Engineering
is more than design and innovation. There is a marketing side in which the
engineers must be able to communicate their ideas to the consumers. They must
convince these people that their product is better than the previous one, and
that it is the best design, surpassing the competition. Altec is a company that
designs the equipment and vehicles that many electrical or construction
companies use. This article by Altec explains their new idea of adding a front
entrance to their cranes. The author shows that engineers must be able to
communicate their innovative ideas to their cliental so that they are aware of
the advancements they are making.
The
author uses safety and convenience as the backbone of communicating Altec’s new
and improved design. This article states that Altec is the first crane
designers to ever include a front entrance on a crane, meaning they are the
first ones to have both a side entrance and a front entrance. When I read that
I was actually quite shocked. It makes sense to me that a crane would need to
have entrances available in both location due to safety hazards of debris or
materials falling and blocking an entrance. The cranes cab also has a tilt
feature that can be tilted up to 20 degrees which maximizes viewing. In my mind
this seemed like something unnecessary because 20 degrees isn't much. However,
as I thought about it more these people knew what they were doing. A crane
operator needs to be as to see the end of his crane and what is being lifted or
placed and this 20 degree tilt added to his line of vision is probably all the
operator would need. Without that additional 20 degrees I am sure the operator
would have to strain and move awkwardly within the cab just to see what he's
controlling at the end of the crane. Another design feature includes Plexiglas
windows so that if debris were to fall on the cab the glass wouldn’t shatter
and potentially cut up the operator. It makes sense that the author includes
the specific improvements, because if he or she just talked about how they made
improvements to the crane, but never got into detail about the specifics of the
improvements the audience would, in my opinion, just consider it a bunch of
fluff. I believe the author did an excellent job at using his evidence of
improvement to show the audience how they are making advancements. These few
examples also show how the details that the author uses appeal to the
consumer’s logic. Since the audience is primarily engineers and engineers are known
for their logic and reasoning, I believe the author was smart in choosing to
appeal to the logical side of the audience.
The
author uses an approach that is very efficient in the way he or she
communicates to the audience. Efficient can me different things throughout
various fields, however, in this instance I would consider it to be giving the
information to the audience with as few words as necessary, but still being
able to get their ideas across. I would consider this textual approach to be
“classic” in engineering writing. I mean that the strategy of using short and
concise statements within their writing is something that engineers have been
using since the beginning of its existence. This simple idea of efficiency
shows that the writer was only including the most important parts of this new
innovation in the article. It also shows that he or she was writing for an
audience of engineer type consumers. He or she knew that they would communicate
in a similar way, and would appreciate the short and concise article. The
author breaks down each of the most important parts of the new design and
writes a quick detailed description of how this helps consumers, and why Altec
felt it would be an important feature.
The
author uses a common way of delivery within engineering. He or she uses a
numbered list format. I personally would shy away from lists when it comes to
writing, but I actually think this works well for this article. As I talked
about earlier the article is constructed in a very short and concise way, and I
believe that the numbered list format coincides with this use of efficiency. It
allows the author to communicate his ideas with ease, and the audience is able
to break down each specific idea. Another reason why I think the list is a good
idea is the fact that this article includes pictures. It has a picture demonstrating
to the potential consumers how each specific feature works, and the author has
a picture to go with each number in the list. I would say that including
pictures in this article is genius. Pictures are worth a thousand words, and I
think most engineers are visual learners and would prefer to see a picture of
something than a detailed article about. The author does a fantastic job at
using the combination of pictures and the list to deliver his or her ideas.
As
you can see the author does an excellent job at communicating the new
advancements of this crane to the audience in a very appealing way. The
audience is primarily going to be engineers or engineer types that love being
able to read through articles that are short and sweet. The author does a swell
job at using efficiency throughout the context of this article, while still
including supporting details to provide evidence to the potential consumers.
The author also designed the layout of the article to appeal to the engineering
consumers, so that they could incorporate a visual with the text. In my opinion
marketing within engineering is not exactly easy. However, this author does a
fantastic job at proving to the audience that this advanced product is the
best.
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