the chance to develop their skills and

deepen their interdisciplinary rail knowledge by working on different projects. Rotations

within organisations are an important aspect of an expansive approach to learning as they

enable junior engineers to have the opportunity to experience a wide range of learning

experiences across different disciplines. It is also important for helping them decide what

type of engineering role (e.g. design engineer or project manager) they are suited to.

60

….a lot of the grads get chucked into project management style, project management

assistance. If you’re coming from a university background or whatever, and you’re

expecting to get into the technical side of things, that’s not what happens with all of them,

and they request to get out of that.


The structure of graduate programs varied slightly between the case study sites. At one case

study site, graduates are asked to identify the areas they want to work in based on their

interests and their undergraduate discipline. A graduate may therefore spend a year on one

project to develop skills in design and will then move onto a project that aims to develop

skills in project management. A longer and more structured graduate program is in place at

Owner. Because Owner performs a greater variety of rail engineering work they can offer a

broader range of work experience.

They have to do a design rotation, a construction rotation and a maintenance rotation,

then they can do a fourth rotation which is whatever they’d like to do, generally project

management or to go back to one of the first three rotations.

Manager

Early career engineers made a clear distinction between what was suitable for classroom

learning and what could only be learned on the job. The opportunity to go out on site to

observe a live construction or operations environment was a highly valued learning

experience. In this quote from a young engineer, he described his interest in learning about

how infrastructure and equipment he was involved in replacing actually operates.

… because having technical knowledge is good but it’s the practical, how it’s done, how

things are maintained, what to do in this situation is what I don’t know, and you can’t sit

in a classroom and learn what to do in this situation. You can be told what to do but it’s

a bit different in field situations to classroom.


Another early career engineer talked about the difference between the abstract world of

computer-aided design and the reality of rail infrastructure.

[being on site] is very different when you’re in the computer, you draw a line to say this

cable goes from point A to point B. When you go on site it’s completely different. It has

to go through your gas mains, water mains and there’s so many other obstacles. It’s a lot

different than just one line. So it has to deviate from here and there. So going to site is

essential. Without that, you wouldn’t be a good engineer, design engineer especially.


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An important aspect of early career engineering therefore involves being given

opportunities to hone and deepen skills through meaningful, practical work.

But fundamentally what we've found is the pattern is, if someone gives them time, speaks

to them as an equal and gives them meaningful work, they're the key aspects and

meaningful work above all. If you have meaningful work they will learn, they will enjoy

it, they will encourage others to come to that area.

Manager

A combination of novice engineers being transitioned too slowly and a failure to identify,

delegate and appropriately supervise tasks means some graduates are not given meaningful

work. Ensuring that junior engineers are given meaningful work requires the skill of

delegation on the part of the supervising engineer. As this manager highlights, some more

senior engineers simply did not know how to do this.

We find they treat them as their extra admin resource, they don’t actually treat them as a

developing engineer. They give them the jobs that no-one else wants to do and they don’t

actually give them meaningful work or spend any time with them.

Manager

Q What are you currently working on?

A I don’t really have anything [to work on] at the moment because we were still

trying to work out what I do and what my boss does. Because my boss has been doing

everything himself. Now he’s got the assistant’s position underneath him, he’s got the

ability to say ‚Okay, yes, you can do that‛.


However, both early career engineers and managers identified that there was some onus on

novice engineers to identify and ask for development opportunities for themselves.

…you have to be proactive in our section and our manager constantly tells us that. Yeah

you do, you have to go to the managers and say, ‚When you’re going out next can you

take me with you?‛


So the onus is on the employee really, to be able to skill and up-skill in the technical areas.

It’s one of those things – how much do you push somebody as well? And it’s really, I

think, in this type of business it’s that people need to put up their hand and say hey I need

some help in this area, and then we’ll go and find that for them.

Manager

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While the early career engineers in our study demonstrated a commitment to learning and

confidence in seeking out development opportunities, not all young engineers will have a

strong voice, especially if the problem is a manager with poor delegation skills. It is

therefore essential that organisations monitor the experience of early career engineers so

responsibility for their development is properly shared between the individual, their

supervisor and the organisation.

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5.5 Working as Learning: SUMMARY

In this chapter we have emphasised the importance of the workplace as the main site of

learning for rail engineers. Learning occurs horizontally between peers through teamwork

and vertically from experienced to more junior engineers through supervision and

delegation.

The Importance of Teamwork

In engineering, knowledge is perpetually being generated, reformed, transferred and

applied as client specifications are interpreted, problems are solved and the effort of

individuals and teams are combined. It is through teamwork that engineers achieve their

tasks.

Rail is a complex multi-disciplinary industry and inter-disciplinary knowledge transfer is

essential for infrastructure to be built. Through their co-ordinating roles, design managers

and project managers achieve a broad, holistic body of rail engineering knowledge which

they learn from the discipline experts. Further, by mediating between different disciplines

the design or project manager generates and transfers discipline interface knowledge to the

technical specialists. As in other occupations, specialist knowledge was held in higher

esteem by rail engineers than generalist knowledge but both must be nurtured for the

industry to increase its capacity.


and skills, which are distributed across the organisations responsible for different elements

of the project. One of the main sites of learning was between Owner which has a high

concentration of technical knowledge and its private sector contractors. Technologies such

as project management and web-based document control systems facilitate the flow of

accurate, timely information but it is through human interaction that engineering tasks are

achieved. Here the skills of the design and project managers are pivotal and face-to-face

interaction valued above all others for efficient decision-making and problem solving. The

co-location of inter-organisational project teams appeared to enhance this process of

knowledge sharing and generation. Engineers working on alliance contract projects felt

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there was a greater sense of team unity which transcended organisational boundaries and

aided the transfer of knowledge between contractors and with the client.

Organisations need to consider how to maximise knowledge transfer within teams, allowing


organisations. The main barrier to enhanced team-working, especially face-to-face interface

is the very high workloads experienced by many rail engineers which squeezes out time for

essential project meetings between engineers from different disciplines and organisations.

Transferring knowledge through the generations


engineering and fundamental to how novice engineers become practitioners. Our case

study organisations have only recently begun to regard this key site of learning as

strategically important for the retention and development of skills.

At the early stages of their career, engineers require the active support of more senior

engineers to develop the technical and behavioural skills to apply the theory they acquired

during their education. At the other end of the career life cycle, organisations are scrambling

to extract and preserve the tacit knowledge of the large cohort of technical specialists

approaching retirement.

Currently both processes of ‘vertical’ knowledge transfer were rather ad hoc, relying on the

personalities and inherent skills of engineers. However, knowledge transfer needs to

become a much more central part of engineers’ role by incorporating supervision and

mentoring into performance assessments reviews. Engineers require feedback on how they

can improve these skills so that development needs, including off-the-job training, can be

identified.

Underlying the challenge of vertical knowledge transfer, as in every other aspect of

workplace learning was workload. Not having the time to develop early career and

intermediate engineers is part of a vicious cycle of skills shortage. A healthy workplace

learning environment sees ‘knowledge sharing’ embedded into the job design and

65

workloads of engineers. If this is not done, the overburdening of senior engineers continues

and the development of engineers required to meet demand is impeded.

Transitioning Novice Engineers

Structured graduate programs facilitate the transition from novice engineer, whose body of

knowledge is largely theoretical, to practitioner who can apply that knowledge as an

independent professional. This is mainly done on-the-job through exposure to different

projects, disciplines and roles with the dual purpose of developing a broad base of

knowledge and helping graduates identify their strengths and preferences.

There is a fine balance between protecting novices as learner of practice, stretching them

though challenging, meaningful work and overloading them by fast-tracking their transition

to productive worker. We interviewed graduates at both ends of the spectrum. Some were

underutilised, principally due to the poor delegation skills of their supervisor, while others

had been given too much responsibility for their level of experience and skill.

If organisations are to retain and develop the future rail engineering workforce, they need to

closely monitor the experience of their graduates to ensure they are being developed and

that their interest is maintained through meaningful work without being burnt-out before

their graduate program is complete. Interviewees emphasised that the onus for professional

development rests with individual engineers but the scale and complexity of workforce

growth required by the rail industry means responsibility must be shared between

individuals, supervisors and the organisation.

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6 Education and training

Thus far we have emphasised the workplace and the process of work as the main site of

learning. However, allowing employees access to off-the-job learning opportunities is an

integral part of an expansive approach to learning. Indeed off-the-job education in the

engineering principles and technologies underpinning rail engineering is essential given

they do not form part of undergraduate degree content. In the previous chapter we also

identified the need for training in supervision and mentoring to enhance the knowledge

transfer and delegation skills of engineers. Off-the-job training is a significant investment in

time for both employers and employees so course content should be relevant to employees’

role, at the appropriate level and pace and employees should have the opportunity to apply

what they have learned back on-the-job.

This chapter looks at approaches to off-the-job learning in the case study organisations (6.1)

followed by a brief review of the type of short courses available in rail engineering (6.2) and

a summary of some initiatives in post-experience/post-graduate education (6.3).

6.1 Approaches to off-the-job learning

There were significant differences in how case study organisations approached off-the-job

learning for their employees. At Owner, interviewees perceived their organisation to be

proactive in supporting them to undertake training including support for post-graduate

education. Owner had a structured system of personal training plans which incorporated

both elective and mandatory training.

