SYNOPSIS

Around the world, no one combines innovation and engineering like designers of installations and plants. It is a glorified occupation that is not only highly rewarding but also leaves a lasting legacy. Currently, most if not all, of the major innovative engineering comes from overseas and/or foreign expatriates. Have we as Malaysians wondered why or how long that this is going to go on? However, the notion of being a designer has been tainted over the years in many parts of the world. Even in Malaysia, the definition of being a practicing designer in any of the engineering disciplines has become vague and too general. All this started when every graduate rightly or wrongly has started to call themselves as designers and / or professing to having design abilities fresh out of universities. The criteria and the requirements of being called a designer, has not been aggressively discussed or defined to date in Malaysia. The Malaysian engineering curriculum does not aggressively address the structured training, teaching and education of designers from the enrolment stage. Such approaches are left to the world class research category universities, where funding for such universities is difficult to come by. Hence, the talk will highlight what it takes to be a designer and the design flaws that must be avoided by designers, so that Malaysian designers are internationally recognized and portable in nature, for further development. This talk comes from the speaker's experience in carrying out design work during his international employment periods throughout his career. Subsequently, this has led to the speaker to being able to compare and contrast the varying expectations from the different international client’s perspective. Hence, in order to become world class designers, there are about 20 design principles and values that must be considered and imbued into the prospective future designer’s value system.

Speaker’s Biodata

A specialist in Electrical and Organizational Information automation systems, Ir. S. Vignaeswaran has established his career in the design and implementation aspects of Electrical, IT, Distributed Control Systems (DCS),Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition Systems (SCADA), Substation Control System (SCS) and, has published international papers on them. The publication reflects a wide area of the utility industrial sector and has leveraged on his electrical, instrumentation and industrial control expertise. His interest in SCADA systems and subsequently project management, has led him to present an ‘out of the box’ project and information management paper to the Institution of Engineers, Australia, as part of his Australian chartered certification. He has a wide area of experience in the design, consultancy and field work in the Oil & Gas, Building Services, Utilityand Mining electrical engineering arena. He has worked overseas in a USD 2 billion dollar Saudi Arabian King Saud University project and has a high passion for cross-discipline applications in automation, advanced information systems, electrical and project management. With a formal education in Electrical Engineering from Monash University, Australia in 1989, Ir. S. Vignaeswaran has gone on to obtain his Masters of Science in Business Information Systems / Information Technology from the University of Keele, United Kingdom. His MSc (BIS/IT)thesis in 2002 was based on the development of a Web-based SCADA system. His outstanding achievements have been recognized with an Honorary Doctorate from the United States of America, completing a remarkable tri-continental accomplishment.