UQ academic wins Boeing fellowship

UQ academic wins Boeing fellowship

A University of Queensland engineer is the first Australian academic awarded a fellowship in a competitive program offered by the Boeing Company.

Associate Professor David Radcliffe of the University 's Mechanical Engineering Department has just completed a Boeing-A.D. Welliver Fellowship, spending the (northern) summer at Boeing headquarters in Seattle, Washington.

The Boeing Company, a world leader in the design and manufacturing of commercial jet airplanes, also develops military and space equipment, helicopters and computer technology. Established in 1916 the company now has over 200,000 employees.

"Basically they take in 10 or so academics each summer for two months to work on assignment in Boeing," Dr Radcliffe said. "This enables them to ?look over the shoulder' of working engineers at several levels of the technical and management career paths.

"The program aims to influence the content of engineering education to help prepare graduates to practise engineering in a world-class industrial environment."

While at Boeing Dr Radcliffe experienced first hand how Systems Engineering processes and tools are being developed and deployed across the company's operating divisions. This included exposure to various learning initiatives sponsored by Boeing to enable employees to continously develop their knowledge and skills.

"Systems engineers are the architects of complex technical products such as an aeroplane or a satellite. For example, the Boeing 777 is composed of over 3 million parts which are sourced from more than 500 suppliers. Systems engineers manage the many conflicting requirements, design the overall product configuration and ensure the integration of the many specialist sub-systems," he said.

Dr Radcliffe spent time with several integrated product teams responsible for design and manufacture of new aeroplane derivatives. He was also exposed to emerging computer mediated collaboration environments and knowldege-based computer design tools.

The program is named in honour of the late A.D. "Bert" Welliver, a Boeing Corporate Senior Vice President of Engineering and Technology. Dr Radcliffe's participation in the scheme was funded by Boeing Australia, Limited. The Fellowship is part of an ongoing collaboration with Boeing Australia. The objective is to develop the discipline of Systems Engineering and to create innovate ways of providing life-long learning for engineers in work settings.

Further information: Associate Professor David Radcliffe, telephone 07 3365 3579 email: radcliffe@mech.uq.oz.au