Engineering Workstations in the National Laboratory

A great deal has been said of how computer-aided engineering (CAE) tools, and particularly engineering workstations as vehicles for those tools, can benefit the engineering workplace. In attempting to characterize the activities of the "typical" engineer, as with time-and-motion studies, one questions how much of this benefit is conjecture and how much can be realized. Hewltt-Packard, a leading supplier to the engineering community, has been citing a figure of 20%/80% as the ratio of time that engineers spend performing what is thought of as engineering activities (analysis, simulation, synthesis, and design) vs. the time an engineer spends on communication functions of various kinds, including writing reports, attending meetings, corresponding with coworkers.