Expertise
Core Competencies
Our core competencies are multifaceted and include:
- Infrastructure engineering
- Frugal and sustainable engineering
- Appropriate and green technology
- Municipal and institutional strengthening
- Multi-profession cloud based knowledge platforms and training
Engineering Competencies and Approach
Members of our team hold extensive experience in offering the full range of conventional consulting engineering services for infrastructure projects and service planning including:
- Project planning and management
- Feasibility studies
- Site investigations
- Preliminary and final designs
- Contract documentation and tender evaluation
- Site supervision
What sets us apart is a radical new and extensible approach that is integrated, innovative and collaborative and leveraging state-of-the art research. Centering on natural resource management to generate economic, social and environmental well-being our approach integrates the following into engineering:
- Consumer education and demand articulation
- Institutional and governance restructuring to encourage cooperation with competition
- Skills gaps driven curriculum development Technology and innovation based on capturing real-time market dynamics
- Community participation and multi-stakeholder engagement
- Strategic partnerships geared to resource mobilization, management and conservation
- Continuous development of management, recording and other information systems
- Development of effective advisory, decision and regulatory supports
- Integrated, multi-faceted and interactive system design, implementation, operation and maintenance for life-cycle costing
- Appraisal, evaluation, monitoring and maintenance support
- Cost-recovery, investment renewal and ownership mechanisms
Research Competencies
In the activity of product design and creation, the engineering consulting industry relies on the adaptation and improvement of known solutions and integrating them in a configuration that best satisfies the requirements of a client and initiative. This can be defined as applied research. On the other hand; pure research is a programmed and voluntary activity. Its purpose is to discover new facts corresponding to a discovery or an innovation. For universities, government and other well-funded research bodies, this word often means 'basic research'. Our consultancy approach in engineering is underpinned by applied research.
We have been sourcing external funds and investing a third of our resources in research and development through a frugal engineering initiative aimed at poverty reduction and optimization of technology use in Africa since the mid 1990's. This is an overarching philosophy that enables a true "clean sheet" approach to product and service development. Cost discipline is an intrinsic part of this process, but rather than simply cutting existing costs, frugal engineering seeks to avoid needless costs in the first place. This type of engineering recognizes that all customers have unique needs that cannot always be addressed by on-the-shelf-market products and the cost of these products even stripped down, remains too high to allow competitive prices and profits in emerging markets. This implies that merely removing some features from existing products to sell them cheaper in new markets is a losing game.
As a result of this we have developed a systematic integrated and strategic approach that manages intelligence and leverages knowledge in new ways to tackle challenges facing Africa. After nearly twenty years, we have developed unique soft engineering intellectual capital and competencies suited to the African continent that we now are ready to share with our clients. Consequently, our service offerings today include research and development and are supported by a global network of professionals drawn from 130 countries. Our global knowledge management infrastructure ensures that innovative and proven methodologies and tools are available for the benefit of our clients.
Our expertise in research and development includes:
- Newtonian and systems engineering
- Municipal and Institutional Strengthening
- Action Planning for Urban Poverty Reduction
- Appropriate and Green Infrastructure
- Sustainable Agriculture
- Leveraging Global Knowledge and Skills
SISA Engineering
The systematic, integrated and strategic approach (SISA) to engineering is the product of a research process that was initiated by the founder of GITS Consulting Services in the mid-1980s in response to the criticism associated with the traditional top-down, technocratic and sectorial approaches to urban planning and development. These frequent traditional approaches failed to meet the needs of rapidly growing cities and towns in developing countries that were being overwhelmed by available human, financial and institutional resources of their governments. The emerging paradigm at that time demanded and led to innovative approaches that could be grouped as structural, action and strategic planning. Supporting these approaches was the emergence of information-based tools such as rapid rural and urban appraisals, participatory appraisals and objectives oriented planning. Recognizing the imperatives imposed by rapid, globalization, technological change and beginnings of information and communications technological convergence, the SISA approach evolved into a process approach that sought to go beyond participation, consultation and collaboration.
Initially the SISA approach to engineering was applied to linking poverty reduction to service delivery at the municipal level. Beginning mid-1990s it was increasingly applied to appropriate technology transfer and innovation within the developing country context.
This resulted in our offering the following systematic, integrated and strategic services:
- Community Action Research
- Capacity building and institutional restructuring
- Policy, market and demand research
- Multi-stakeholder consultation, collaboration and participation
- Talent management and training
- Advisory, decision and management information systems
- Multi-disciplinary and interactive action planning
- Integrated appraisal, evaluation and monitoring mechanisms
Integrated Engineering
Charles M. Vest, President Emeritus, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology for thirteen years and the immediate Past President Emeritus, National Academy of Engineering, Washington, District of Columbia, points out that the macro systems frontier involves larger and larger systems of ever increasing size and complexity and of great societal importance: energy, water, environment, health care, manufacturing, communications, logistics, etc. Research, development, and the design and deployment of projects for such systems frequently requires teams of engineers and backgrounds in other disciplines such as social science, management, and communications. The tiny or nano systems frontier has to do with smaller and smaller spatial scales and faster and faster time scales, the world of so- called bio/nano/info. This melds physical, life, and information sciences, offering stunning possibilities in multi-profession environments.
A group of colleagues who participated in the first IEEE Life Sciences Grand Challenges Conference held October 4 - 5, 2012 in Washington DC, briefly discussed and identified interfacing engineering with life sciences as the major challenge facing the scientific community. Amongst the major issues were engineering the brain and nervous systems, cardiovascular systems, cancer diagnostics, therapeutics, and health informatics. The impact of meeting these challenges this group concluded is determined in part by the success of translating basic science results to the clinic for treatment and the home and workplace for prevention. Of equal importance are the grand challenges of the education and training of future generations. These grand challenges may merit a call to action for investigators to develop the capabilities of the society for research, education, and translation in this exciting and critically important interdisciplinary endeavor. Using a systems-based approach to integrate technological and the NBIC (Nano/bio/info and cognitive science) convergences at present, we are applying the systematic, integrated and strategic processes and services to providing multi-disciplinary talent development and knowledge platforms focusing on the engineering, healthcare and educational sectors. The objective of these services is to leverage exciting and valuable work opportunities in the twenty-first century for engineers to move tiny systems technology into macro systems applications.
Talent Optimization
Manpowergroup conducted a survey of over 38,000 companies in 41 countries. The results of this survey portray that in 2012; engineering positions were the second hardest job for employers to fill globally. This raises concerns amongst the industry as engineering positions were rated the fourth hardest to fill in 2011. Another study conducted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) also indicated a serious shortage of engineers in many countries, including Germany, Japan, Great Britain, and the U.S. This employee shortage could threaten the development of advanced technology in automotive and other industries. As a result, UNESCO launched an Engineering Initiative in November 2011 to address issues behind the shortage. Through this initiative, UNESCO is working with Member States, international partners and program experts to strengthen engineering education through curricula development and capacity building. It is also incorporating sustainability topics into engineering education by highlighting the need for green technology in engineering applications.
Craig Barrett the former Chairman of the Board of Intel Corporation in a Tech Education Debate (TechCrunch, Mar 14, 2010) argues that economic competitiveness in the 21st Century will be different from the past. With the free flow of information, capital, and people, economies will have to look for new comparative advantages. Most observers of this topic conclude that there are three things a country must do to increase its relative competitiveness and provide for an increased standard of living for its citizens:
- Invest in the education of their work force (smart people);
- Invest in research and development (smart ideas) and;
- Provide the environment to let smart people get together with smart ideas to create new products, businesses and services.
Our revolutionary knowledge platform Engineers360 derives from these concerns and issues.