As a graduate, yes, there’s a big focus on learning. Like if you want to attend a training

course, the managers will say ‚Yes, go‛. It doesn’t matter what it is, they’ll say ‚Go‛.

As long as it’s beneficial to you and the department.


There are other external courses which we find suitable, then people could go and attend

those courses. One thing good about Owner, at least from my personal experience, they

do support people in their continued professional development.


Given the virtually compulsory nature of off-the-job training at Owner, some engineers

questioned the amount of training they were expected to do.

67

Everyone has a training program. We’re all supposed to nominate a number of courses.

Most people think oh god another course I’ve got to go to.


Some also questioned the pace and level of training provided to early career engineers with

some courses appearing to be more suited to employees with a trade rather than degree-

level education.

It’s pretty easy so. Like it’s just they obviously need to develop some graduate engineer

based level stuff rather than just apprentice based.


One of the other case study organisations also has a structured approach to off-the-job

learning that they had recently redesigned to ensure that the theory being learned could be

reinforced through practical application. They also supported employees in post-graduate

education including those courses described in 6.3.

It’s been modified, initially it was done, here is all the training and they went on courses

for month after month after month. That’s been modified so that they are getting practical

project experience. So they will be going on training courses for a period and getting the

formal input on the theory and then they will actually be applying that theory out in the

field.

Project Manager

In the other case study organisation, there was no structured program for off-the-job

training in rail engineering. Focus for training was on non-technical skills development

through internally available online courses. As the following quote illustrates, there was a

view that engineers’ technical skills pre-exist their employment and are therefore not

prioritised for further development. Skills such as project management, communication and

leadership on the other hand, are seen as skills that aren’t necessarily fully developed at

university so the firm encourages employees to undertake professional development in this

area.

I think it’s an expectation and especially because these things are controlled often by HR

or learning and development people who aren’t engineers by trade, there’s an expectation

that you should know your technical, you should have technical skills, you just spent four

or five years at university, why don’t you know this?

Manager

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This view is not sustainable for any engineering workforce since continued professional

development requires engineers to keep up to date with new developments in technology

and engineering practice. It is even more problematic for rail engineers since it is highly

specialised, not covered in undergraduate degrees and there is a shortage of experienced rail

engineers to learn from. A further concern at this case study organisation was that the onus

for sourcing technical training was placed almost entirely on the employee.

But there isn’t a structured formal technical training, it’s on the job training, it’s

buddying up with somebody and learning from them, it’s noticing that there’s a course

out there that they can do or knowing that there is a seminar coming up or whatever it

might be and going along to that. So the onus is on the employee really, to be able to skill

and up-skill in the technical areas.

Manager

It is absolutely appropriate that engineers take responsibility for their professional

development. However, in an environment where workloads are very high and skill

shortages are acute, organisations do need to provide some structure and support for

training and educating their workforce. In the case study that did not provide a structure

for training, few could recall the last course they had been on.

I could say I haven’t been trained in anything for the last seven or eight years.


6.2 Short courses

Interviewees universally agreed that learning on-the-job is the preferred method of learning

in rail engineering. Nevertheless, they also regarded off-the-job training as a useful way of

fast tracking their knowledge, learning about industry developments and new hardware or

equipment. A small number of interviews had also undertaken courses in non-technical

areas such as project management or leadership.

There are limited short course offerings available in rail engineering, which is not surprising

given the small market for courses. However the short courses in technical aspects of rail

engineering generally received positive reviews from interviewees. Many were enthusiastic

about participating in training and found it a valuable compliment to workplace learning.

69

The following interviewee explained that off the job training can act to fast track their

knowledge:

…because the people that usually run the training courses are sort of experts in their

field, so it can really shortcut a lot of - as opposed to just reading a textbook say – it can

really shortcut and make more practical how you apply it.


Interviewees tended to perceive training as particularly useful when the skills and

knowledge they learn can be applied on-the-job. This was referred to by one engineer as

being like learning a language, where without practice the new language will be forgotten.

I believe it’s like learning a language, you have to be able to speak it to actually remember

it. Otherwise it’ll be a waste of money to sit through a course and be able to apply maybe

one percent of what I’ve learnt.


Given that there are limited in-depth technical training offerings available, we found that

off-the-job learning was commonly undertaken to familiarise employees with particularly

technologies, hardware or equipment. These tend to be run by manufacturers rather than

training providers.

I’m going on a training course next week actually. But that’s for a particular piece of

hardware, and it’s for a specific piece of hardware, not something that will relate across

all signalling comms things. It will be particularly for that hardware. Sort of like learning

a Nikon camera…


…manufacturers of different type of materials come to us and give presentations of what’s

available in the industry now and that’s very important because sometimes it’s very hard to

keep up with all the different technology that’s coming up. So sometimes they come to us,

give a bit of an insight of what their material can do, what some of their equipment can do so

we can incorporate. If it’s advantageous to our project, gives better outcome at the end of the

day. That’s a good way to learn as well


There was a general consensus among a number of interviewees that it was important to

keep up with industry developments; that it provided an opportunity to reflect and modify

their practice. Engineers felt that they were able to keep abreast of developments not only

70

through short courses and manufacturers’ presentations but also by attending conferences

and industry forums.

Q What new things are there to learn?

A There is all sorts of other things even in overhead wiring, there are other

technologies in the world that [Owner] may adopt in the future and therefore be

interesting. And even the things that you think you know, there are always new things

you can learn. There’s always new developments in the industry.


6.3 Initiatives in Rail Engineering Education

As already noted in this chapter, the various disciplines which comprise rail engineering are

highly specialist areas not covered in undergraduate engineering programs (e.g. the specifics

of overhead wiring would not be included in a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degree).

Some managers indicated frustration with this situation calling on universities to

incorporate aspects of rail engineering into their undergraduate courses, citing examples

from overseas where this had been done. However, the model of undergraduate education

in Australia aims to provide students with a grounding the engineering principles within

broad disciplines from which they can choose different career paths. The rail industry is a

growing but still statistically small employer and, when Australia’s small population is

factored in, it is unlikely that universities could make an elective unit in rail engineering

viable, let alone a full degree, even with significant employer support.

An alternative approach is to provide engineers with an in-depth education in a rail-specific

discipline after they have already chosen rail as their preferred industry. This is the model

adopted by two courses developed through Rail Innovation Australia6 (formerly the Rail Co-

operative Research Centre):

Signalling and Telecommunications (Graduate Certificate/Diploma/Masters) run by

Central Queensland University and accredited by the Institute of Railway Signal

Engineers.

Railway Infrastructure (Graduate Certificate/ Diploma/Masters) run by Queensland

University of Technology focussing mainly on track design.

6 http://www.railinnovation.com.au/

http://www.railinnovation.com.au/

71

Both of these courses are open to degree-qualified engineers and those with other tertiary

qualifications plus at least five years of industry experience. As such, the student cohort is

diverse: from graduate engineers with one year of work experience to those with 25 years

experience but no degree. Students must be employed in the rail industry and have their

employer’s support to undertake the course since they must have a designated workplace

mentor. Both courses are delivered in part-time, distance learning mode and engage

students through remote exercises including group exercises, presentations, team projects

and peer assessment.

A key feature of both courses is that they are very much grounded in rail engineering

practice. The course content was developed by groups of industry experts who documented

the bodies of both formal and tacit knowledge which comprise their sub-discipline.

Educationalists at the universities then had the challenge of translating this into teachable

course materials. In addition to each student having a workplace mentor, tutors tend to be

industry practitioners and assignments involve students applying what they have learned in

the context of their own workplace.

According to the academics responsible for the courses, the benefits of this mode of learning

are considerable. Being focussed on real-life problems grounds the theory into everyday

practice and deepens their learning experience. For less experienced engineers it provides a

fast-track to their technical knowledge base. For the highly experience engineers, many of

whom have always worked for the same employer in the same jurisdiction, it provides an

opportunity to critically analyse their own practice and that of their employer as they are

exposed to new technologies and different ways of working.

A small number of interviewees had completed one of these courses and had found them

highly valuable. This engineer who was trade rather than degree-qualified said the style of

practical teaching and assessment suited their learning style and provided a deep form of

learning which meant he had retained much of what he had been taught:

So it suited my style of learning perfectly, it wasn’t exam-based, it was like the weekly

assignments and you know, the research and reading through and understanding what it

was, rather than just remembering stuff to cram into an exam.

72

Project Manager

The following interviewee completed the signalling course in his first year of work as a

graduate. Although he found the course useful, he felt that he would have taken more away

from the course if he had more rail experience at work:

And yeah it’s quite good. The bad thing about it is because we just started working in the

rail industry and there’s a lot of things we don’t know. So you need to know the basics ,

you need to know what they are talking about. So yeah I would actually recommend

anyone if you want to do it, do it after a year.


6.4 Education and Training: SUMMARY

Off-the-job learning, including short, in-depth technical courses, conferences and

manufacturers’ presentations are an important part of engineers’ professional development.

The Rail Innovation Australia model of post-graduate/post-experience education is ideal for

an industry which needs to quickly increase the supply of specialist skills. Further, this

research has identified a wide-spread need for training in the skills to mentor, supervise and

delegate to the future rail engineering workforce.

We maintain that the main site of learning is the workplace but off-the-job learning is

essential for exposing employees to new technologies and ideas and allows them to reflect

on and develop their practice. It is essential for growing a healthy knowledge and skill base.

