What's in a name? The term "re-engineering" has achieved popularity in the United States as an all-purpose synonym for virtually any kind of reorganization or change. It deploys the older term "engineering" as part of a conscious strategy to "sell" a set of ideas about corporate reorganization. Yet, these ideas were not generated by engineers. Indeed, in some ways, re-engineering appears to be a deliberate rejection of traditional engineering ideas about organization. So, what is "engineering" doing in this word?

Conjuring with Engineering
"Re-engineering" was originally intended to refer to an approach to corporate reorganization which promised-in its advocates' terms-to do more with less. Rejecting traditional approaches to efficiency, which emphasized simplification of jobs and specialization of workers (the assembly line) or replacement of workers by machines (automation), the "re-engineers" argued for the use of sophisticated electronic data processing and communication technology to reduce the size of work forces, simplify corporate hierarchies, and create flexible polyvalent workers who could respond to rapidly changing organizational needs. The "re-engineers" both rejected engineering (insofar as identified with automation and job simplification) and embraced it (insofar as identified with computerization and high technology).

This dual approach successfully reconciles two tendencies in American attitudes toward engineering. The call for polyvalent workers and a more flexible use of technology appeals to American suspicion of an "over-engineered" world in which human agency is virtually extinguished, while defining "re-engineering" as more than simple cost-cutting and downsizing ties re-engineering to what Americans respect in engineering. Despite fear of technology and systematization, Americans have, at least since the days of scientific management, been attracted to the apparent rationality of engineering principles. Engineering is associated in the public mind with the prestige of both "design" and "science" (in part because engineers have labored to create this association). The appeal of the term "re-engineering" is its ability to conjure up images of a flexible, humane workplace developed through rational, scientific design.

Engineering Skepticism
Although re-engineering has become a buzz word in many circles, engineers have been much more common among those skeptical both of the neologism and of what it represents. One cause of their skepticism is easy to spot. Many of re-engineering's claims are questionable. All too often, re-engineering turns out to be little more than down-sizing--short-term payroll cutting without the promised increase in flexibility, skills, worker autonomy, or organizational change. The rational and scientific base of re-engineering (implicit in the use of "engineering") is shaky, to say the least. As experience with re-engineering grows, one hears more and more of organizations discovering that, in their zeal to "obliterate" jobs and achieve flexibility, they have lost crucial expertise which is difficult to replace and expensive to obtain on a contract basis.

Engineering skepticism may have a second cause. Engineers are themselves often the objects of re-engineering. Much re-engineering tries to reduce the number of middle managers, levels of corporate hierarchy, and corporate dependence on specialized experts. Such reductions can eliminate many engineering jobs. Some observers have concluded that re-engineering is likely to diminish the ability of engineers to obtain secure corporate employment, that more and more engineers will slide into the insecure world of consulting and contingent employment.

A third cause of engineers' skepticism about re-engineering may be engineering's own identity problem. Re-engineering is the invention of management consultants, not engineers. It borrows the term "engineer" without the consent or active participation of engineers themselves. Such borrowing has been unpopular with engineers since the early days of American engineering when engineers complained of being confused with locomotive drivers. The term "engineer" has been attached to a variety of adjectives (as in "sanitary engineer") in an attempt to lend dignity to occupations that lack it. Without a strong li-censing requirement, or another form of professional closure, the title engineer may be adopted by virtually anyone, whether or not they possess professional engineering credentials or currently practice as an engineer.

In Historical Perspective
The freedom with which non-engineers can appropriate the term "engineer" is of more than semantic concern. Because engineers have not been able to control who is an engineer (through licensing, degree requirements, and the like), they have had trouble defending their occupational rights and privileges. Although engineering salaries have always been relatively good, American engineers have not, as a group, been able to achieve the professional and material privilege characteristic of doctors and lawyers, whose success rests on iron control of entry into the profession and the ability to define a professional jurisdiction over which they have exclusive control.

Perhaps more importantly, outsiders have long had--and continue to have--the ability to shape the definition of "engineering" and the uses to which engineering ideas are put. The history of scientific management (Taylorism) constitutes an early example. Although scientific management originated among engineers, and although it seems to have been designed to enhance their role within the emerging giant corporations of the early twentieth century, engineers quickly lost control. Management shaped both the scientific management craze and the actual application of scientific management within industry. This shaping removed those elements promoting the autonomy and influence of engineering. In historical perspective, re-engineering looks like just another in a long line of management's attempts to control and manipulate engineering.

Why this history? We cannot assume that an occupation will eventually develop effective control over its own jurisdiction. Developing such control is extremely difficult and, in fact, seldom accomplished. But, surely, at least part of what explains engineering's failure to develop such control is that many American engineers have explicitly refused to define engineering as a closed fraternity. They have argued that engineers cannot organize themselves like doctors and lawyers (because engineers must work within large organizations); that engineers should, instead, think of themselves as an extension of management. The division between those supporting a professional conception of engineering and those supporting the management conception has helped to frustrate attempts to develop demanding standards of ethics, a necessary part of any occupation's attempt to "professionalize".

Thus, the claim that management consultants acted unethically when they borrowed the term "engineering" to coin "re-engineering" rings hollow. If engineers had organized to differentiate themselves from management and to develop a distinct professional identity, they would now have good grounds for complaint. But not enough American engineers have been enthusiastic about professional organization. Those many engineers who accepted a management identity, deliberately keeping the definition of "engineer" imprecise, have exposed engineers to re-engineering without the consent of engineers and often to the disadvantage of individual engineers. Such re-engineering may be painful, but it can hardly be unethical, since it is a predictable result of engineers' own reluctance to define and enforce a clear professional identity and demanding standards of professional ethics.