EngineeringNigerian Society of EngineersVISION FOR THE NIGERIAN SOCIETY OF ENGINEERS - BY OTIS ANYAEJI

VISION FOR THE NIGERIAN SOCIETY OF ENGINEERS – BY OTIS ANYAEJI

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Being a text of address delivered at Nigerian Society of Engineers,  NSE Warri Public Lecture held November 4th 2022. PART TWO

You can read Part ONE, Revisiting the Engineering regulatory model for African countries by HR Engr. Otis Anyaeji HERE

1.0 WHAT WILL NSE BUSINESS BE

In seeking clear understanding of the character of the dynamics for promotion of  advancement of engineering in Nigeria, we need to go to the Objects of the Nigerian Society of Engineers. The object that is nearest to the intention here is 3(a) quoted below:

“To provide a central organisation for engineers in Nigeria and generally to do such things as may from time to time be necessary to maintain a strict standard of professional ethics amongst its members and to advance the interest of the engineering profession in Nigeria.”

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Suppose in the above quotation, we prefix or qualify the words “engineer” and “engineering” with the word “aeronautical”, object 3(a) would then become, “To provide a central organisation for aeronautical engineers in Nigeria and generally to do such things as may from time to time be necessary to maintain a strict standard of professional ethics amongst its members, and advance the interest of the aeronautical engineering profession in Nigeria.”

If this qualification is applied whenever the words “engineers” and “engineering” are found, the NSE Memorandum & Articles of Association with the objects would have found its near perfection in the service of “Aeronautical Engineers.”

Same effect would result for any other engineering discipline. The only thing that would be missing is the definition of what “Aeronautical Engineering” is, and what “Aeronautical Engineers” do.

Thus, the NSE MemArt are ideal for one-discipline associations, engineering or non-engineering, but are not suited for a multi-disciplinary association.

On other hand, object 3(a) can be recast as follows:

“To promote for public good, through education and scientific means aeronautical, agricultural, appraisal, chemical, civil, cost, electrical/electronics, environmental, geotechnical, industrial, material, mechanical, metallurgical, mining, natural gas, petroleum, structural, valuation, etc. engineering and any other engineering disciplines or specializations as the Council of NSE may approve and accredit as Divisions of the Society.”

The difference between the definition immediately supra and the extant object 3(a), is that the latter does not in any way mention the disciplines of engineering covered by the Institutions/Divisions approved and accredited by NSE Council, whereas the former does.

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This narrow view of “engineering” is what makes successive leadership of the Society to be overly concerned with the ideas of ‘professional development’, membership services’ and ‘personnel & general administration’ or more recently ‘corporate resources & media’, linkages, etc. These are issues more  critical to the administration of single discipline associations i.e. single businesses. Administration of a collection of discipline associations requires breaking through the boundaries of conventional single business thinking. Object 3(a) in the form that lists the accredited disciplines/institutions, brings it home to anybody the diverse nature of the NSE lines of business. Thus, instead of the non-strategic but valueadding function issues listed above, the strategic business units of Institutions (or Divisions) should be the key success factors for NSE leadership. And thus it is mandatory that the NSE President’s vision for each discipline be enunciated and under each such SBU the functional processes can be tailored out.

2.0 INAPPROPRIATE COMPARISON WITH OTHER PROFESSIONAL BODIES

Over the years, the leadership of NSE has positioned the Society and engineering as a whole, as one discipline. Now and again the unnatural and unprofessional fusion of all engineering disciplines into one non-existent global discipline, is fallaciously explained as necessary in order that “Engineering” have one voice in Nigeria. The protagonists of this univocal fallacy conveniently ignore the fact that while the language of civil engineering is in kilometers, that of mechanical engineering is in millimeters, with electrical/electronics engineering speaking in micrometers etc.

Even within each of these there are dialects that give character to the numerous specializations thereof. It is a truism that unity of individuals leads to strength. But, unity that seeks to abolish individuals inevitably banishes strength. In the context of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, the great efforts that have been put into erecting this irregular machinery for the glorification of social intercourse amongst all engineers to the neglect of their disciplines, has ended up a Tower of Babel.

Unfortunately, NSE Presidents are compared with NBA Presidents or NMA Presidents or NIA Presidents, and lately with NIESV Presidents, or NIQS Presidents etc. This attitude belittles engineering and emboldens single discipline associations to throw spittle at the face of engineering, and get away with it.

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Practically, this humiliation and short-changing follows engineering and engineers in Nigeria like a shadow. For example, as at 2021, there were only 29 members in the Association of Professional Bodies of Nigeria (APBN). Three of these were surveyors’ associations (NIS, NIESV, NIQS). All the engineering disciplines were and (are still) accommodated in APBN in one membership slot. The same as Institute of Chartered Secretaries, or Institute of Taxation Practitioners, or Institute of Bankers, or Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria.

