Engineering Department Woes...What to do? 8

[dmech]

Hi Eng-Tips Forum,

I have considerable engineering experience (BS + MS + PE + 15 years on the job) and have worked for a handful of companies. Recently, I was hired to work for a small company with a relatively new engineering department. Our manager holds a physics degree and is smart. However, he lacks engineering experience and a general understanding of engineering best practices (e.g. engineering documentation, accurate BOMs, Engineering Change Process, design reviews, development process, coordination with other departments, part numbering system, etc.).

In addition, the most respected "engineer" in our small company lacks any sort of degree, but has taken chemistry, physics, calculus and is generally pretty sharp and knowledgeable on our products from her technical support experience. However, she lacks knowledge in engineering best practices (see partial list above) and basic engineering concepts (e.g. single shear vs double shear, fatigue calculations, Free Body Diagrams, Statics, Dynamics, detail drawings, etc.).

Both are respected by the CEO for helping CAD design the products and build the company. Also, they are distantly related to the CEO by six degrees of separation.

Soon after I was hired I wrote the engineering manager an e-mail on some basic systems we should put in-place to organize ourselves (e.g. formal part numbering system, BOM management system, ECO and PDM system) and prepare for growth. Also, I suggested we fully document our products in 3D CAD, as well as the associated engineering documentation and specifications. That was a year ago and nothing has changed...not a single thing!

How can I improve our department without stepping on toes of the engineering manager and the highly respected "engineer" and actually effect change?

Thanks,
DMECH

 

[cranky108]

It's in the same company in my case, so it our word agenst theres in front of the officers of the company.

They had the better lier.

 

[SMOKES]

My advice is to lead by example, you have the opportunity to set some form organisation using excel sheets to log all the drawings/ documents and revisions. Smart numbering parts good folder practice on the network drive.it tedious to do but it is better than having nothing.

If you are smart you would start filling or the file properties in the CAD model word document excel documents, with things like part numbers, material weight, drawing number, revision number, drawn by checked by checked by approved by and the corresponding date. This meta data will enable you to create a BOMs of the assemblies in the CAD system based of this data. It a ball ache to do but if you show them how it will speed up their day, they will follow. I would do this for every fastener and commercial item. I have seen 500 nuts of same spec been created on a CAD and ERP system because the engineers couldn't find the part in the ERP CAD system. This will lead to things like PDM and ERP system been implemented when budget allows.

I would make the effort to create exploded assembly drawings to show how the components go together add notes for torque requirement thread coating grease, create documents for manufacturing test procedures and quality control

Perhaps allocating some budget to create prototype fixes for the design failures, and showing the fixes to the sale teams, that are getting feedback from customers. Will get you enough to support to do the engineering changes.

I find by making these small "nudges" people will respond to the changes and give you there support and backing, I do warn there may be conflict with some entrenched staff, who don't want to be knocked of their pedestal of power because engineering is taking control away from them.

 

[desertfox]

Hi cranky108

I think its a bit different if its only a internal company meeting.
However if someone accuses you of forging their signature then they are accusing you of fraud, in that situation if it goes to court the accuser has to prove his accusation otherwise he's in deep water, least that's how it works here.

 

[dmech]

Thank you for the responses, I greatly appreciate your time and thoughtful comments. The trend I'm seeing in the responses is as follows;
[ol 1]
[li]It's rude to "brag" about your education, PE, and experience and they aren't absolutely necessary to perform engineering work.[/li]
[li]The best approach is to work with them, prove yourself, and lead by example[/li]
[li]E-mail is not a good method of communicating these types of issues, but can be useful for CYA endeavors.[/li]
[/ol]
In my OP, I merely provided my education, credential, and experience to provide the reader some background, and to convey that I wasn't some young, idealistic, recent engineering graduate. I've known non-degree, "Mechanical Designers" (a.k.a. mechanically adept CAD jockeys), that have more design sense than some guys/gals that hold bachelors degree, but that has been few and far between and I wouldn't trust them with highly technical engineering tasks (e.g. design a double shear motion stop, since in my case that "engineer" doesn't know what double shear means). Also, I feel some may have missed my subsequent post about the product/production issues we face everyday because of poor "engineering". If 70% failure rates, improperly designed gear trains, complicated use modes, resource sapping production support, and near fatal explosions are good "engineering", please provide our most respected "engineer" an offer they can't refuse (i.e. $175,000 annually should be suitable bait).

I would enjoy the opportunity to lead by example and prove myself. However, the logic I provided between the CEO and "engineer" in my second post leads to zero motivation to improve or redesign the products. For example, since I started (nearly 3 years ago) not a single long-term, tangible, project/product has been successfully released. Hence the lack of respect by the other departments and general feeling that "engineering" doesn't do or fix anything. Simply put, projects are not created nor allocated.

