Engineering dept staffed with unqualified "engrs" 15

[plasgears]

A word for the big three, especially since I have a stake in the matter; I generally buy American brands:

In the spirit of ISO 9000, seek to learn the level of expertise in first and lower tier suppliers. In section 4 of ISO 9000 there is a requirement that engineers should be well qualified to perform the function. You should find it alarming that the engineering department is managed by a non-engr. Further, it should trouble you that team leaders and other "engineers" are not graduate engineers.

 

[TheTick]

The definitive symptom of incompetence is that an incompetent person is not qualified to assess another's competence.

That said, it may depend who you ask as to whether someone is qualified.

All this machinery making modern music can still be open-hearted.

 

[BRIS]

There is a management theory, which is particularly prevalent in the US, that engineering managers and team leaders need not be engineers but need to be expert in management. In fact management experts will argue that their management skills make them markedly better managers. I can only say from my experience projects managed by non engineers have invariably failed to come in within budget and time whilst those managed by engineers have been a success.

As far as ISO 9000 is concerned the requirement is that there must be procedures for checking. There is no requirement for managers to check the work of the managed. In fact you can argue that ISO 9000 is better satisfied if the manager is an expert in management and not an engineer.

The arguments fail in practice because engineering is an art not a precise science. Design and development is a series of compromises it is balancing act between economics, functionality, reliability, life etc. Theoretically all of these can be quantified but we make subjective decisions based on our engineering experience and expertise. We recognise that mangers must be competent in engineering otherwise they are unable to manage what is a subjective process. They are unable to assess what matters and what does not and are unable to properly allocate resources. In particular they are unable to recognise when an engineering project is turning into a research project and burning resources unnecessarily.

Where engineers fail as managers is in the fact that they expect to get it right and produce the required deliverables within time and budget whereas management specialist consistently fail but then demonstrate their management expertise in the recovery. The board is more impressed by their ability to turn a potential loss of several millions into only a few million whereas if the project had been managed by an engineer it would have made a small profit and not have gone into a loss in the first place.

The moral is get it wrong then demonstrate how good you are by putting it right. The board will be much more impressed than if you got it right in the first place.

brian

 

[monkeydog]

BRIS,
Well said, I thought your synopsis was unique to the aerospace industry. It is interesting to read it echoed in your industry.

 

[plasgears]

My early experience in engineering after receiving my degree was that all engineering managers were masters/eng. Likewise for higher level managers. This was at a jet engine plant. I heard there thru the grapevine that even technician requirements were filled with engrs. They would rather have engineers in the engineering function than unqualified individuals.

The reason for the original post is that I have discovered an alarming lack of judgement in automotive engineering because the managers and team leaders were largely QC types, promoted draftsmen, not engineers. Here are some of the bonehead comments I got from these types:
- Cut down the gear OD to the pitch line to reduce noise;
- There must have been a good reason that we have 10 deg mismatch between worm and gear; anti-backdrive (!);
- We can't change to a low temp grease to allow cold start; we have only one grease across all product lines;
- we can't go to DuPont Delrin (a stronger plastic); we are standardized to Ticona at this supplier.

I haven't proven it yet, but I suspected one supplier of making critical gears from 100% commodity regrind. We had a rash of field failures that caused loss of contract. This came from bonehead decisions to stay with an unscrupulous supplier.

 

[Retracnic]

Though I don't work in the automotive field, I have spent my professional career as an engineer dealing with global communications and networking equipment. In that time I have had the occasion to work under both engineers and non-engineers. In my experience, there are pros and cons to both.

As a whole, engineers are often too quick to say "Nope, no sir. Absolutely no way we can do it." As engineers, we often develop the habit of sticking to the same tried and true solutions, and are reluctant to move into unfamiliar territory. Often times, working for a non-engineer can be good, as they don't have any prejudices hard-wired in. They often force you to expand in new directions and get you out of your comfort zone. Yet working for a non-engineer is also fraught with poor decisions, unrealistic deadlines and expectations.

But no matter who I find my self reporting to after the quarterly company-wide reorganization, I just accept it as a new set of challenges. As I see it, any one can design an effective solution when there are no limits placed on the design. It takes a real engineer to provide an elegant solution with one hand tied behind his back, poor materials selection, and no budget.

My 2 Cents
Bryan Carter

 

[whatahoot]

Excuse me, but referencing ISO... anything as a standard for competency for engineering tells me you have lost contact with the real world. The endless paperwork created by this system has created nothing but a bunch of ex-eng's who know how to check the boxes in a checklist. Give me a break, how many times do you need to check the box that made sure we checked the last box?!

Sorry, but give me a motivated "un-qualified" engineer who knows how to get things done and who to go to for help and I'll run with them any day!

Our friends in the UK could tell you at great length the uselessness of the ISO system in their country. Anyone can comply if they pay their way into the system. Pretty soon the process has no value.

I hope by now, people have figured out the successful companies (and people?!) make decisions long before every last piece of data is available to support their no risk decisions. Hmmmm... pursue this if you want to know where all the jobs are going...

