Mech/Manufacturing Engineers...

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Mtns2Skies

Final Approach
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Mtns2Skies
How much of your time do you spend in a machine shop/hands on?

I left one job that was 60% of the time (something I loved) for another place that is 0%. I'm not sure what's more typical in this field as these have been my only two internships.
 
Which are you doing? Mechanical or manufacturing engineering?

Where I'm at, the amount of shop time for the mechanical engineers varies greatly. The young, inexperienced engineers generally spend a lot more time in the shop than the experienced guys do (because overseeing the product development testing is the job they give the new guys). The actual designers rarely ever darken the door of the shop because they send the young ones out to do their work. Some of the designers should probably come out more often because some of them don't even know what the product they're designing looks like or if it works.

Every manufacturing engineer I've known spends a fair amount of time on the production floor trying to solve problems and improve processes. That's their job, I don't see how you could effectively do it without trips to the shop.
 
mondtster said:
Which are you doing? Mechanical or manufacturing engineering?
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My degree will say "Mechanical" but my school definitely has a manufacturing emphasis. I definitely enjoy manufacturing more so than design.
 
All the good mechanical engineers I used to have working for me spent way too much of their time in meetings, hating life.

We used to spend quite a bit of money retraining them into being CS engineers if they showed any aptitude. I could hire Mechanical Engineers in Taiwan and in China for quite a bit less, and get much faster turn around time on projects.
 
In either track you will spend the first 5-10 years of your career as a "hands on" design or manufacturing engineer, after then you will be a manager, and balance budgets more than machinery.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
My degree will say "Mechanical" but my school definitely has a manufacturing emphasis. I definitely enjoy manufacturing more so than design.
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That wasn't exactly what I was meaning, I meant what is the job title and responsibilities for what you are actually doing? That likely will have a lot of influence on how much time you spend behind a computer screen or in meetings vs. hands on out in the shop. The fact that you're doing an internship may have some influence as well. It is rare that the interns are in the shop where I work. They're usually off working on some special project that they've been tasked with for the summer.
 
You have to define "hands on". In my case, first job, small company, I designed the machine, had the parts made in house, purchased parts then assembled, debugged, demoed then shipped. That lasted a year for me, about 5 machines. After that it was more design and have other people build.
 
My brother is a mechanical engineer, I'm pretty sure he has spent almost zero time in a machine shop in his 16 years since college. He's been in manufacturing most of his career. In fact, based on the engineers that I know personally, which is a great many, I'm impressed that any engineers do actual hands on work. However, I'm in oil and gas, which is quite different than manufacturing. I think there is more opportunity for hands on work with smaller companies. In the large companies that I am used to, and the ones my brother has worked for, it's more about management and budgeting type stuff than actual engineering.
 
GlennAB1 said:
Sounds like you want to be a machinist, not an engineer.
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My prior internship - including the director of engineering. was regularly on the mill building things to test. Fortune 300 company.

I'm figuring out if I should just go back there because I enjoyed the mixture of computer work with plant and machine shop work. Or if there are other companies that are the same way (in locations I'd prefer)
 
The smaller the company, the more hands-on you will be. But hands-on will vary with your responsibilities.

My first job with BSME, I was half of the department that fixed injection molds when they broke, and modified them when requested. I was 95% hands on for the first three years and did 100% of our paperwork, then our growth really kicked in and I began to hire additional people.

After five years total, I was down to ~30% hands on in the shop, milling and grinding metal pieces, setting up and running the EDM, taking molds apart and putting them back together. After a promotion, I then had two bosses instead of one, and five guys working on the floor all day long. I was still the lucky one on call at night and weekends, anytime I was dumb enough to answer my phone.

Changed jobs into the Fortune 500, I almost never touch a mill, lathe or grinder, much less a CNC machine; I don't even program them any more. I've worked for two Fortune 100 companies in various manufacturing support roles, the most I ever did was run process development trials on a molding machine. But I do have talented Toolmakers working for me who do just what I used to do but without the paperwork or meetings. I did design work then and now, working backwards from finished part design to various mold pieces to make the finished plastic parts.

Some Mfg. Engineers I know have been in Molding (rather than Tooling where I started before swinging through Molding and R&D then back to Tooling) and only operate the molding machines, robots, water chillers, etc., none of which requires much machining.

So what is your (desired) job / industry? So much of what you will do will depend on that, then on your specific company and your particular job function for that company. "Whatcha gonna, whatcha gonna do?" Or in this case, "whatcha wanna, whatcha wanna do?"

P.S.--From the company's point if view, Machinists are inexpensive, Toolmakers are expensive p, and Engineers cost real money. They aren't gonna pay you real money to do a lesser job. But with your Eng. degree, you will have flexibility and mobility within the company that the other two won't. What do you want?
 