A lack of off-the-training is a symptom of staff development not being factored into project

costs and workloads. Owner has ongoing funding and despite the ever-present need to cut

costs, the absence of a short-term profit imperative undoubtedly allows them to provide,

even over-provide, off-the-job training for their employees. The challenge for the industry is

how to incorporate these necessary costs into private sector organisations. One project

‚alliance‛ between contractors and Owner has incorporated resource development into

project goals and has a budget to do so. Outside of this unusual arrangement, where clients

73

have less control over contractor behaviour it is difficult to see how, for example, ring-

fenced funding in project budgets for staff development could be fruitfully deployed7.

The business case for an appropriately targeted staff development strategy in an industry

with a chronic skill shortage is so obvious it should not need to be stated. Engineers are

responsible for their professional development but they cannot bear the costs alone. It is also

the responsibility of organisations to analyse their cost structure versus the existing skills

base of their workforce. If they do not have the capacity to supply skills in a particular area

and they genuinely cannot incorporate staff development into their budget then perhaps

they should not be providing those services. It is the responsibility of those awarding

contracts to ask whether contractors are making a positive contribution to the skill base of

the industry since it is the asset-owner who pays the ultimate cost of inadequate skills.

7 The training levy in the construction industry for trades occupations has produced

disappointing results.

74

7 Capacity Issues

Given the highly specialised nature of work and, therefore, the long lead times involved in

developing rail-specific engineering skills, the rail industry cannot rely solely on increased

supply to solve its capacity crisis. A specific focus of the qualitative research was to

examine demand-side issues including how rail engineering skills were being utilised. We

asked rail engineers to identify sub-optimal use of their engineering skills and the main

causes of problems on the projects they worked on. This type of workplace-level intelligence

is vital for identifying alternative solutions to the skill shortage.

In the last twenty years, the rail industry has experienced highly variable levels of

investment. The dramatic downsizing of the workforce is celebrated as evidence of much

needed efficiency gains (see Productivity Commission 1999). However, the contraction in

demand for rail engineering skills through low infrastructure investment has both eroded

the skill base and degraded the infrastructure, creating the current gulf between demand

and supply.

[Rail] went through a period of about 10 to 15 years in which basically stopped

recruiting. So there is a lack of people coming in the industry and we went through a

lean period of a relatively small capital investment and now we’re getting all this work

coming in and we’ve just not enough experienced people around to deliver it.


Without the stimulation of a market for rail engineering skills following the privatisation

reforms recommended by the 1991 Industry Commission, there was little incentive, until

recently, for the private sector to invest in developing its rail skills base. The result of this

pattern of demand is a rail engineering labour force, in both the public and private sectors,

which is very thinly spread. Many rail engineers have high workloads and are working on

too many projects at once which creates skill utilisation problems and perpetuates a vicious

cycle of skills shortage.

Some of the evidence presented here, especially that relating to engineering standards, is

specific to the rail industry and, to some extent, the jurisdiction where the case studies took

place (7.3). However, the questions of workload (7.1) and project planning (7.2) are common

75

across different types of engineering, and are of particular relevance to large civil

infrastructure projects.

7.1 Workload: A Skills Shortage Vicious Cycle

We asked interviewees ‚What are the most common causes of you, or your team, failing to achieve

planned goals?‛ Overwhelmingly the most common reason given was inadequate

engineering capacity: within their team, their organisation and across the industry. The

shortage of rail engineering skills appeared to be fairly constant. The project-based nature of

work in the private sector meant they experienced some peaks and troughs although the

troughs were limited in duration.

7.1.1 Balancing multiple projects

Most engineers are working on several projects at once, especially the technical specialists

responsible for design and/or reviewing. It was universally agreed across the case study

organisations that there were not enough of these specialists to do all the work planned.

… some of our design guys, their utilisation is at 300% just because they’re so niched

and they’re so specialist...

Design Manager

I find when we have the luxury sometimes to have resources dedicated to a project it’s

fantastic; but that’s usually at a time when we’ve been pressured to provide those

resources at the expense of other projects.

Design Manager

This presents a challenge for project and design managers who must try to co-ordinate

resources and get designers to focus on their particular task to meet clients’ timelines. This is

much more challenging when the engineer’s time that is needed on the project is employed

by another firm. With internal resources, a reallocation solution may be sought through

management:

We’re lucky. We’ve got all the design ourselves, so, we’re not relying on other consultants to

work with us, which is great. If I have problems with resources, I can escalate it to people

internally, whereas if it’s an external company, you’re working to force another consultant to

put more resources on a project...

Project Manager

76

Alternative means of persuasion have to be used for an external firm.

… it often requires you just calling someone up and saying hey we’ve got this coming

through, I need you to put a week aside for this, just keep reminding them that this is

coming through, it’s critical, I need you to do it basically

Design Manager

With resource constraints, you’ve got to do your best to make it attractive for someone

who’s already fully allocated on something else to do work on your project. That’s why I

go half-way [i.e. mark up the drawings] … if you go, ‚I’ve had a crack at it‛, people

respond better to reviewing something that someone’s already done, rather than starting

from scratch.

Design Manager

For those engineers with rare technical skills, prioritising the demands of competing projects

is extremely difficult. It can lead to a ‚fire-fighting‛ situation where the most pressing tasks

are dealt with first. Several engineers complained of having to switch between multiple

projects and never being able to focus on a task for long enough to see it to completion.

I guess in reality the most common cause [of failing to achieve goals] is that I’ve got

too much work and there’s too many projects which have the same priority – they’re all

high priority – so you can start something and then as soon as something pops in your

email box and then people ring you, it becomes more urgent because there’s quite a few

jobs with the same priority... So your priority gets changed before you finish what you’re

doing.


One department in Owner was trying to overcome this problem by introducing a system

where engineers’ time for specific projects is allocated in blocks. The work plan for the

coming weeks was published so that those who need a response from the technical experts

for their project knew when they could expect their project to be worked on:

If you say you’re going to have it on their desk that day, it’s got to be on the desk that day

otherwise it’s not going to happen. You can’t just say it’s an important job… Prove it’s

more important and we’ll re-prioritise it. You go and talk to so and so whose job isn’t

going to get done and make them aware that it’s not going to get done and then come back

and…


77

Increasing the control over workflow and certainty over when projects will be prioritised

allows engineers to focus their attention thus improving the quality and timeliness of

responses. Timeliness is of special importance in rail since most projects operate in a live

environment relying on crucial periods of ‚possessions‛ to complete works. Possessions are

when the railway line is closed to train services. Because necessary bus replacement services

are deeply unpopular with the travelling public, the number and duration of possessions is

very limited and not adequate to complete the engineering works required. A project which

misses its allocated window of possession, most often because of the skills shortages outline

here, can be delayed by several months until the next possession.

You only get to work usually on a window of two days… the first half of the day, or first

part of the possession is trying to book everything out. Then you’ve got a small window

to try and get some work done before you make sure that everything’s tested and live

again for the Monday morning. So you’ve got really complicated projects like we’ve got

at the moment and it’s sort of getting done bit by bit…

Project Manager

7.1.2 Consequences of over-commitment

Not having the requisite resources available at critical times on projects further exacerbates

the shortage of skills. Errors and re-work can be avoided if all those with the relevant

knowledge and skills are available to meet and solve problems at critical points in the

project. As discussed in Chapter 5, this is major importance for the generation and transfer

of knowledge within project teams, particularly given the interdisciplinary and highly

specialised nature of rail engineering.

I mean we try to get as many people in a room as such, but I mean everyone’s got project

commitments, it’s not always possible… at each stage [the design] goes through a

review process where … everyone should come together and review the design from every

aspect… and I’ve been in circumstances where it hasn’t happened and things have gone

wrong, just because we haven’t had time to do that design co-ordination meeting.

Design Manager

The over-deployment of specialist engineers has clear consequences for the quality of work

produced. It is unlikely that designers will produce their best work under extreme time

pressure, increasing the likelihood of errors and the need to rework, itself a major drain on

engineering capacity.

78

… the resources issue feeds into people having too high a workload… they just don’t have

the time to dedicate to give the best design, or they don’t get chance to do it at all.

Design Manager

There is also a personal cost to long working hours and intense workloads which has a

further deleterious effect on project performance:

If you have people starting to work longer hours, then your morale suffers, then your

work quality suffers and what you’re producing might not be as good quality as what it

should be, and then next thing people start getting sick because they’re run-down or

they’ve had a gutful of it and don’t want to do any more. So, it has an impact; it affects

the quality of the work as well as the timeliness of it. Then it becomes a circle, because

you start being more and more late.

Project Manager

7.1.3 Managing workload through managed demand

Not all of the interviewees in the study worked long hours but most had high, intense

workloads. Some said they strictly monitored their hours because working longer hours did

not seem to make any difference, more work simply came in to fill the gap:

It gets stressful from time to time but I’m usually fairly regimented, because I have kids.

So I like to do eight, nine hours a day, that’s it. I go home and I stop. I know a lot of the

other guys when they get home still check emails, keep working, but there’s always more

to do… there’s just as much when you get to work the next day. Unless it’s coming up to

a critical deadline, then I’ll put in the extra time to make sure that it gets there.


Given the huge negative impact over-work is having on efficient skill utilisation and that

little can be done about the supply of rail engineering skills in the short to medium term,

part of the solution to the capacity crisis must lie in managing the demand for scarce skills.