If surveyors have three members, and finance and admin professionals have four, there is no explanation that can hold water, for all the disciplines in engineering to be represented in APBN by one member. The only acceptable arrangement is that each accredited engineering institution under NSE itself can be a member of APBN, not NSE itself being just one member thereon. The fact is that NSE is now ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING BODIES OF NIGERIA (APEngBN) with 26 member bodies for now (Discipline/Specialist Divisions + Forum for women in engineering APWEN).

3.0 NSE BUSINESS STRATEGY

A professional society much like any run-of-the-mill corporation in working out its business strategy must worry about itself, its customers, and its competitors. If the corporation is in a single business, focusing on the key success factors for the business, superior performance relative to competitors can be achieved.

Each of the engineering institutions under NSE is in a single business except the Institute of Appraisers & Cost Engineers that is a player in three disciplines, one of which is strictly not engineering, and the Institution of Materials/Metallurgical/Mining Engineers (IMMME). It is the duty of each engineering discipline institution to fashion out the way in which it strives to positively differentiate itself from its competitors, through using its relative corporate strengths to satisfy clients’ needs better. What we do not often realize in the Nigerian Society of Engineers is that practicing professional engineers in an organized body do have threats from competitors external to such body. Usually we dismiss such competitors as quacks or charlatans who must be rooted out by the police. Meanwhile, the most effective way of beating these competitors, indeed all competitors is by outperforming them. This would result from the Institutions developing and implementing effective strategies. The latter can only be realized if each institution as a business unit of NSE, has full freedom of operation with respect to its corporate self, its customers or clients, and its competitors. In strategizing for the customers the members of such an Institution serve, the Institution must be in a position to address the total market, and not just parts of it.

The Institutions in order to respond with maximum freedom to the overall requirements of the clients, must see themselves in reality setting up Strategic Planning Units (SPU) that will cover all the functions critical to their success.

It must be borne in mind all the time that the bases of all strategy are client-based strategies. The Institutions and their members are the direct servers of clients’ needs, and thus require to continuously view these intrinsic needs as they change with time. NSE as a holding corporation of the Institutions does not serve clients directly, but merely owns the Institutions. Thus the Institutions’ primary concern is the interest of its clients (or members’ clients), and not the interest of their owner i.e NSE.

Diverting the attention of the Institutions from their basic business mission of serving their clients, will lead to serious instability in the performance of the Institutions. The fact is now emerging that NSE has lost sight of client need satisfaction, and can truly be said to have forgotten what business it is supposed to be in.

4.0 NSE CORPORATE STRATEGY

When it has been formally adopted that the Institutions are the business units of NSE, there would arise the need to formalize corporate-based strategies. These would have the aim of maximizing NSE’s and Institutions strengths relative to the competition in the functional areas critical to success in the various industries and sectors the Institutions and their members serve. The front-end issues to be dealt with here, centre on how the individual businesses (i.e. Institutions) should be integrated into the Nigerian Society of Engineers. But also it is necessary to determine if there should be a strategy at the Society (NSE) level that is different from the sum of the contributing strategies of the Institutions (individual businesses). NSE and its subsidiary Institutions fit into single product, conglomerate and diversified enterprises. Most of the Institutions offer single products e.g., general practice civil engineering, or specialist practice structural engineering etc. the Institute of Appraisers & Cost Engineers is a conglomerate offering three lines of products in appraisal (valuation), cost engineering, and engineering economy, similarly for IMMME. For IA&CE each of the fields it plays in has a UN affiliated global body overseeing it e.g., International Valuation Standards Committee (IVSC), International Cost Engineering Council (ICEC) and the Engineering Economy Committee of UNESCO. On the global scene, basic engineering disciplines are organised under the World Federation of Engineering Organisations (WFEO), also a UN affiliate. NSE is a member of WFEO.

The Society is a diversified enterprise. As a diversified enterprise managing in its portfolio single product, and conglomerate businesses in the engineering professions, the Society’s main pre-occupation should be in striving to maximize the economic intervention of the engineering professions in the Nigerian economy. This NSE has to do by continually exploiting synergies between its various subsidiaries (i.e. the Institutions).

As a diversified professional body just like APBN, NSE needs urgently to be organised to exploit the latent functional synergies of the Institutions to achieve quality leadership in the economy over its singlebusiness competitors e.g., NIESV, NIQS, NIA, NIB, etc. This reorganization will also enable NSE to use its superior and deeper understanding of the economy and its sectoral key success factors to gain an edge over diversified competitors like APBN, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), National Association of Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA). At this point, NSE would have become a de-facto CHAMBER OF APPLIED SCIENCE, ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY.

