The engineering enterprise is a pillar of U.S. national and homeland security, economic vitality, and innovation. But many engineering tasks can now be performed anywhere in the world. The emergence of offshoring the transfer of work from the United States to affiliated and unaffiliated entities abroad has raised concerns about the impacts of globalization.

The Offshoring of Engineering helps to answer many questions about the scope, composition, and motivation for offshoring and considers the implications for the future of U.S. engineering practice, labor markets, education, and research. This book examines trends and impacts from a broad perspective and in six specific industries software, semiconductors, personal computer manufacturing, construction engineering and services, automobiles, and pharmaceuticals.

The Offshoring of Engineering will be of great interest to engineers, engineering professors and deans, and policy makers, as well as people outside the engineering community who are concerned with sustaining and strengthening U.S. engineering capabilities in support of homeland security, economic vitality, and innovation.

The executive summary begins:

Spurred in part by a decades-long decline in manufacturing employment, the implications of globalization for the United States are a source of considerable debate. The emergence of "offshoring" -- the transfer of work from the United States to affiliated and unaffiliated entities abroad -- has raised additional concerns about the impacts of globalization. Among the occupations subject to offshoring are highly paid professions, including engineering, that are essential to US technological progress, economic growth, and national security.

The National Academy of Engineering recognizes that offshoring raises significant challenges not only for engineers themselves, but also for industry, educational institutions, government, and professional societies. Many engineering tasks can now be performed anywhere in the world by qualified professionals with access to appropriate connectivity. To sustain and strength US engineering capabilities in this new environment, the United States may need to consider new approaches to education, career development, management, and policy, and make changes where appropriate.

The Offshoring of Engineering: Facts, Unknowns, and Potential Implications