Poorly managed demand in the form of low investment created the current skill shortage

and poorly managed demand in the form of high investment is now exacerbating that

shortage. There are two areas of potential intervention.

Firstly, setting realistic timelines for projects which properly take account of the actual

availability of engineering labour to complete the tasks would greatly improve project

performance. This includes expanded periods of possessions in which to complete works.

With reductions in reworking and delays due to skill shortages, projects may not necessarily

take longer overall and are likely to cost less.

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Secondly, it is within the power of State and Federal governments to pace the demand for

rail infrastructure in way which is predictable and sustainable, allowing asset-owners and

industry to build quality infrastructure and grow a solid skill base for the future. Skill

supply is rarely factored in to government spending plans (in any sector) yet it is absolutely

central to the quality of the final product and the value for money it represents. The

traditional expectation that industry’s supply of labour will simply catch-up with demand

does not account for the long lead times needed to develop the required engineering skills.

7.2 Project Scoping and Planning

In the previous section, we identified that insufficient consideration of skill supply in rail

infrastructure investment decisions was having a serious impact on the performance of

projects. Another problem identified by interviewees at the early stage of a project’s life

cycle is insufficient technical input from engineers at the scoping stages (i.e. before they are

contracted out) and at the more detailed planning phase (i.e. when work plans are being

set).

Project scope is the contractual expression of a client’s requirements (in rail this is usually

the government asset-owner). A 2008 survey of organisations responsible for construction

and civil infrastructure projects (including rail) found that 52 per cent felt their projects were

not sufficiently or accurately scoped prior to going to market (Blake Dawson, 2008). The

research also identified that:

Problems with scoping documents are most commonly picked up only when they

become a problem during project execution.

That scoping inadequacies can cost overruns, delayed completion and legal disputes.

Scoping inadequacies resulted in 26 per cent of the $1 billion+ projects being more

than $200 million over budget.

Inexperience and insufficient level of competence of those preparing the scope

documents are the most significant contributors to inadequate scoping. The skilled

people identified as most difficult to find were: project managers (61%), engineers

(53%), other designers (48%).

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Not enough time is spent on scoping. In the public sector, political imperatives were

often cited as taking precedence over realistic planning timelines.

The report implored industry (clients and contractors) ‚to think and act differently‛: to

spend much greater care and attention over the technical content of scope documents which

have been of secondary importance to negotiations over commercial terms and conditions.

These calls were echoed by engineers and managers across our case study companies who

identified that, historically, project scoping exercises in rail have had insufficient

engineering input and insufficient integration between the engineering disciplines. Like

other industries, project scope and investment plans in rail have been formulated primarily

by non-engineering ‚planners‛. Owner is seeking to rectify this by bringing high-level

specialist engineers into the process and developing a ‚systems engineering‛ discipline to

tie it all together. This engineer illustrates why this is important:

…there’s a bend in the track, there’s a road overpass and we were going to put the

station right beside the road overpass because that means you’ve got almost no road to the

station, it’s cheaper. If you move it a couple of hundred metres away you’ve got to put in

a road from the road, and there’s a lot of expense to that. When we showed it to our chief

engineers they said well hang on, as you’re coming around that bend, and you’ve got a

bridge with a centre support, the driver can’t see past that centre support properly, he

can’t see the signals… the trains would have to slow down on that bend… we would

always have a speed limit on the trains coming into the station. Timetables would be

slowed down. We moved the station 200 metres away and that’s eliminated the problems.

So that’s why there are systems engineers because they need to worry about how it all

integrates, how it all works.

Project Manager

Getting project scope right is crucial from a skill utilisation point of view. If the work above

went ahead according to the original plan, a lot of engineering labour would have been

wasted identifying and then rectifying the mistake, re-scoping the project and renegotiating

the contract. The project would have been late and it is likely that cost-overruns would have

been more than the additional funds needed to build the access road. The consequence of a

more rigorous approach to scoping is that while more projects won’t make it past the

scoping phase, those which do are more likely to be on time and on budget, which has a

direct impact on the efficient utilisation of engineering labour.

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… for something major that you need to go to Treasury, say, for the money for, the

concept has got a lot of rigorous engineering input, as opposed to planning only input…

by moving some of the risk forward you improve the reliability and significantly improve

the accuracy and likelihood of achieving your project on budget, time and cost, but some

of the projects at that business case stage will get rejected… It’s improving the quality of

your final outcome of those projects that proceed at the cost of maybe spending some

money on projects that don’t proceed.

Project Manager

Specialist engineers also complained that there was insufficient technical input into the

detailed planning process and in setting deadlines for projects which do go ahead.

Generalist project managers and senior managers set project plans and deadlines without a

full appreciation of the complexities of individual disciplines and how they interface in a

live project environment.

The project managers who are controlling the overall process, while they have very good

project management skills, once they come down to the discipline level, there may be a

lack of understanding of the finer steps in the planning… So while the big milestones are

fairly well defined in the project management sense, the micro steps involved in that

process could be missed...


The biggest problem I’ve probably found on projects is that a lot of people that are higher

up, that are making the deadlines are usually not familiar enough with signalling or

don’t understand it enough and the complexities involved... they just think ‘oh yes we can

do this bit of work in this timeframe’, and they don’t understand what paperwork needs to

be developed for that to happen, all the bits of kit that have to be bought…

Project Manager

The benefits to engaging specialist engineering skills much earlier in the life cycle of projects

are clear: more accurate scoping and planning improve skill utilisation and project

performance freeing up engineers to work on new projects rather than fixing up flawed

ones.

7.3 Engineering Authority and Standards

Rail is a cautious industry. The engineering specifications required of a piece of

infrastructure are articulated in prescriptive ‚standards‛ and who is allowed to perform

certain work is regulated through systems of ‚engineering authority‛. This conservatism is

often attributed to rail safety legislation which vests ultimate responsibility for safety in the

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asset-owners. However, the interpretation of this legislation has to be put in the context of

industry norms and culture, as the Rail Industry Safety and Standards Board (RISSB)

explains:

Historically, a prescriptive, rule-based approach to safety has meant that the rail industry

has been slower than others to embrace the performance-based risk management regime

that is now recognised as best-practice.

RISSB (2010)

It should be noted that different regimes for standards and authorities prevail both within

and between States and it was not within the scope of the project to compare practice across

jurisdictions. Interviewees with experience of working on different networks suggested that

the asset-owner in the case study jurisdiction is at the prescriptive, conservative end of the

spectrum. However, the underlying issues are similar throughout Australia because they are

all established on the old, bureaucratic British Rail system8.

The relevance of engineering standards and authorities from a skills capacity point of view

is that designs which are deemed not to come up to the prescribed engineering standards

causes a great deal of rework (both within Owner and private sector contractors) while

restrictions on who can review designs has resulted in bottlenecks in approvals and

therefore delays on projects.

7.3.1 Engineering Authority

A system of engineering authority determines whether an engineer is competent to perform

particular tasks either under supervision or on their own and whether they are able to check,

review or approve the work of others. Employees of Owner have this authority on an

ongoing basis for as long as they work on relevant tasks. They have their authority

upgraded or downgraded based on a logbook of work undertaken and their supervisor’s

and/or a senior engineer’s assessment of their competency. This system has developed in a

somewhat ad hoc manner, varying between engineering disciplines and largely based on

informal practice rather than a formal system of defined competencies. Historically,

8 These issues can be found in other British Commonwealth countries. One interviewee

noted similar frustrations working on the Hong Kong network.

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competency has been determined by the judgment of senior engineers which relies on

him/her having an intimate knowledge of the employee’s work.

The diffusion of rail engineering labour across multiple organisations makes this process

unworkable. The present solution is that engineering authority is granted to non-Owner

employees on a project-by-project rather than on an on-going basis. Engineers submit a CV

and history of the relevant work they have undertaken and the most senior engineers in

Owner assess whether that person is competent to perform the work. For contractors, this

restricts labour flexibility between projects since a new engineering authority has to be

granted for the same individual for each project. Different processes of engineering

authority pertain for each network in Australia and there is no system of agreed

competencies between them, which further inhibits labour flexibility (between projects,

jurisdictions and employers). While work on other networks will be taken into account, this

project-by-project approach to licensing means there is no clear rail engineering career

pathway outside asset-owner employment.

Owner recognises that the engineering authority process is not ideal but believes that current

skill levels within the private sector makes these restrictions necessary:

We have an engineering authority process, individuals are authorised to do certain works

on a job by job basis. So we can keep an eye on who's working on what projects and if

there are any issues we can feed that back and intervene. We don't want to be at that job

by job level, but the risks currently are such that we need to have a job by job overview.

Manager

A further impact of the engineering authority process is that the only people who can review

and approve the design for construction are the highly specialised, technical experts within

Owner who, as noted above, are spread very thinly. This bottleneck prevents projects from

proceeding in a timely fashion.

I don’t think [Owner] have got the expertise over a number of people to actually do the

reviews that are required on the projects that are going on at the moment…the staff in

[Owner] are very specialised … one person is responsible for getting the responses back...


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In addition to a shortage of people able to approve designs, from Owner’s point of view the

reviewing process is inefficient because of they are not able to simply sign-off on designs

submitted by contractors. High-level reviewers have to spend a great deal of time providing

feedback on why they cannot approve the design so it can be reworked.