Signed,
Member of a "Top Heavy Large Tier One Company" caught in the "ISO Web"

 

[sprintcar]

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." --Albert Einstein

If I may comment from the "non-degreed" perspective....
What engineering school teaches is where to look in what book and how to play with equations.
Maybe Plasgears had a financially well off family that could send him out for 4 or 5 years and get the little piece of paper to hang on the wall... not all of us had that advantage. I got 2 years into it before the funds ran out and I got drafted. Since then I've taken the majority of the core classes at night but don't have "The Paper" - Instead I've got 30 years experience in Design and Engineering with a number of companies (including that little motorcycle on in Milwaukee), 5 patents, and keystone designs that are still on the market (and I can ride one to work)
Gee.. and I did this without taking Differential Calc, Laser Physics and Micro Circuit Theory???
I've worked with DEGREED engineers - both new and experienced - that can't hit their asses with a map... They specify unavailable sizes for fasteners and materials... can't read drawings, don't understand fits or tolerance stacks, etc. I think you'll find that most of those bad decisions were driven by a manager and dictated by some Accounting type in high places.

The bottom line - it isn't the degree, it's the PERSON. You either have the intellect and intuitive engineering ability or you don't. Mark's Handbook has the equations, XCALC has the calculators, and ProE or AutoCad will put the parts together. You learn on the job and hone your skills with the tools unique to your current profession. And chances are, your best resource is the guy that's been there 30 years who started as a drafter and doesn't have a degree...






Keep the wheels on the ground
Bob
showshine@aol.com

 

[patprimmer]

I have worked in then managed a textiles applications laboratory for 10 years, then worked in the technical marketing of engineering plastics for 30 years.

I have a degree in textiles technology, which while not an engineering degree, involved quite a bit of engineering, along with chemistry, physical chemistry and polymer chemistry. I do have an engineering apptitude, and physics was the subject where I never had to bother studying to much to get a good pass.

In the technical marketing role, I worked for a number of years as a "Market Development Engineer".

In this time I have been involved with a very large number of projects, many in the automotive and the appliance industries with companies like GM, Ford, Mitsubishi, Bosh, VDO, Toyota, Electrolux, Black & Decker, Sunbeam, Bendix, Borg warner, Osram, GE, Ramset, Pandrol, just to mention a few.

Many of these involved both qualified and unqualified engineers.

I have seen many good and many bad decisions by both qualified and non qualified engineers.

The main difference between the good and bad decisions was experience in the type of materials used and the inteligence, overal broad experience (formal education is just one form of experience) and intuition of the engineer involved.

Another major factor is the environment in which they work. Once management overrules engineering and decides to go to production "anyway", despite sturctural problems, or when stylist have the last say, and insist on makeing an unsound structure "because it looks nice", a disaster is iminent.

On the other hand, if we wait for the engineering to be "perfect" or we market a sound but ugly product, a disaster is also iminent.

To calculate stresses in complex , I think an engineering degree is a big help

To come up with effective designs, I think apptitude has a lot more to do with it than a degree, but the degree can't hurt.

I think to get a degree you need to be a good scolar, and apptitude helps, but is not essential.

To get a job in engineering without a degree, you need a track record that proves apptitude, and some terserary education helps a lot, but university education is not essential.

Like all things it comes down to a sensible ballance and good projects come from team effort where all the necessary skills are present and recognised and respected by all.


Regards
pat

 

[TheTick]

sprintcar:
I've seen many 30-year designers running on 5 years worth of knowledge and 25 years of misapplied pseudo-engineering folklore. Maybe "the paper" itself doesn't mean much, but you did take the time to get the core classes.

There's a prevailing prejudice among the self-trained that gaining a degree somehow robs one of his common sense. The majority of degreed engineers are capable of applying what they have learned in a practical sense, and are very open-minded about learning from those with the dirty hands. There's never any buzz about the quiet competent majority. Only the funny anecdotes about a couple "characters" seem to live on.

Besides, that little motorcycle manufacturer in Milwaukee has seen the light, and is making sure all of its engineering managers are degreed or pass the PE. Maybe they will someday reach the point where their parts fit together properly (even in CAD, half the parts don't fit) and brand new bikes don't leak oil.

All this machinery making modern music can still be open-hearted.

 

[Metalguy]

TheTick,

Less oil leaks? Less "roadside" time? Sales will plummet!

 

[CDC]

As an 'ex' senior engineer/manager for a reasonably sized ship repair company and over 30 years of working experience I would like to comment that ISO 9001 has nothing to do with engineers, a company without engineers can also be ISO 9001 accredited, in theory even a one man company can. It has to do with common business sense and being able to trace where certain decisions, operational methods and structures etc. come from and it forces the management to think about these questions and see if they can be improved by standardizing. It just takes care that common questions, asked numerous times in organizations on a daily basis, can be answered rapidly and the same way (almost) every time. Saves time, saves money…

I remember when we started to implement ISO 9000 there were endless meetings and everybody had something negative to say about it, but after being accredited and working with the system it all makes so much sense that you wonder how you could have kept track without it. It is a well thought out system that you could have designed yourself given enough time and practice and in the end it will make your organization more competitive and better organized.

