engineer/designer vs builder/laborer

[Moses Yoder]

Of what value is a discipline that can't be communicated? How would it add value to the product if it can't be communicated? I can communicate with designers just fine, and understand what they want to do. They add value to the product by making it look nice and serve it's purpose. I communicate with a cabinetmaker just fine, and he adds value to the product through direct labor. Of what use is an engineer if I can't communicate with him?

[Ben Hatcher]

While it would be kind of handy to have someone around who can answer these questions, my guess is they would have reference materials at their desk to look up the answers. Nowadays of course I would just google them and find the answers.

My wife's uncle is a manufacturing engineer, and he really has problems justifying his salary. I don't think he's ever worked a job for more than 5 years.

You probably can look things up just as well as an engineer might. You may even know how to apply it properly to your situation. There’s no engineer gene. Lots of people from many walks of life are capable of learning how to be an engineer or do engineering type work. There used to be apprenticeship programs whereby smart and capable people could become an engineer without taking the traditional college route. I think that it is too bad that those don't seem to be very common these days, especially given how expensive 4-year degrees have become.

I often think that an engineering degree is like a high end tool. The job can often be done with a cheaper tool. The operator may insist that the cheaper tool is perfectly fine. He may be right, but unless he’s tried the high end version, he’ll never know for sure.

[John Coloccia]

Of what value is a discipline that can't be communicated? How would it add value to the product if it can't be communicated? I can communicate with designers just fine, and understand what they want to do. They add value to the product by making it look nice and serve it's purpose. I communicate with a cabinetmaker just fine, and he adds value to the product through direct labor. Of what use is an engineer if I can't communicate with him?

I didn't say you can't communicate with him. I said that part of the problem is that you have no clue what he does, just as much as he may not understand exactly what you do. This is evidenced by the fact that you think you open a book and just "look up" or google for answers. You might find Young's Modulus in a reference book but you will not find an FEA model for a particular structure.

But you've made up your mind that engineers (or eggheads, as some prefer) are just useless. I'll assume your answer will be typed on a computer you designed and built yourself, or it will be a hand delivered block of wood you've chiseled your response into, after smelting some metal and pounding it into a chisel.

Sheesh.

[Ben Hatcher]

You probably can look things up just as well as an engineer might. You may even know how to apply it properly to your situation. There’s no engineer gene. Lots of people from many walks of life are capable of learning how to be an engineer. There used to be apprenticeship programs whereby smart and capable people could become an engineer without taking the traditional college route. I think that it is too bad that those don't seem to be very common these days, especially given how expensive 4-year degrees have become.




I often think that an engineering degree is like a high end tool. The job can often be done with a cheaper tool. The operator may insist that the cheaper tool is perfectly fine. He may be right, but unless he’s tried the high end version, he’ll never know for sure.

[Moses Yoder]

But you've made up your mind that engineers (or eggheads, as some prefer) are just useless.

Some engineers are very usefull. I am not sure at what point anything I said can be interpreted to mean that engineers are useless. All except one of the college trained engineers I have met are useless, but those represent less than a hundred people, and none of them were trained at Purdue or MIT, they were all trained at smaller colleges. The engineers who worked on the Dodge Neon would have been better off scrubbing toilets and putting the janitors to work on that car. Then of course there is the off chance my car was just a lemon. The leaning Tower of Pisa probably could have benefited from a good foundation engineer. I think probably the engineers working for Lamborghini probably know their stuff. It wouldn't have cost that much more to make a really reliable car and put the Dodge Neon name on it, but every penny counts when you're shoveling money into executive pockets.

[John Coloccia]

Some engineers are very usefull. I am not sure at what point anything I said can be interpreted to mean that engineers are useless. All except one of the college trained engineers I have met are useless, but those represent less than a hundred people, and none of them were trained at Purdue or MIT, they were all trained at smaller colleges. The engineers who worked on the Dodge Neon would have been better off scrubbing toilets and putting the janitors to work on that car. Then of course there is the off chance my car was just a lemon. The leaning Tower of Pisa probably could have benefited from a good foundation engineer. I think probably the engineers working for Lamborghini probably know their stuff. It wouldn't have cost that much more to make a really reliable car and put the Dodge Neon name on it, but every penny counts when you're shoveling money into executive pockets.

We're going to have to agree to disagree, but dang that's funny. Welcome to the creek.

[Dan Hintz]

It wouldn't have cost that much more to make a really reliable car and put the Dodge Neon name on it, but every penny counts when you're shoveling money into executive pockets.

Proof positive you have no idea what an engineer does or the trade-offs he's forced to make to get a product to your doorstep... and bean counters are only a part of the battle. You get a lemon of a car and think the engineers behind it were the ones screwing up... what a wonderful world you must live in to have such thick blinders on.

I'm done with this thread as it has become too troll-like. If I visit it any more I'll be forced to say something that will get me kicked off of the board. Ignorance can be cured, stupidity can't.

[Bob Turkovich]

The engineers who worked on the Dodge Neon would have been better off scrubbing toilets and putting the janitors to work on that car.

36 1/2 years as an engineer at Chrysler down the drain.....

[Bob Turkovich]

Proof positive you have no idea what an engineer does or the trade-offs he's forced to make to get a product to your doorstep... and bean counters are only a part of the battle. You get a lemon of a car and think the engineers behind it were the ones screwing up... what a wonderful world you must live in to have such thick blinders on.

I'm done with this thread as it has become too troll-like. If I visit it any more I'll be forced to say something that will get me kicked off of the board. Ignorance can be cured, stupidity can't.

Trust me, Dan.

I've really had a hard time staying quiet on this thread...