It's not just getting it right the first time, there's quite a lot of wastage there, reiterations of

design, continually iterating… The fact is that if there is a lack of expertise then we have to

intervene to provide that expertise and that diverts us from the core task of reviewing and

approving. So you end up being a designer rather than providing a risk based acceptance

review, which is more where we want to be.

Manager

7.3.2 Engineering Standards

A consistent message from interviewees, especially senior engineers, was that the biggest

waste of engineering labour was in the reworking of designs for approval by Owner. The

cycle of feedback and rework between Owner and their contractors is in itself developing

knowledge and skills within the industry, but it is an incredibly inefficient process.

So when we're doing a design review we provide feedback on the deficiencies of a design or

where improvements need to be made and that acts as a feedback mechanism so people try to

understand it. The problem with that is that there's a lot of time lost in that process of going

backwards and forwards before you iterate down to the final design.

Manager

The issue of high workloads outlined above must be factored in: designers often simply did

not have the time to produce work to the required standard. This design manager, who

estimated he spent 30 to 40 per cent of his time making corrections to drawings, felt

workload played a major role in designs being rejected.

I honestly think it depends on how much time the designer has, because they have three or

four projects; I’m one of three or four or five or six projects that they’ve got going at once.

Design Manager

That designs submitted for approval were not drafted with sufficient detail and in an

appropriate format was a common complaint from technical experts in Owner. Here the

different attitudes to utility are apparent. A design engineer in a private sector firm will

provide the level of detail required for a piece of new infrastructure to be built. Owner

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requires a much greater level of detail since they are responsible for the operation and

maintenance of the infrastructure over its life course.

{Private contractors] say give me some money to build a job. This is enough documentation

to build that job, that’s it we walk away from it. Whereas we have a different expectation,

that we own the thing for the next 50 years and there’s got to be something recorded to say

that this is what we built.


However, this senior engineer in Owner identified that the problem of sub-standard drafting

was not limited to designs submitted by private contractors but also those submitted for

internal projects by design engineers employed by Owner.

… they don’t see the value in spending that extra bit of time just to make the drawing look

presentable…. When the answer’s there, the numbers add up, that’s all they want to do.


It was not possible to assess the adequacy of drafting resources available within the case

study organisations. However, engineers both at the reviewing and the design management

end felt they were spending too much time drafting and/or making amendments to

drawings suggesting there are a shortage of drafters, in particular those able to work to the

format required by Owner.

The usual reason for Owner to reject a design is because the standards were not properly

applied. The standards are highly detailed and complex and require tacit knowledge gained

through practice to interpret and apply them — experience which is lacking in private sector

contractors. There was some debate among private sector interviewees around whether all

of the standards specified by Owner were necessary, asserting that this could be contributing

to the high costs associated with rail projects.

I’d say in the civil side of things. The depths of their trenches and stuff like that is all to

the letter of the law and now they’re probably realising that maybe you don’t have to do it

that deep, things like that. If it’s not safety critical, you know. I’m not bagging [Owner]

at all, I think their standards are good but it’s just the cost is sometimes outweighing the

need for the standard.

Project Manager

There was also a perception among private sector interviewees that sometimes designs were

rejected not because of a failure to adhere to standards (i.e. formal, technical specifications)

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but because they did not align with Owner’s conventions (i.e. informal practice not codified in

the standards). An example was given where engineers in Owner insisted a design for

overhead wiring was changed, not because it failed to meet the standards, but because it

was not how Owner engineers would have designed it. While we did not determine the

extent of this practice, similar frustrations were shared by other engineers.

The rail industry has been criticised for being overly-prescriptive in its standards, that it

stifles innovation and slows the adoption of best practice from other jurisdictions. Such

prescriptive standards are also seen to undermine the professional practice and creativity of

engineers. The assertion of Owner’s engineering conventions as having similar status to

standards further reduces the scope for alternative solutions to problems. It essentially

expects private sector firms to emulate Owners’ practice. This makes former employees of

Owner highly attractive recruits.

Having [worked for Owner] I think I’ve got probably a little bit better understanding how

things should be done … and so I can show [colleagues] before the designs actually goes out,

it saves a lot of work, a lot of cost, a lot of rework.


Without this insider knowledge, the process of designing and approval is time consuming

and, private sector interviewees suggest, may not result in the best engineering outcome. As

this engineer with over 20 years of experience in the rail industry commented:

People ask with rail projects why does it take so long and why does it cost so much? Well,

there is your answer. It is in the standards.

Project Manager

However, as we have emphasised throughout this report, rail is a particularly complex field

of engineering. Asset-owners must ensure that the interface between different technologies

and engineering disciplines are controlled so that the network can operate safely and

effectively as whole. If a contractor devises a new engineering solution on part of the

infrastructure, the asset-owner has to consider the impact this innovation has on the

network as a whole as well as any potential increase to maintenance costs of multiple

technologies co-existing.

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7.3.3 Long-term Structural Solutions

The evidence presented here is not intended to apportion blame, rather it aims to illustrate a

fundamental tension within the rail sector which is compounding the capacity crisis9.

Owner’s need to maintain the safety and integrity of their highly complex network is

completely understandable. As is their concern about the relatively low rail engineering

skill-base within the private sector. Owner is continually improving their reviewing process

and turnaround times for approvals have been reduced. It is also increasing the

transparency of its engineering standards and engineering authority process including a

move towards formal competency standards.

However, in the long term, the actions of individual organisations to improve their

processes will not resolve a structural problem. The question of who bears the risk of the

actions of an individual engineer or team of engineers is central to freeing up capacity. As

long as that rests, or is perceived to rest with an asset-owner then the likelihood is that the

inefficiencies involved in the private sector having to emulate public sector practice will

continue.

Rail safety legislation is a contested area. Contractors are keen to assume more risk while

asset-owners are generally unwilling to relinquish it. There is some ambiguity over where

risk truly lies since it has relied almost entirely on the asset-owners interpretation of their

legislative responsibilities, which itself is embedded in generations of custom and practice.

Compounding this problem is the reality that regardless of how legal risk is attributed, it is

very difficult for the public sector to shift political risk to the private sector since the

community tends to think of rail as a public service, regardless of who builds or operates it.

However, appropriately placing risk where is belongs (i.e. those responsible for the work)

has the potential to allow for less prescriptive engineering standards; improving skill

utilisation and allowing the adoption of more cost-effective engineering solutions. It will be

very challenging to achieve this while maintaining the integrity of the networks. To properly

9 As noted previously, it was not within the scope of the project to assess practice across

jurisdictions. The issues presented here may be more acute in than in some other

jurisdictions but the underlying dynamics are similar.

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free up rail engineering capacity and create an industry-wide career pathway, there also

needs to be an alignment of engineering standards and competencies between jurisdictions.

Many interviewees, including academics responsible for running the rail post-graduate

programs, believed that the differences between the networks in Australia were not as great

as first appears. Instead, they believed that the fundamental principles are the same and the

biggest differences lie in the engineering conventions rather than safety-critical standards.

The Rail Industry Safety and Standards Board has been established to set national safe

working standards for rail operations. An even more challenging task will be to establish

national rail engineering standards and a competency framework to allow a national

licensing system for rail engineers. This would provide an important sense of professional

identity and a career pathway within rail engineering which is not reliant on project-by-

project or employer-determined approval to perform certain work.

7.4 Capacity Issues: SUMMARY

Long-lead times in the development of rail-specific engineering skills means demand-side

solutions need to play a part in any strategy to overcome the acute capacity crisis. It should

be noted that the vast majority of interviewees felt their skills were being well-utilised and,

other than increasing the supply of drafters to reduce the drafting burden on professional

engineers, we found little evidence for significant role redesign to improve skill utilisation.

Managing Demand

Huge swings in demand (i.e. government investment in rail) have produced and

perpetuated the current skills shortage. The rail engineering labour force, in both the public

and private sectors, is over-stretched. Many have high workloads and are working on too

many projects which increases the likelihood of delays, errors and reworking, which is a

major drain on engineering capacity.

At the workplace level, managers need to avoid engineers being in ‚fire-fighting‛ mode. The

process of blocking out time for specific projects introduced by one of the departments at

Owner offers a model of how this might be done. Increasing engineers’ control over

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workflow and certainty over when projects will be prioritised allows engineers to focus their

attention thus improving the quality and timeliness of their work.

At the government level, the demand for rail infrastructure needs to be paced in a way

which is predictable and sustainable, allowing asset-owners and industry to build quality


situation is evidence that simply expecting industry supply of labour to catch-up does not


Involving Engineers in Project Scoping and Planning

A related issue is the need to involve specialist, technical engineering input at the scoping

stages (i.e. before they are contracted out) and at the more detailed planning phase (i.e.

when work plans are being set) to avoid inappropriate, avoidable decisions being made

which are expensive to rectify when the project has commenced.

The benefits of engaging specialist engineering skills much earlier in the life cycle are clear.

More accurate scoping from a technical engineering perspective will improve skill utilisation

and project performance, freeing up engineers to work on new projects rather than

amending flawed ones. Setting realistic timelines for projects which properly take account

of the actual requirement for and availability of engineering labour and integrating finer,

technical details (including how the engineering disciplines interact) would also improve the

timeliness of projects and avoid the poor skill utilisation associated with inadequate project

planning. All organisations, including governments should identify and foster the

beginnings of good practice in this area.

