Millwrights to mechatronics: The merits of multi-disciplinary engineering

Abstract In recent years the term “Mechatronics” has come into use to describe a multi-disciplinary approach to engineering (and particularly engineering design) in which a symbiosis of mechanical, electrical, electronic, computer and software engineering is used to create new design solutions to engineering problems. These mechatronic designs can often be more effective than traditional solutions rooted in mono-disciplinary engineering. This paper notes that virtually all engineering was once the province of millwrights and discusses its division into the many currently recognised constituent, and largely separate, disciplines. It is argued that this has followed from the principles of efficiency through division of production which have long been a tenet of capitalist manufacturing. In the closing two decades of the twentieth century there has been a move to return to more integrated production techniques and, with the development of microprocessors and microprocessor controlled systems and products, a need for integration in engineering design and education. The ways in which microprocessors have been applied to, or embedded in, contemporary products, machines and systems are categorised and examples of the design of mechatronic devices, with which the author has been associated, are presented.