New Zealand Engineering 1999 September

IPENZ News

Continuing Professional Development
- An assessment of the 1998 CPD returns

A giant leap towards environmentally-friendly
heatpumps and refrigerators

Persons misrepresenting themselves as Registered Engineers

June/July 1999 additions to and changes
in the classes of membership

Continuing Professional Development - An assessment of the 1998 CPD returns
The Institution’s Code of Ethics states that "members shall continue the development of their own and the profession’s knowledge, skills and expertise in the art and science of engineering and technology and shall share and exchange advances for the benefit of society."

The Institution’s policy on Continuing Professional Development (CPD) sets out how this is to be achieved. In particular it requires its members to record their CPD activities and maintain these records using the Continuing Professional Development Forms provided by IPENZ National Office. The annual forms are then returned to the National Office. Each year up to 15% of the returns, chosen at random, are to be audited by the Institution.

A random sample of 123 of the unaudited returns for the 1998 year were analysed to review the CPD work being undertaken by members. Of these 123, 18 involved more than 100 hours of specific courses involving formal assessment (mostly postgraduate degrees or MBA courses). These 18 averaged over 450 hours for the year for assessed courses, with only one recording more than 1000 hours. By comparison, the average total number of CPD hours for this small group was 512 hours, so that assessed course time formed almost 90% of the total.

To avoid distorting the analysis with the high assessed course hours of these 18, their returns were removed from the total and the returns of those members with less than 100 assessed course hours were analysed, ie. 105 returns. For this group there was an average total of 120 hours for the year, (and a weighted total of 103 hours). Of these, only 11 were below the target of 50 weighted hours, although others who exceeded the required hours were claiming a high number of passive study hours which did not meet the requirement of balance as stated in the IPENZ CPD policy document.

Figure 1 shows the average component hours for these returns. Passive study (described here as self study and reading) at 44 hours (37% of the total), non-assessed courses and seminars at 33 hours (27 % of the total) and employment experience and training at 18 hours (15% of the total) providing the majority of the CPD hours. This probably represents a reasonable balance in the CPD hours. For individual cases though, 33 returns showed passive study hours greater than 50%, 25 returns were greater than 60% and 6 greater than 80%. However, of these only 10 could be regarded as unsatisfactory together with a further one member with low total hours (11 returns or 10% of the total). Generally though, most of the members whose returns were assessed were clearly meeting requirements and only a few were going to have difficulty meeting the 150 hours spread over a period of three years.

A similar analysis of a sample of the audited returns has also been made. The sample was of 56 returns, randomly chosen, except that the returns with more than 100 hours for formally assessed courses were not included. The average total hours for this group was 106 hours, slightly less than the average for the unaudited group. Of these, 6 were less than the target of 50 weighted hours but for all but one they had recorded a low number of passive study hours.

Figure 2 shows the average component hours for these audited returns. Passive study, at 49 hours (46% of the total), non-assessed courses and seminars, at 30 hours (28% of the total), conferences, lectures and papers, at 11 hours (10% of the total) and employment experience and training at 9 hours (9% of the total), providing the majority of the CPD hours. Although this is not as well balanced as the unaudited set of returns, there are only four (7% of the total) which could be considered unsatisfactory. Each of these four had less than 25 weighted hours of formally organised activities.

It was surprising to find how small the contribution of IPENZ branch and technical groups was to members’ CPD activities. I believe that the Institution can and should be seen as providing more value to an engineer’s CPD. Managers in engineering firms should be educated to recognise the value in this input since it is not only technical but also provides valuable networking in a way that in-house training is usually not able to do.

Mentoring and professional review involvement figured even less. Both of these activities contribute to the maintenance and enhancement of engineering standards and the quality of business performance so I believe it should be given more value by industry and individuals. I would also like to see some recognition of the community service of members being accepted as providing a measure of CPD up to a limit of perhaps 20% of the total hours.

Finally, it was pleasing to note that included in the returns that were analysed was a group from the employees of one firm. It would appear that the company itself had ensured that each employee completed their return. The returns also showed that the company had a good mix of in-house seminars and externally organised seminars, courses and conferences. I am aware that many firms attempt to ensure that their staff receive the necessary training and this was evident in many of the returns received. Perhaps to emphasise this, company managers could require that the annual achievement objectives of each member their staff should contain an objective of completing an IPENZ CPD return and obtaining a certificate from the Institution.

Overall it was pleasing to see how much Continuing Professional Development is being undertaken. It speaks of a healthy and active profession. I am sure that the more formalised process that the Institution has established for CPD will help to increase the emphasis of the importance of this process and encourage continued development of its members.

Rob Aspden

F.IPENZ

A giant leap towards environmentally-friendly heatpumps and refrigerators
Professor John Raine and PhD. student David Haywood recently won the IPENZ Angus award for 1999, for their work on the Stirling-cycle system and its possible application to refrigerators and heat pumps. This project also received a FiRST award for best "Research in Industry" project funded by the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology". David Haywood has supplied some interesting facts and figures about this project.

The Stirling-cycle
The main advantage of using the Stirling-cycle system, as opposed to the conventional vapour-compression system, is that it can be operated using air as the refrigerant. Conventional machines use a variety of refrigerants that all cause environmental damage in the event of leakage or disposal; most commonly these are greenhouse gases but they may also be toxic and/or flammable and/or ozone depleting. However, conventional engineering wisdom, based on previous systems, is that a Stirling-cycle refrigerator/heatpump has only about 40 percent of the performance of a conventional vapour-compression system.

Refrigerator performance
Our machine currently operates at about 70 percent of the performance of a comparable vapour-compression refrigerator (-20� C cold space temperature). However, there is considerable scope for experimental optimisation in our current set-up and we are optimistic about significantly improving refrigerator performance by the end of the project.

Heat pump performance
For above-zero outside temperatures our machine operates at about 70 percent of the performance of a similarly-sized vapour-compression machine, but for sub-zero outside temperatures it will out-perform a conventional vapour-compression system. We are "quietly confident" about matching or exceeding conventional heat-pump performance over a wider temperature range by the end of the project.

For more information on this project, please contact David Haywood, Stirling-cycle Research Group, Department of Mechanical Engineering,University of Canterbury, email: DHA24@mech.canterbury.ac.nz, phone: 0-3-364 2918

Persons misrepresenting themselves as Registered Engineers
Over the past two years several persons have misrepresented themselves as registered engineers in respect to the Amusement Devices Regulations 1978. They have certified, while purporting to be registered engineers, that amusement devices, subject to specific conditions and requirements, can be operated safely. These actions contravened the Engineers Registration Amendment Act 1944 and where appropriate prosecutions have followed.

The Engineers’ Registration Board wish to bring to the attention of engineers that they cannot call themselves a registered engineer, or use the post-nominal RegEng, unless they have, in fact, at one time had their registration application approved by the Board and hold a current annual practising certificate.

For information on registration requirements click here or contact:
The Secretary, Engineers’ Registration Board, erb@ipenz.org.nz
Ph 0-4-473 9444