A national engineering standards and authorities regime

The biggest waste of engineering labour identified by interviewees across the case studies

was in the reworking of design and construction to meet Owner’s standards. Labour

utilisation and flexibility is greatly restricted by the project-by-project, jurisdictional-specific

regime of engineering authority. Risk is central to both of these issues. As long as risk rests

with an asset-owner then the inefficiencies of the private sector having to emulate public

sector practice will continue.

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Appropriately placing risk where is belongs (i.e. those responsible for the work) has the

potential to allow for less prescriptive engineering standards, improving skill utilisation and

allowing the adoption of more cost-effective engineering solutions. Establishing common

rail engineering standards and a competency framework to allow a national licensing

system for rail engineers would provide an important sense of professional identity and a

career pathway within rail engineering which is not reliant on project-by-project or

employer-determined approval to perform certain work. However, the infancy of the

private sector rail engineering market and associated low skill base within it, as well as the

deep-rooted cultural and legislative changes required, make this a long-term goal.

In the short to medium term, improvements to approval processes and a more transparent


review of how standards are being applied by Owner. Standards which are safety-critical,

central to network integrity and/or reduce maintenance costs clearly need to be protected

but there could be potential for loosening the application of some of the engineering

conventions which are not. Increasing the supply of drafters trained in the Owner’s

requirements could reduce the amount of professional engineering time spent on drafting

problems.

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8 Key Findings and Recommendations

The aims of the research were to examine engineering job roles, how these interrelate at the

workplace and to quantify the supply of engineers in the road and rail industries. The

findings presented here combine the results from both the quantitative mapping of the road

and rail industries (and all engineers) and the in-depth case studies on skill utilisation and

acquisition in rail industry. Recommendations comprise actions at the workplace and

industry level and are largely based on the good practice found in the case study

organisations. There are also some policy implications for government. The applicability of

the findings to the broader engineering workforce is considered as well as potential areas for

future research.

8.1 Road and Rail Engineering Workforce Profile

Analysis of ABS data found that the key features of the road and rail engineering workforce

are:

The road and rail engineering workforce represents a small proportion (about 4%) of

the whole engineering workforce in Australia.

The road and rail engineering workforce is predominantly: male, full-time employed,

working in the private sector, highly-educated, and Australian-born. Consistent with

its high average level of education, the workforce is also well-paid.

The attributes of engineers employed in the road and rail sector are similar to those

of the engineering workforce generally, although they appear to be slightly more

likely to work full-time and as such are slightly higher paid. The similarity between

the road and rail engineering and whole engineering workforces implies that skill

capacity problems in the former are likely to derive from broader structural and

labour market problems in the latter.

The road and rail engineering workforce is distributed across Australia

approximately in proportion to the populations of the States and Territories,

although there is some evidence of over-representation in the higher-growth States of

Queensland and Western Australia, both at a single point in time (2006) and in terms

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of migration between 2001 and 2006. About 10 percent of the current road and rail

engineering workforce is made up of persons who moved to Australia from overseas

in the previous five years.

People from non-English speaking backgrounds constitute a significant proportion of

engineering employment in the road and rail sectors, particularly of the engineers

who have completed postgraduate qualifications.

Within the road and rail sector, engineers employed in Rail Transport are much more

heavily concentrated in the public sector than engineers employed in either Heavy

and Civil Engineering Construction or Road Transport.

8.2 Engineering Labour Supply

The key labour supply issues evident from the statistical analysis are:

Approximately half of all engineers had been in their current occupation for more

than five years in 2009. Close to one-third were long-serving employees who have

been in their occupation for more than 10 years. There also appears to be a healthy

supply of new entrants to the engineering profession, with some 14 percent of

engineers having been in their occupation for less than a year in 2009.

Labour force participation rates are high among people with engineering

qualifications, and unemployment rates are low, implying limited spare capacity in

the engineering population.

However, there is a large group of employed persons with qualifications in

engineering who are not currently employed in engineering occupations. Although

this potential labour supply is large, there are significant differences in the education

levels of employed engineers and non-engineers, implying that the latter could not

easily enter engineering jobs without further training. Another implication seems to

be that people with engineering qualifications are in demand outside of the

engineering occupations, which may serve further to intensify the existing shortages

faced by engineering firms.

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Recommendation 2A

Any increase to the numbers of engineering graduates must be complemented with

strategies to attract and retain them in engineering roles. There may be some scope for

‚return to practice‛ initiatives to re-skill people who are not currently utilising their

engineering qualifications.

Only 6 percent of the rail and road engineering workforce is female. The female

share of employment is highest in the youngest age category and declines abruptly

after the age of 30 years.

There appears to be a significant difference in the average incomes of men and

women working full-time in the road and rail engineering workforce. The lower

female average income is not due to differences in educational attainment, since

women are more likely than men to be highly-qualified.

Recommendation 2B

The underrepresentation and poor retention of female engineers is a significant barrier to

labour supply. Initiatives to increase the number of women entering the profession need to

be complemented with workplace practices which retain women (and indeed men) through

the life course and address the gender pay gap. Rising working hours due to the skill

shortage present significant barriers to this process.

8.3 Workplace Learning

For engineers, the workplace is the main site of learning. Learning occurs horizontally

between peers through teamwork and vertically from experienced to more junior engineers

through supervision and delegation.

Teamwork is central to knowledge generation and transfer

In engineering, knowledge is perpetually being generated, reformed, transferred and

applied as client specifications are interpreted, problems are solved and the effort of

individuals and teams are combined. It is through teamwork and human interaction that

engineers achieve their tasks. Through their co-ordinating roles, design managers and

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project managers achieve a broad body of rail engineering knowledge. By mediating

between different disciplines, they transfer discipline interface knowledge to the technical

specialists.


and skills which are distributed across the organisations responsible for different elements

of the project. Information technologies facilitate the flow of information but face-to-face

interaction was valued above all others for efficient decision-making and problem solving.

Recommendation 3A

Organisations need to consider how to maximise knowledge transfer within teams, allowing


organisations. The co-location of multi-organisation project teams and relationship

contracting arrangements appear to facilitate this process. Workloads need to be managed

so that essential meetings between engineers from different disciplines and organisations

can occur.

Room for improvement in the vertical transfer of knowledge


engineering and fundamental to how novice engineers become practitioners. At the other

end of the career life cycle, organisations are scrambling to extract and preserve the tacit

knowledge of the large cohort of technical specialists approaching retirement. Currently,

processes of vertical knowledge transfer were rather ad hoc, relying on the personalities and

inherent skills of engineers. High workloads also impeded the process.

Recommendation 3B

A healthy workplace learning environment sees ‘knowledge sharing’ embedded into the job

design and workloads of engineers. If this is not done, the overburdening of senior

engineers continues and the development of engineers required to meet demand is

impeded. Supervision and mentoring should be incorporated into performance assessment

reviews. Engineers require feedback on how they can improve these skills so that

development needs, including off-the-job training, can be identified.

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Monitoring the experience of graduate engineers

Structured graduate programs facilitate the transition from novice engineer, whose body of

knowledge is largely theoretical, to practitioner who can apply that knowledge as an

independent professional. This is mainly done on-the-job through exposure to different

projects, disciplines and roles with the dual purpose of developing a broad base of

knowledge and helping graduates identify their strengths and preferences. Some of the

graduates in the study were underutilised, principally due to the poor delegation skills of

their supervisor, while others had been given too much responsibility for their level of

experience and skill.

Recommendation 3C

To retain and develop the future rail engineering workforce, organisations need to closely

monitor the experience of their graduates, to ensure that their interest is maintained through

meaningful work without being burnt-out before their graduate program is complete.

8.4 Education and Training

The qualifications composition of the road and rail engineering workforce is changing as the

workforce ages, towards more workers with Bachelor’s Degrees and fewer with Diplomas or

Advanced Diplomas. This reflects the formalisation of engineering training within the

university system and was borne out by the rail case studies where a number of older

engineers were qualified to practice through their employer rather than formal qualification.

Access to off-the-job training

The workplace is the main site of learning but off-the-job learning is essential for exposing

employees to new technologies and ideas, allowing them to reflect on and develop their

practice, which is essential for growing a healthy knowledge and skill base. Off-the job

training includes: short technical courses, ‘soft skills’ and project management, conferences

and manufacturers’ presentations. All are an important part of engineers’ professional

development.

96

Restricted access to off-the-job training is a symptom of staff development not being factored

in to project costs and workloads. Access was generally better in the public sector, facilitated

by their on-going funding structure. The project-based nature of work in the private sector

has traditionally compounded a short-term view of resource development. However, the

business case for an appropriately targeted staff development strategy in an industry with a

chronic skill shortage is so obvious it should not need to be stated. Engineers are

responsible for their professional development but they cannot bear the costs alone.

Recommendation 4A

The capacity crisis in engineering cannot be resolved without investment in skill

development, including appropriately targeted off-the-job training and development.

Organisations (and the industry more broadly) need to consider how time for skills

development is incorporated into the workload and the cost structure of projects. To

incentivise skills investment, the contribution a firm makes to the skill base of the industry

should form part of decisions to award contracts. The role of ‘relationship contracting’ in the

development of industry skills should also be explored.

Alternative models of education in rail engineering

Rail Innovation Australia (RIA) has developed two post-graduate/post-experience

qualifications in rail-specific engineering (signalling and track design) which are ideal for an

industry needing to quickly increase the supply of specialist skills. All students are

employed by the rail industry and the courses are delivered in part-time, distance learning

mode. A key feature of both courses is that they are grounded in rail engineering practice

with content developed by groups of industry experts.