The corporate strategy would thus be at the tip of the 4-level telescope that is based on Strategic Planning Units (SPUs) domiciled in each Institutions now to be designated Strategic Business Unit (SBU). A collection of Institutions (SBUs) of the same basic discipline ancestry would constitute a Strategic Sector or Strategic Discipline Group. For example, Civil, Structural, Geotechnical etc Institutions (SBUs) together would constitute Strategic Civil Sector. The Strategic Sectors together would constitute the NSE Corporate Headquarters.

ROLE ________________________________

NSE Corporate HQ • Corporate goal setting

  • Regulation
  • Culture/systems
  • Intersectoral synergy
  • Political action

____________________________________________________________________________

Strategic Sector • Interdisciplinary synergy

(strategic disciplines group) • Regulation e.g., Civil Sector • Long-term strategic planning

  • Resource allocation
  • Socio-political action

____________________________________________________________________________

Strategic Business Unit (Institution) • Mid to short-term strategy execution e.g., Nigerian Institution of Civil • Professional Registration

Engineers • Professional development

  • Membership
  • Functional synergy
  • Technical programmes
  • Socio-political action

____________________________________________________________________________

Strategic Planning Unit • Basic business planning unit (Institution’s product-

(within each Institution) market strategy)

Roles of NSE Corporate Headquarters, Strategic Sectors (SS), Strategic Business Units (SBUs), and

Strategic Planning Units (SPUs) are illustrated above.

5.0 NSE & BRANCHES

In the previous section, it was explained that NSE Corporate HQ ought to be involved in corporate goalsetting, culture custody and refinement, systems development, cross-fertilization of strengths of different strategic sectors, and political action.

The Strategic Sector or Strategic Discipline Group shall inter alia be involved in the cross-fertilization of strengths of different disciplines in the same Strategic Sector.

The Institution will have complete control of professional development, membership growth/advancement and technical programmes of its engineering discipline.

Socio-political action is a concurrent responsibility of the SBUs, the SSs/SDGs, and NSE Corporate HQ.

So what is the role of the NSE Branch? The simple answer is that the NSE Branch, as we know it today, shall decrease so that Institutions shall increase. The building blocks of the Society will have to change from individual members to Institutions. Each Institution will have Chapters in different locations depending on the presence of its members in those places. The different chapters of Institutions existing in a given location will come together to form a Branch of the Society in that location.

 6.0 ORGANISATION STRUCTURE FOR NSE

In the Nigerian Society of Engineers, every member is equal and are lifetime professional colleagues.

Thus, the professional fortunes of members will rise and fall together. If this feeling is properly interiorized by each member, that on its own should be enough to inhibit ‘career’ NSE political Engineers from indulging in insidious, destructive, and self-serving power struggles. They may then become more accommodating of the diverse disciplines in engineering, and then more prone to seeking consensus on a multi-disciplinary basis, thus contributing to the long-term well-being of the Society and profession, rather than compromising it.

In matching organisation structure to strategy in the Nigerian Society of Engineers, it is necessary to start from the critical tasks requisite for success in strategy execution. Strategy-critical business units will be used as the main building blocks of the kind of organisation that has a fair chance of success.

In considering the Nigerian Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers as an example of a strategy critical business unit of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, the Institutions’s strategy-critical activities will include:

Control engineering and automation, lighting engineering, transformers and reactors etc. They would also be involved with value-adding functions e.g. professional development, membership services, finance and administration etc, which every other Institution will have to perform.

At the Nigerian Society of Engineers level, the strategy-critical activities are as per approved Institutions/Divisions:

NSE Engineers Otis Anyaeji recomendation for Africa 4

S/N ACTIVITY STRATEGIC                               BUSINESS UNIT                                                   STRATEGIC SECTOR

