Winner Take All: How Competitiveness Shapes the Fate of Nations: , Basic Books, New York, 2008; 978-0-465-00315-0

The following are a few comments I thought were interesting and relevant to what we are trying to do in the ASCE “raise the bar” effort.

This book presents a compelling argument on how important it is for a nation to have an industrial strategy; to decide what industry a nation wants to pursue and to coordinate the components of industry competiveness.

“Over the past $40\text{years}$ , the United States has lost commanding leads in electronics, machine tools, automobiles, shipbuilding, nuclear power and many other critical industries. During the past $40\text{years}$ , Asia has become America’s most aggressive competitor in the world of technology. The increase in Asian competitiveness at the expense of the United States is not a temporary phenomenon. It is the result of years of effort on the part of Asian industry devoted to national and corporate strategies of competition against which the United States has been unwilling or unable to rally a significant defense.”

The author’s primary experience is in the electronics industry and he discusses how America has lost the lead in many aspects of that industry by focusing on the short term, not having an overall industrial strategy, and not understanding what globalism is all about. The author proposes that to continue to be a leader in any product or market, one must continually innovate and improve the product and the process. He said the reasons America has lost so many manufacturing functions has less to do with the low wages in foreign countries, and more to do with the short term mentality of American business managers. They focus too much on the next quarter’s profits and not what is appropriate to remain competitive in the long term. He also states that without the knowledge inherent in the manufacturing/production phase, one cannot innovate, research, and improve on a process and product.

The author presents the following ten principles of competition in a technological world:

In addition, a nation must have products that other nations want to buy. Without sufficient competitive products that other nations want, a nation will lose its leadership position in both the economic and political areas.

The author states: “. . . the world is neither flat nor fair.” To be competitive in a global market one must not only have a national industrial strategy, but also have close long-term ties between suppliers and the manufacturer, similar to the Japanese model and what is being developing in many other Asian nations. When the suppliers and manufacturer operate as a unit, the processes and product components are improved as an integrated system. The U.S. model does not have this benefit. This is the primary reason that many Asian manufacturing costs can be lowered at the same time quality is improved. As the author states that it is not possible to innovate, research, and improve a product without the manufacturing basis, the loss of much of the United States’ basic manufacturing capability over the past $40\text{years}$ is a serious detriment to the nations’ ability to compete.

Applying the author’s logic to the engineering education process indicates it is necessary for faculty to have adequate responsible practical engineering experience as a basis to innovate and improve the engineering process. How can faculty innovate, research, and improve on the engineering process without the basic fundamental engineering knowledge that comes only with appropriate, relevant, responsible and practical engineering experience? Interestingly, the notion that practical engineering experience is not relevant for faculty to teach engineering, a profession of practice, started approximately $40\text{years}$ ago at a time when industry decided that basic manufacturing capability was not important and they could farm it out cheaper. Therefore, if we want to position America as a global engineering leader, it is imperative that engineering faculty become competent in the practical aspects of engineering.

Author Elkus believes that the U.S. production model is not competitive in the global market and if we do not address the issues discussed here and in his book, the country will lose its economic and political influence among other nations.