Recommendation 4B

Industry might consider other areas of specialist engineering (e.g. rail power supply) which

would be suitable for the RIA model of post-graduate/post-experience qualification.

97

8.5 Skill Utilisation

Long-lead times in the development of rail-specific engineering skills mean that demand-

side solutions need to play a part in any strategy to overcome the acute capacity crisis. It

should be noted that the vast majority of interviewees felt their skills were being well-

utilised and we found little evidence for significant role redesign to improve skill utilisation.

Increasing the supply of drafters

It was not possible to assess the adequacy of drafting resources available within the case

study organisations. However, engineers both at the reviewing and the design management

end felt they were spending too much time drafting and/or making drafting amendments to

drawings, suggesting there is a shortage of drafters, in particular those able to work to the

format required by Owner.

Recommendation 5A

Increasing the supply of drafters could free up engineering capacity in the rail industry.

Managing workloads through managed demand

A larger proportion of engineers in the road and rail sector work long or very long full-time

hours than is the case in the broader engineering workforce. Long hours appear to be

particularly prevalent among younger engineers. The limited evidence we have of changes

in engineering employment patterns between 2006 and 2009 suggests that the skill demand

pressures that are likely to have contributed to long working weeks are still operating and

perhaps intensifying.

Huge swings in demand (i.e. government investment in rail) over the last 30 years has

produced and perpetuated the current skills shortage. Many rail engineers in the case study

organisations have high workloads and are working on too many projects, which increase

the likelihood of delays, errors and reworking — a major drain on engineering capacity.

98

Recommendation 5B

At the workplace level, managers need to avoid engineers being in ‚fire-fighting‛ mode. By

blocking out time for specific projects, engineers can exercise control over workflow,

allowing them to focus their attention, and thus improve the quality and timeliness of their

work.

Recommendation 5C

At the government level, the demand for rail infrastructure needs to be paced in a way that

is predictable and sustainable, allowing asset-owners and industry to build quality


situation is evidence that simply expecting industry supply of labour to catch up does not


Involving engineers in scoping and planning

The benefits of engaging specialist engineering skills much earlier in the life cycle are clear.

More accurate scoping from a technical engineering perspective will improve skill utilisation

and project performance, freeing up engineers to work on new projects rather than

amending flawed ones. Setting realistic timelines for projects which take proper account of

the actual requirement for and availability of engineering labour and integrate finer,

technical details (including how the engineering disciplines interact) would also improve the

timeliness of projects and avoid the poor skill utilisation associated with inadequate project

planning.

Recommendation 5D

Specialist, technical engineering input needs to routinely occur at the scoping stages (i.e.

before they are contracted out) and at the more detailed planning phase (i.e. when work

plans are being set) to avoid inappropriate, avoidable decisions being made which are

expensive to rectify when the project has commenced.

99

A national regime for engineering standards and authority

The biggest waste of engineering labour identified by interviewees across the case studies

was in the reworking of design and construction to meet Owner’s standards. Labour

utilisation and flexibility is greatly restricted by the project-by-project, jurisdictional-specific

regime of engineering authority. Risk is central to both of these issues. As long as risk rests

with an asset-owner then the inefficiencies of the private sector having to emulate public

sector practice will continue. Appropriately placing risk where it belongs (i.e. with those

responsible for the work) has the potential to allow for less prescriptive engineering

standards, improving skill utilisation and allowing the adoption of more cost-effective

engineering solutions. However, any deregulation must be balanced with asset-owners’

need to ensure that the interface between different technologies and engineering disciplines

are controlled so that the network can operate safely and effectively as whole.

Recommendation 5E

In the long term, establishing common rail engineering standards and a competency

framework to allow a national licensing system for rail engineers would provide an

important sense of professional identity and a career pathway within rail engineering which

is not reliant on project-by-project or employer-determined approval to perform certain

work.

Recommendation 5F

In the short to medium term, improvements to approval processes and a more transparent


review of how standards are being applied.

8.6 Relevance to the national engineering capacity crisis

Resolving the capacity crisis in rail engineering is a particularly challenging task. Rail

comprises a number of disciplines that are largely unique to rail and highly specialised.

Inter-disciplinary interface, safety-critical work practices and the live rail network make it a

difficult work environment. The pace of knowledge development for rail engineering is

therefore slow and the transferability from other sectors of engineering, and even within

100

rail, is limited. The causes of the acute skills shortage and the impediments to resolving the

capacity crisis are largely structural, and beyond the control of individual organisations:

they are rooted in the nature and patterns of demand set by governments, the complex

market structure, and rail safety legislation which apportions risk.

Despite these specific challenges, the majority of recommendations presented here are

applicable across engineering sectors and especially civil infrastructure. The model of work

organisation involving multi-disciplinary, multi-organisational teams is common to many

fields of engineering and a review of the limited research on engineering practice shows that

the challenges of workplace learning and knowledge transfer are salient in many sectors.

The impact of high workloads on efficient skill utilisation and output quality is a problem

across the economy.

Increasing the supply of engineers, workplace initiatives to improve skill utilisation, and

knowledge transfer and enhanced professional development opportunities will go some

way to easing the engineering capacity crisis. However, to escape the vicious cycle of skill

shortages contributing to errors and project overruns, industry and governments need to

look more seriously at the role of demand in perpetuating the capacity crisis. This research

suggests that involving engineers earlier in the project lifecycle and integrating the actual

supply of engineering skills into investment and contracting decisions would result in more

infrastructure projects being delivered on time, on budget and to a higher quality.

101

References

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Development for the Australasian Rail Industry, Available at http://www.ara.net.au

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 2001, Australian Standard Classification of Education

(ASCED), catalogue no. 1272.0, Canberra

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 2006a, ANZSCO – Australian and New Zealand Standard

Classification of Occupations (edition 1), catalogue no. 1220.0, Canberra

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 2006b, ANZSIC – Australian and New Zealand Standard

Industrial Classification, catalogue no. 1292.0, Canberra

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 2007, Labour Statistics: Concepts, Sources and Methods,

catalogue no. 6102.0.55.001, accessed 15 March 2011. Available online at

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/Latestproducts/F714CB617DE0D662CA

2572C100244B9A?opendocument

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 2009, Education and Training Experience, catalogue no.

6278.0, Canberra

Blacker F. (1995) ‚Knowledge, Knowledge Work and Organizations: An Overview and

Interpretation‛ Organizational Studies 16(6) pp. 1021-1046

Blake Dawson (2008) Scope for Improvement 2008. A report on scoping practices in Australian

construction and infrastructure projects. In association with Australian Construction

Association and Infrastructure Partnerships Australia. Available online at

http://www.blakedawson.com

Brown, J.S. and Duguid, P. (1991) ‚Organizational learning and communities-of-practice:

Toward a unified view of working, learning and innovation‛ Organizational Science

2(1), pp.40-57

Engineers Australia (2009) Inquiry into Skills Shortages in the Rail Industry. Submission to the

Victorian Education Committee.

Fuller, A. and Unwin, L. (2010) ‚’Knowledge Workers’ as the New Apprentices: The

Influence of Organisational Autonomy, Goals and Values on the Nurturing of

Expertise.‛ Vocations and Learning, 3 (3), pp. 203 – 222

Hart, A. (2010), Australia & New Zealand Roads Capability Analysis 2009-2019, BIS Shrapnel,

Sydney

Industry Commission (1991) Rail Transport, Report no. 13, AGPS, Canberra, August.

Kaspura, A. (2010), The Engineering Profession in Australia: A Profile from the 2006 Population

Census, Institution of Engineers Australia, Canberra

http://www.ara.net.au/

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/Latestproducts/F714CB617DE0D662CA2572C100244B9A?opendocument

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/Latestproducts/F714CB617DE0D662CA2572C100244B9A?opendocument

http://www.blakedawson.com/

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Productivity Commission (1999) Progress in Rail Reform, Inquiry report no. 6, AusInfo,

Canberra.

Rail Industry Safety and Standards Board (2010) National Rail Safety Strategy 2010-2020,

Available online at http://www.rissb.com.au

Salomon, G. (ed.) (1993) Distributed Cognitions, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Simons, M., Short, T. and Harris, R. (2009) ‚Scoping rail specific training: towards a national

approach‛, CRC for Rail Innovation.

