As American companies become more global in sales and manufacturing, they are shifting engineering, research, development and technical support jobs to lower-cost countries.

The impact of this offshore outsourcing could be huge, according to a panel of local businessmen who met yesterday at Carnegie Mellon University.

Forrester Research predicts that 3.36 million white-collar service jobs could be "offshored" over the next 12 years because skilled workers in developing countries can do the same jobs for a fraction of the U.S. costs.

Markos Tambakeras, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Kennametal Inc., said the trend follows an acceleration of investment abroad by U.S. based firms.

Latrobe-based Kennametal, for example, generates 50 percent of its sales overseas and half of its 14,000 employees work from other countries.

"There is a relentless pursuit of the lowest global costs,'' he told an audience of educators, students and professionals at CMU's College of Engineering. "This is a brutal economic world that we are operating in."

Speakers emphasized that U.S. engineering students must work at understanding global markets and foreign cultures and develop their abilities to innovate and be flexible to better compete.

"Innovation and creativity tend to be a real strength of U.S. engineers. We want to amplify that," said John Friel, president and CEO of Medrad, a maker of medical imaging products.

Carl J. Johnson, an engineer who is chairman and CEO of II-VI Inc., said that when he was a student he had no idea that he would one day be involved in international operations.

His company, a manufacturer of parts used in lasers, has seen its exports grow from 5 percent of its business in 1975 to about half last year.

Along the way, the company found it could not make a profit on all the parts it produced at its plant in Saxonburg. So in 1990 it moved some production to Singapore in part because English is the business language spoken there. Five years later, Singapore was not cost competitive, and the company moved some work to China.

Now II-VI has facilities in three countries. Johnson said the costs in Singapore and China are dramatically lower. If the United States was 100 on a pay index, he said Singapore would rank 35 and China 10. He predicted that research and development work would soon follow manufacturing and move offshore.

James Liken, president and CEO of medical equipment maker Respironics Inc., said engineers working in the United States and Hong Kong for his company can work together across time zones. "They can almost work on the same things,'' he said.

John Stanik, a CMU grad who is president and CEO of activated carbon maker Calgon Carbon, suggested that more American students should learn a second or third language and become more familiar with the financial aspects of corporations.

Despite the increased global competition, Stanik said engineering remains a great platform for a student who wants a career in business because of the many options open to him.