Hank S said:
So what is your (desired) job / industry? So much of what you will do will depend on that, then on your specific company and your particular job function for that company. "Whatcha gonna, whatcha gonna do?" Or in this case, "whatcha wanna, whatcha wanna do?"
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I used to want to work for an aircraft manufacturer, but now that I'm here, I'm quickly realizing that the FAA takes the fun out of everything :) And working 10 hours of overtime in a large plant being hands on was no biggie, but working overtime doing paperwork is killer.

I think ultimately mass production on the more industrial side of things is more of what I seem to like, which is broad, but I like to have a mixture of plant/machine shop work as well as 3D modelling and normal engineering duties.
 
Hank S said:
The smaller the company, the more hands-on you will be. But hands-on will vary with your responsibilities.
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I worked for one of the larger Fortune 500 companies and I have spent more time under the hood of a car than I want to admit to.

Find the assignment that fits what you want to do - mechanical engineering covers an incredibly wide range of sins - from testing and validation to PowerPoint engineering. You get to pick.
 
Hank S said:
I spent 21 years making Medical Devices. The FAA can kill a party pretty quickly, but the FDA can keep it from ever starting . . .
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I have a good friend that is a QA engineer for a company that does the same. The bureaucracy is mind boggling.
 
If you like being a machinist........behind a lathe is where they will find you.

Most pilots have a degree.........but prefer pushing throttles.

Bob Monro, founder of Kenmore Air Harbor, could usually be found behind some machine.......way back in the shop. Very rarely he'd be up front in his corner office with a tie on. I don't think he liked being an "executive."
 
kgruber said:
If you like being a machinist........behind a lathe is where they will find you.

Most pilots have a degree.........but prefer pushing throttles.

Bob Monro, founder of Kenmore Air Harbor, could usually be found behind some machine.......way back in the shop. Very rarely he'd be up front in his corner office with a tie on. I don't think he liked being an "executive."
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Yeah, although these days being a machinist is like being an airline pilot. You sit on a stool watching a CNC machine spit out parts while you sip coffee and play Angry Birds on your iphone. Unless you work for a small job shop.
 
My co-op job was basically as an apprentice machinist for a machine tool company. Only in the last quarter did I get into the design room. When I graduated I was a Mech Eng and a journeyman machinist.

The first ten years it was half on the USAF flight line and aircraft plants and half in design analysis. As I moved up until I got to be Chief Engineer for various USAF aircraft, less time "engineering" and mostly making sure engineering was done right.

Cheers
 
BSME here, I spent the first 10 years of my career in a dark room behind two large CRT's that were attached to a DEC PDP-10 (ancient mainframe computer) designing transfer cases. I was running manual FEA analysis by hand on the side.

We had a model shop, but only Union guys were allowed to touch any of the machines. I realized that I hated design and went into Technical Sales about 20 years ago.

So I have never touched a machine in my career. I did run a manual lathe and a manual Bridgeprt mill as well as a very advanced NC machine driven by a roll of punched tape at a part time job during college. But that was before I started working as a Mechanical Engineer. I have always worked for larger companies, but I would say a smaller one would be more hands on - less segregated.
 
Sac Arrow said:
Yeah, although these days being a machinist is like being an airline pilot. You sit on a stool watching a CNC machine spit out parts while you sip coffee and play Angry Birds on your iphone. Unless you work for a small job shop.
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I wouldn't call that a machinist, I'd call that a machine operator. Although in the union world it would still be considered a "skilled trade" to sit on that stool playing Angry Birds, even though they don't know how to do anything but unload the finished parts and press go. :)
 
I spent the past 30+ years as an Engineer working in Manufacturing.
I worked for several different companies including two Fortune 500. The company I work for now outsources the majority of thier machining work so I spend a lot of time at subcontractors. The definition of a Mfg. Eng varies from company to company. Some places it is an operator / setup person, other companies it is degreed Engineers. The aptitude in either group varies significantly. It is hard to find someone with a good mix of education and practical skills.

I have been in a corporate job for 10+ years. Our plants are several hours away so I don't spend near as much time on the shop floor. I mostly manage projects and budgets as mettioned earlier. The 20 years I spent as a Mfg Eng, I was about 50/50 on the floor vs. in the office. That hands on time is invaluable now. I understand the equipment I am buying. People that don't have my background think I have just have good instincts but it is mostly the previous experience that makes the difference.

Several observations about the field - A significant part of the job was CNC programming. THese days, it is much easier than it used to be. Early on it was language based programming, APT or Compact II. You had to understand coding as well as geometry and trig. Now it is mostly graphic based. The software built into the controls is powerful and a good operator can generate programs in a fraction of the time it used to take.
An manufacturing in general has shrunk significantly over the time I have been working.
Also there are fewer manufacturing jobs at any level including engineering.

My best advice is to pick up as many skills as you can. You never know what is going to keep you working. At my previous company, when personal computers started appearing in the workplace, I gradually became the network administrator in addition to the Engineering responsibilities. When the company moved operations to Asia, I was literally one of the last people to leave the building. It gave me time to consider my options and allowed me to ultimately land a better job.

Good luck with your career.
 
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