Trevelyan, J. (2010) 'Reconstructing engineering from practice', Engineering Studies, First

published on: 13 October 2010 (iFirst)

http://www.rissb.com.au/

Appendix 1 Detailed description of occupation categories from the Australian and New

Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO) 2006

Major group Sub-Major group Minor group Unit Group

1 Managers 11 Chief Executives, General Managers and Legislators

111 Chief Executives, General Managers and Legislators

1111 Chief Executives and Managing Directors

1112 General Managers

13 Specialist Managers 132 Business Administration Managers 1324 Policy and Planning Managers

1325 Research and Development Managers

133 Construction, Distribution and Production Managers

1331 Construction Managers

1332 Engineering Managers

1334 Manufacturers

1335 Production Managers

1336 Supply and Distribution Managers

134 Education, Health and Welfare Services Managers 1344 Other Education Managers

135 ICT Managers 1351 ICT Managers

139 Miscellaneous Specialist Managers 1391 Commissioned Officers (Management)

1392 Senior Non-commissioned Defence Force Members

1399 Other Specialist Managers

2 Professionals 22 Business, Human Resource and Marketing Professionals

224 Information and Organisation Professionals 2241 Actuaries, Mathematicians and Statisticians

2244 Intelligence and Policy Analysts

2247 Management and Organisation Analysts

225 Sales, Marketing and Public Relations Professionals

2252 ICT Sales Professionals

2254 Technical Sales Representatives

23 Design, Engineering, Science and Transport Professionals

231 Air and Marine Transport Professionals 2311 Air Transport Professionals

2312 Marine Transport Professionals

232 Architects, Designers, Planners and Surveyors 2326 Urban and Regional Planners

233 Engineering Professionals 2330 Engineering Professionals, n.f.d.

2331 Chemical and Materials Engineers

2332 Civil Engineering Professionals

2333 Electrical Engineers

2334 Electronics Engineers

2335 Industrial, Mechanical and Production Engineers

2336 Mining Engineers

2339 Other Engineering Professionals

234 Natural and Physical Science Professionals 2340 Natural and Physical Science Professionals, n.f.d.

2343 Environmental Scientists

2349 Other Natural and Physical Science Professionals

24 Education Professionals 242 Tertiary Education Teachers 2421 University Lecturers and Tutors

2422 Vocational Education Teachers (Aus) / Polytechnic Teachers (NZ)

26 ICT Professionals 261 Business and Systems Analysts, and Programmers 2611 ICT Business and Systems Analysts

2613 Software and Applications Programmers

262 Database and Systems Administrators, and ICT Security Specialists

2621 Database and Systems Administrators, and ICT Security Specialists

263 ICT Network and Support Professionals 2631 Computer Network Professionals

2632 ICT Support and Test Engineers

2633 Telecommunications Engineering Professionals

3 Technicians and Trades Workers

31 Engineering, ICT and Science Technicians

312 Building and Engineering Technicians 3121 Architectural, Building and Surveying Technicians

3122 Civil Engineering Draftspersons and Technicians

3123 Electrical Engineering Draftspersons and Technicians

3124 Electronic Engineering Draftspersons and Technicians

3125 Mechanical Engineering Draftspersons and Technicians

3126 Safety Inspectors

3129 Other Building and Engineering Technicians

313 ICT and Telecommunications Technicians 3131 ICT Support Technicians

3132 Telecommunications Technical Specialists

5 Clerical and Administrative Workers

51 Office Managers and Program Administrators

511 Contract, Program and Project Administrators 5111 Contract, Program and Project Administrators

Appendix 2 Detailed description of industry categories from the Australian and New

Zealand Standard Industry Classification (ANZSIC) 2006 Division Subdivision Group Class Definition

E Construction 31 Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction

310 Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction

3101 Road and Bridge Construction

This class consists of units mainly engaged in the construction or general repair of roads, bridges, aerodrome runways or parking lots, or in organising or managing these activities.

Primary activities

Aerodrome runway construction

Asphalt surfacing

Bridge construction (including construction from prefabricated components)

Elevated highway construction

Overpass construction

Parking lot construction (except buildings)

Repair or maintenance of roads or bridges

Road construction or sealing

Exclusions/References

Units mainly engaged in

manufacturing bituminous surfacing materials (except hot-mix bituminous paving) are included in Class 1709 Other Petroleum and Coal Product Manufacturing;

the construction of tunnels for any purpose are included in Class 3109 Other Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction; and

providing special trade repair services or in undertaking special trade construction of component parts of roads or bridges e.g. in construction of kerbs or gutters only or in installing electrical wiring for traffic lights are generally included in the appropriate classes of Subdivision 32 Construction Services.

3109 Other Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction

This class consists of units mainly engaged in the construction of railway permanent way, dams, irrigation systems, harbour or river works, water or gas supply systems, oil refineries (except buildings), pipelines or construction projects not elsewhere classified, in the on-site assembly of furnaces or heavy electrical machinery from prefabricated components, or in the general repair of such structures, machinery or equipment, or in organising or managing these activities.

Primary activities

Breakwater construction

Cable laying

Canal construction

Dam construction

Distribution line, electricity or communication, construction

Dredging (harbours or rivers)

Electrical machinery, heavy, installation (on-site assembly)

Electricity power plant construction (except buildings)

Flood control system construction

Furnace construction (for industrial plants from prefabricated components)

Golf course construction

Harbour work construction (except buildings)

Irrigation system construction

Jetty construction

Lake construction

Mine site construction n.e.c.

Oil refinery construction (except buildings)

Pile driving

Pipeline construction

Railway permanent way construction

River work construction

Sewage or stormwater drainage system construction

Sewage treatment plant construction

Sports field construction

Swimming pool, below ground concrete or fibreglass, construction

Television or radio transmitting tower construction

Tunnel construction

Water tank construction (except for structural steel)



the erection or installation (including on-site fabrication) of metal silos or storage tanks are included in Class 3224 Structural Steel Erection Services;

the installation of hot water systems are included in Class 3231 Plumbing Services; and

providing special trade repair services or in undertaking special trade construction of component parts for canals, dams, etc (e.g. in constructing stone retaining walls only or in constructing or repairing fences only) are generally included in the appropriate classes of Subdivision 32 Construction Services.

Division Subdivision Group Class Definition

I

Transport, Postal and Warehousing

46 Road Transport 461 Road Freight Transport

4610 Road Freight Transport

This class consists of units mainly engaged in the transportation of freight by road. It also includes units mainly engaged in renting trucks with drivers for road freight transport and road vehicle towing service.

Primary activities

Furniture removal service

Long haulage service (road)

Road freight transport service

Road vehicle towing

Taxi truck service (with driver)

Truck hire service (with driver)



operating road freight terminals are included in Class 5299 Other Transport Support Services n.e.c.;

providing road freight forwarding services are included in Class 5292 Freight Forwarding Services;

providing crating or packing for road freight transport are included in Class 7320 Packaging Services; and

leasing or hiring trucks without drivers are included in Class 6619 Other Motor Vehicle and Transport Equipment Rental and Hiring.

462 Road Passenger Transport

4621 Interurban and Rural Bus Transport

This class consists of units mainly engaged in operating buses for the transportation of passengers over regular routes and on regular schedules, mainly outside metropolitan areas or over long distances.

Primary activities

Bus transport service, outside metropolitan area

Charter bus service, outside metropolitan area

Interurban bus service

Rural bus service



operating urban buses for the transportation of passengers are included in Class 4622 Urban Bus Transport (Including Tramway); and

operating bus passenger terminals are included in Class 5299 Other Transport Support Services n.e.c.

4622 Urban Bus Transport (Including Tramway)

This class consists of units mainly engaged in operating urban buses and tramways for the transportation of passengers, over regular routes and on regular schedules, mainly in a metropolitan area.

Primary activities

Airport bus service

Metropolitan bus service

Metropolitan charter bus service

School bus service

Tramway passenger transport service

Urban bus service Exclusions/References


operating interurban and rural buses for the transportation of passengers are included in Class 4621 Interurban and Rural Bus Transport;

operating bus passenger terminals are included in Class 5299 Other Transport Support Services n.e.c.; and

operating sightseeing/tour bus, coaches or tramways in urban areas are included in Class 5010 Scenic and Sightseeing Transport.

4623 Taxi and Other Road Transport

This class consists of units mainly engaged in operating taxi cabs or hire cars with drivers, or other forms of road vehicles not elsewhere classified, for the transportation of passengers.

Primary activities

Hire car service (with driver)

Road passenger transport n.e.c.

Taxi cab management service (i.e. operation on behalf of owner)

Taxi service



providing driving services for taxis or hire cars are included in Class 5299 Other Transport Support Services n.e.c;

operating taxi trucks with drivers are included in Class 4610 Road Freight Transport;

leasing taxi cab plates (not vehicles) are included in Class 6640 Non-Financial Intangible Assets (Except Copyrights) Leasing;

leasing, hiring or renting motor vehicles without drivers are included in Class 6611 Passenger Car Rental and Hiring;

operating a taxi radio base are included in Class 5299 Other Transport Support Services n.e.c.; and

operating sightseeing transport equipment are included in Class 5010 Scenic and Sightseeing Transport

Division Subdivision Group Class Definition

I

Transport, Postal and Warehousing

47 Rail Transport 471 Rail Freight Transport

4710 Rail Freight Transport

This class consists of units mainly engaged in operating railways for the transportation of freight by rail.

Primary activities

Rail freight transport service

Suburban rail freight service



repairing railway stock or locomotives are included in Class 2393 Railway Rolling Stock Manufacturing and Repair Services;

constructing or general repair of railway permanent way, harbour or other transport infrastructure are included in Class 3109 Other Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction;

providing rail freight forwarding services are included in Class 5292 Freight Forwarding Services; and

operating rail freight terminals are included in Class 5299 Other Transport Support Services n.e.c.

472 Rail Passenger Transport

4720 Rail Passenger Transport

This class consists of units mainly engaged in operating railways (except tramways) for the transportation of passengers over short and long distances.

Primary activities

Commuter rail passenger service

Metropolitan rail passenger service

Monorail operation

Rail passenger transport service



operating tramways for the transportation of passengers are included in Class 4622 Urban Bus Transport (Including Tramway);

operating passenger railway terminals or stations are included in Class 5299 Other Transport Support Services n.e.c; and

operating railways as a tourist attraction (scenic railways) are included in Class 5010 Scenic and Sightseeing Transport.

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