Engineering Economics

THIS was the title of a paper presented on March 25 before a joint meeting of the Institutions of Civil, Mechanical and Electrical Engineers by Sir Frank Gill, who explained that his purpose was to urge the leading institutions to include the subject of engineering economics in the qualifications required for admission to corporate membership. Although an essential part of the equipment of a practising engineer in fitting him to decide or advise upon the most economically sound detail or scheme to adopt, this is a branch of training which has, in the main, received little attention. He described 'engineering economies'-distinct from the university meaning of economics-as being related to the question “Which of several plans, schemes or designs, each technically sound for the same job, is it advantageous to select ?”Engineering plans and decisions must be technically sound ; they must also be financially advantageous, and to stress this view several examples were mentioned. In deciding upon the size of a telephone exchange, for example, the advantages increase up to a certain number of subscribers but beyond this they diminish, and it was for a training in the methods by which such economic analyses should be made that Sir Frank pleaded.