  1. Aeronautical Engineering Nig. Institution of Aero. Engineers Mechanical Engineering
  2. Agricultural Engineering Nig. Institution of Agric Engineers Agricultural Engineering
  3. Appraisal/Valuation I nst. Of Appraisers & Cost Engineers Inter-Disciplinary/Specialisation
  4. Chemical Engineering Nig. Society of Chemical Engineers                 Materials Engineering
  5. Civil Engineering Nig. Institution of Civil Engineers Civil Engineering
  6. Cost Engineering Inst. Of Appraisers & Cost Engineers Inter-Disciplinary/Specialisation
  7. Electrical Engineering Nig. Instn of Elect/Elect Engineers                 Electrical Engineering
  8. Electronic Engineering Nig. Instn of Elect/Elect Engineers                 Electrical Engineering
  9. Electronic Engineering Nig. Institution of ICT Engineers                 Electrical Engineering
  10. Engineering Economy Inst. Of Appraisers & Cost Engineers Inter-Disciplinary/Specialisation
  11. Environmental Engineering Nig. Institution of Env. Engineers Inter-Disciplinary/Specialisation
  12. Geotechnical Engineering Nig. Assn of Geotechnical Engineers                 Civil Engineering
  13. Industrial Engineering Nig. Assn. of Industrial Engineers                                 Mechanical Engineering
  14. Industrial Engineering Nig. Institution of Safety Engineers                 Mechanical Engineering
  15. Materials Engineering Instn of Mat’l, Met, & Mining Engrs (IMMME)                 Materials Engineering
  16. Materials Engineering Nig. Institution of Polymer Engineers                 Materials Engineering
  17. Mechanical Engineering Nig. Instn of Mechanical Engineers                 Materials Engineering
  18. Metallurgical Engineering Instn of Mat’l, Met, & Mining Engineers                 Materials Engineering
  19. Mining Engineering Instn of Mat’l, Met, & Mining Engineers                 Materials Engineering
  20. Natural Gas Engineering Nig. Instn of Pet & Nat’l Gas Engineers                 Materials Engineering
  21. Petroleum Engineering Nig. Instn of Pet & Nat’l Gas Engineers                 Materials Engineering
  22. Procurement Engineering Nig. Institution of Procurement Engineers Interdisciplinary/Specialization
  23. Structural Engineering Nig. Instn of Structural Engineers Civil Engineering
  24. Space Engineering Nig. Instn of Space Engineers Mechanical Engineering
  25. Marine Engineering Nig. Instn of Marine Engineers & Naval Architects Mechanical Engineering
  26. Power Engineering Nig. Instn of Power Engineers Electrical Engineering
  27. Computer Engineering Nig. Instn of Computer Engineers Electrical Engineering
  28. Water & Sanitary Engineering Nig. Instn of Water & Sanitary Engineers Civil Engineering
  29. Highway & Transportation Engineering Nig. Instn of Highway Engineers Civil Engineering
  30. Automotive & Locomotive Engineering Automotive Engineers Institute Mechanical Engineering

Thus, the 30No. strategy-critical activities are to be carried out through 20No. Strategic Business Units, and the latter organizational units are coordinated through 6No. Strategic Sectors (or Strategic Discipline Groups).

NSE Engineers Otis Anyaeji recomendation for Africa 3

From this, it follows that the Institutions would be the main organizational building blocks. For proper integration of the Institutions within the Society framework, also allowing them full freedom of operation with respect to their corporate identity, their clients and their competitors, the head of each Institution shall retain the title President, while at the same time having the status of Vice President of the Society.

NSE Engineers Otis Anyaeji recomendation for Africa 2

A group of allied Institutions would be coordinated at the senior level by a Deputy-President of the Society elected from among the Vice-Presidents of the Society in that sector.

A President-Elect would be elected from among the Deputy-Presidents of the Society.

Fig1 shows an organisation structure for Nigerian Society of Engineers operating as a diversified enterprise rather than the present case of operating as a single business enterprise. Fig.2 shows organizational structure for a typical single business (or product) Institution. Fig.3 shows organization structure for a typical conglomerate Institution.

 7.0 NOMENCLATURE

The age-old question ‘What’s in a name?’ still begs for an answer. This time two valid answers can be

proffered. On the side of the Institutions, there is everything in a name. The equivalent of our single business engineering Institution in the economy is any of the single business professional associations e.g. NBA, NMA, NIA, NIESV, NIS, NIQS, NES, ICAN, ANAN, etc. Each of these non-engineering single business (discipline) associations has a President.

It makes sense therefore that their equivalent in engineering also bears the title President. In Fig. 2 it has been highlighted that our Association of Industrial Engineers has at least three known  competitors in the economy viz, Nigerian Institution of Industrial Engineers, Society of Safety Professionals, and Nigerian Institute of Industrial Management, each of which is headed by a President. It is hoped a President NSE would not see his office as equivalent to any of these.

From Fig. 3 we observe the competitors of our Institution of Materials, Metallurgical & Mining Engineers are NMGS, NMS, and NSME each which is headed by a President. Now on the part of NSE the answer to our age-old question is “there is nothing in a name.” It has been said time and again that NSE is not a single discipline association, not even a conglomerate, but a diversified association of hopefully all the engineering disciplines, but for now 18No. accredited Institutions.

Thus NSE is comparable to APBN, MAN, NACCIMA, NCWS and any other diversified grouping of allied associations. If we might borrow from the global scene, NSE is the Nigerian Federation of Engineering  Organisations (Institutions) or Nigerian Chamber of Applied Science, Engineering & Technology.

The President NSE is boss of all engineering Institutions under NSE. Usually, a President is under a Chairman. Therefore, if there is need for the titles of the head at the NSE Corporate HQ and head at NSE SBU to differ then the office at NSECHQ should be Chairman, and that at NSE SBU should be President.

In that case, President of an engineering Institution is automatically a Vice-Chairman of NSE etc.

NSE Engineers Otis Anyaeji recomendation for Africa 1

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