Some die-hards (may it be called a bit narrow minded?) will always argument that the paperwork involved is ridiculous, agreed that in the beginning this may appear to be so but ask the claims department how they or anybody else having to cover his ass, would do without such a system. In any organization of reasonable size the people who maintain the quality system would have to be added to the claims department, and maybe a few more.

 

[TheTick]

I love my paper trail. It usually says "I told you so" so that I don't have to.

 

[rodar]

I have experienced the engineering degrees are useless
idea at every job I have ever had.
I have also seen at all these jobs that sometimes the
mathematics and applied physics of an engineering
degree provide a solution to the problem that has left
others saying how did you know how to do that?
Like it or not mathematics is at the base how things
operate.


There is no doubt in my mind that at certain levels of the
profession the math and science are not optional.
I have never liked anyone telling me that my four years
of college and big bucks were wasted.

On the other hand i have had much experience with paper
engineers who got their degrees but are not curious and
interested in the type of work. They passed the classes
and got their paper but they are allmost impossible to
communicate with because of their pretend knowledge base.
They don't care about really knowing why something works.

As for ISO, my last employer had a training system by
throughing you into the fire and you learn their procedures
by word of mouth. Every person had a different version of
the correct way to do something. When I would get disgusted
and ask where these thing were documented I would get no
response. This is an ISO 9000 facility.

Engineers are pessimest by nature. Most of the time it is
necessary for an engineer to rapidly envision scenarios
and reject them for a weakness. They must do this to get
their job done. It is far more costly to waste time implementing a dead end idea than to continue though experiments rejecting the ones with holes until a holeless
one is found. I dearly love to here those managers say
"YOU DON'T KNOW IT WONT WORK SO WHY NOT TRY"
To which I think OK there is a 1% chance this this will
happen and so we will stop planning and implement this for the next 3 weeks.
When it does not work, no questions are raised about the loss
of the most precious commidity there is TIME.
The fastest route to a good design is the engineers prototyping in his head and conducting experiments to fill
in missing information as needed to continue the design.
Sorry for the rant but this is my opinion about negative engs.
rodar

 

[plasgears]

The test for engineers qualified to do the jobs will come in the courtrooms when loss of life is in the equation. Then there will be wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth. The investment in degreed engineers will seem small when disaster happens.

 

[TheTick]

To be true to the original intent of the thread, we must not confuse degreed vs. non-degreed with qualified vs. non-qualified.

 

[patdaly]

plasgears writes:
"The test for engineers qualified to do the jobs will come in the courtrooms when loss of life is in the equation. Then there will be wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth. The investment in degreed engineers will seem small when disaster happens."

So courtrooms, who gave us the "engineering" opinion that GM made a boo-boo with their Gasoline tank design on 1973-87 CK series trucks, will be the arbitor? Man, I want out of this place. I am so happy my education will hang in the balance of some sleazebag Lawyer, or a jury composed of High School graduates!

 

[CanEngJohn]

patdaly writes
"Man, I want out of this place. I am so happy my education will hang in the balance of some sleazebag Lawyer, or a jury composed of High School graduates!"

I thought a jury had to be of your peers? I also believed that in court cases similar to the one mentioned peers were quite often just that. If High School graduates are your peers you had better get that piece of paper on the wall to protect your butt.

If you have an Engineer who does not want to try new things then you have an educated and expensive technician. Challenge them immediately to be a better Engineer. As for ISO/QS/16949/Whatever Quality standard you must meet to compete they all boil down to the same thing - paperwork is important. What the challenge of ANY company at any level is how to make your paperwork work and help you. If it is paperwork for the sake of paperwork then you have done something definately wrong.

Also I agree with TheTick. A degree means you have the education. It does not determine competancy or qualifications. If I have to design or implement something then I listen to the person making the most sense. Not the piece of paper on the wall. This applies to all levels. A creed a grad student once told me which I now use ..

I do not care if you are male, female, white, black or green. I will work and cooperate with you as long as you are competent and support me.

 

[patdaly]

CanEngJohn writes:

"I thought a jury had to be of your peers? I also believed that in court cases similar to the one mentioned peers were quite often just that. "

Perhaps in other countries, but in the USA, your "peers" are not necessarialy educated people. In fact, in this country, the seating of jurists can be more important to a case than the actual argument presented.

"I do not care if you are male, female, white, black or green. I will work and cooperate with you as long as you are competent and support me."

I like it, and agree wholeheartedly!

 

[TheTick]

Juries scare me. I often ponder what I would do if charged with a serious crime (in error, of course). If the facts were in my favor, I might just forgo the jury and be tried by a judge who has more than half a brain, rather than 12 unwilling citizens with half a brain between the lot of them.

As far as engineering qualifications go, I believe the point is to avoid any sort of trial-in-aftermath scenario. Also, while a degree is not the only means to competency (and experience does not itself guarantee competency), I believe there needs to be standards.