[Montgomery Scott]

Proof positive you have no idea what an engineer does or the trade-offs he's forced to make to get a product to your doorstep... and bean counters are only a part of the battle. You get a lemon of a car and think the engineers behind it were the ones screwing up... what a wonderful world you must live in to have such thick blinders on.

I'm done with this thread as it has become too troll-like. If I visit it any more I'll be forced to say something that will get me kicked off of the board. Ignorance can be cured, stupidity can't.

All too true. If it takes 12 years to become an "engineer" then it is one in title only. Most people in manufacturing have no clue as to the complexity of the task of an engineer. Designing and analyzing structure to withstand static and fatigue stresses from up to 12,000 load casees, failure modes, damage tolerant, high and low temps for 20+ years of life all to have the lowest weight and lowest cost and to be integrated with electrical, hydraulic and structural systems from other groups all with their own criteria.

I've been a stress analyst on the 737, 757, 767, 777, 787 and F-35 programs and there is never an end to making a better design with more advanced tools, technology and materials. That is what real engineering requires.

[Matt Meiser]

I've been a stress analyst on the 737, 757, 767, 777, 787 and F-35 programs and there is never an end to making a better design with more advanced tools, technology and materials. That is what real engineering requires.

If your Google skills were better you could have saved yourself a lot of time for cleaning bathrooms.

What I want to know is, if a lemon Neon lasts 8 years, how long does a good one last?

Well, off to clean the bathrooms. Or maybe implement a solution to make an American manufacturing company more efficient and do my small part to keep production and jobs here. Not sure which would be a better use of my engineering degree?

[ian maybury]

It's a well established issue in manufacturing, and there's a whole raft of management approaches that have developed to help get the required co-operation between disciplines/departments/functions. Almost all originated from an approach called 'Lean Manufacturing'.

The classic book on the topic is 'The machine That Changed the World'. This is the story of how techniques developed in Japan and especially by Toyota cars (Toyota Production) were surveyed in a major US industry funded research programme in the 80s - in an attempt to understand the methods the Japanese companies were using as they decimated Detroit in terms of costs, new cars, quality ad so on.

Interestingly enough it was heavily influenced by the work of a US thinker named Deming on quality in Japanese manufacturing post WW2, but also embodied the holistic way of looking at things probably originally brought to Japanese culture by Zen and similar traditions.

Lean while there are local versions that mess with the principles of the original is now 'how it's done'. It's basically a holistic approach that provides ways for all the stakeholders to make the required input right from product concept, through design and development, and on into the planning and implementation of production and after sales - with a very strong emphasis on matching internal capability to the realities of the environment the business operates in. Teamwork and joint decision making are central.

Excessive centralisation, authority, social barriers and departmentalisation leading to culture of non co-operation, detachment from reality and an inability to respond to external pressures were (and are) some of the core problems in the case of the by then traditional Ford derived methods of managing manufacturing in the US and elsewhere. These became no longer feasible once competition and technological and social change led to a situation where rapid change was the norm.

It's so holistic, and so finely embedded in well run organisations that that it's almost invisible in practice. Like asking a fish about water - he's not necessarily aware of it, but is immersed in it all the time. The result is that it's really only when it fails as in the case of examples like those the guys mention above. You could argue though that the almost demise of the US auto industry was a classic example of a failure of this sort.

Design for manufacturing (DFM - now expanded to include disciplines like design for sourcing, environment, energy efficiency, re-cycleability etc etc) and Concurrent Engineering are two major bodies of practice within Lean which support co-operation between engineering and manufacturing. There are many more because it's just as important for the other functions to co-operate - e.g. marketing and business development to co-operate with product development and manufacturing ..

ian

[ben searight]

Wow....this thread has drifted far from the original post. Glad I'm not writing a paper.

I am one of those useless degreed engineers (civil). Being in construction management, I, however am in the unique situation of constructing what others design. This issue arrises on a daily basis in my industry. We refer to it as "constructabilty". It never fails that the contractor complains about those "stupid" engineers, and the engineers complain about the "stupid" contractors. The fact is both sides are ignorant to the requirements, demands, needs, and constraints of the other. Until you get the crane operator to perform complex structural calculations, or the engineer to operate the crane, the issue (and the arguements) will persist.

[Leo Voisine]

On the original post.

I am a degreed engineer. Manufacturing engineer.

I have worked my way up the ranks from being a machine operator in an automotive factory to a position of senior level engineer over a 30 plus span of time.

Been on both sides of the fence.

The engineer that has no practical experience is at a loss and they know it. They will often try to ask for help, but the defence device in the practical machinint get trigered and they will insult the engineer. At that point the engineer no longer feel comfortable asking for help and they go off and do the best they can do. The mashinint does know how to do the job but they feel slighted because they don't get paid as much as the engineer, so why should they help.

I have been on both sides, and experienced all of the above.

It is a really hard thing to do - to be on a friendly playing field on both sides of the fence. Many engineers are pretty arrogend and don't like someone else telling them how to do thier job. Machininst are the same way.

In reality, there is not a lot of difference between a machnist and an engineer.

The best thing, is when the two can sit together and conceptualize and build something together.

I do not post here often - so if you want more - PM me.

Leo

[alex grams]

In regards to the OP:

I used to have an old 1988 F-150 as my high school truck. It had electric window motors. One time I had a motor go out on the passenger door. My uncle was a ford mechanic and knew how to fix it. Two things I learned from watching him replace the motor in under 30 minutes that would have taken me most of a day:

- I guess the engineer thought putting the motors in backwards would make them fit better. So for a passenger door you had to order a driver side motor (same motor was used several model years in a row and was common in the F-150 line, but reversed on this year).

-The motor was mounted in the door, then the inside metal plate was welded on. You had to drill holes into the inside metal of the door to access the bolts. While the order of operations may have made sense when the door was still in production, once you put that inside metal plate on, you were screwed.