Once again, I greatly appreciate your time and thoughtful comments. I'm going to approach (no e-mails) the engineering manager tomorrow about playing a more significant roll within engineering, and simply ask "How can I best help the company succeed?"

 

[JsnPrkr]

How did the meeting with the Engineering Manager go, dmech?

This thread has many facets and is fascinating on many levels: business, product design, product management, sales, engineering management, customer service.

My background: I'm a degreed engineer who has moved out of my degree area (Mech) into a related discipline (Elec), worked for several excellent Fortune 500 companies, started three businesses including an electrical generation systems business, been a partner in a fourth business, and now practice full time as an EE for a highly respected global consumer goods company.

This is fundamentally a challenge of universes: (1)Your universe as an engineer and the things that are very real within that realm and (2)The universes of the people who launched and grew the company and manage it today. Your best bet is to start with what's real to the people you're working with. You have to build a communication line to them strong enough to handle the topics you're trying to bring up along with all the seemingly inevitable baggage and complexities that come with them. An excellent place to start is to ask yourself "What is their viewpoint?" It's important to work with what you actually know about their viewpoint as opposed to dubbing in ideas based on your frustrations, gossip, or other extraneous elements. Also find out candidly (not critically) what their reality is. Doing this, you can find out two very important things about the people you're working with:

1. What is important to them and motivates them.
2. What are their biggest problems, IN THEIR ESTIMATION?

Hopefully, the meeting with the Engineering Manager has helped you to clarify your role with respect to solving their problems rather than your problems or the problems that the blue-collar guys grumble about. The management team are presumably in their current positions because they have demonstrated that they can identify the most important problems and resolve them. The CEO vignette given shows that the CEO is still expecting the Technical Designer person to help them identify and evaluate technical problems. A CEO deferring to a trusted deputy is not unusual or inappropriate.

Over the years, I've found that the biggest workplace challenge we engineers have stems from the very things that make us valuable as engineers. We think very logically; we evaluate information and discard extraneous factors; we tend to be dispassionate in our evaluations and decision making; we have tremendous personal discipline and approach things systematically; we tend to have a well-developed vocabulary; we have a highly specialized vocabulary; we tend to try to make decisions objectively and favor data over opinion; we are very detail-oriented. For better or for worse, many of these fine attributes run counter to what other professionals consider to be desirable modes of acting.

Here's an example: A CEO survives by rapidly digesting an enormous amount of information and situations and directing most of the organization's activities at arm's length. He has incredible demands on his time and his discretionary time is very limited. He usually has to make decisions with incomplete information. His ability to cope with these sub-optimal situations are what make him a good CEO, but that doesn't mean he thinks it's an ideal way to run a company. It also doesn't mean he's ignorant of how things could be better; he simply doesn't have the luxury of sitting in a corner analyzing a situation because three things will go neglected while he's focusing on the first one. If he's good, he can manage all of these disparate demands and move things generally forward. An engineer who comes to a CEO with time-absorbing detail will find his audience's attention drifting off to more immediate things. When you speak to a CEO, it's most effective to put on your CEO hat and assume the viewpoint of a CEO. The best organizations--especially growing ones--are headed by a few desperate individuals who are working their butts off to make things go right. If you understand and appreciate the daily life of the CEO and talk to him as a CEO (rather than talking to him as a guy who should understand and value engineering at a highly refined professional level but doesn't), then you will find a willing partner in the discussion. Cultivated and cared for skillfully, this partnership can then grow into a partnership at the organizational and business level. This applies to everyone from CEO to janitor.

So assume the viewpoint of the person whose cooperation you're seeking and operate from their viewpoint and their reality. Find out what their main problems are, pick the biggest one you are capable of solving quickly, and slam dunk it. Doing this a few times, you will establish yourself as someone who can identify and resolve the company's problems. Gaining trust this way, you will soon be able to take on more complex projects that take more time and company resources.

A couple more fundamentals to help move things in a positive direction:
1. ASK BEFORE YOU TELL
2. APPRECIATION IS ALWAYS APPRECIATED

Once you have moved into and are operating in their CEO or Engineering Manager or Customer Service universe, you can establish some of your Engineer universe there. Put in things they can immediately see that are of value and your services will soon be in very high demand!

The fundamental here is "Solve their problems, not yours". Solving the right problems buys everyone time to talk about the next problems to take on.

-Jason

 

[dmech]

Jsnson,

Very well put, I greatly enjoyed reading your post and think it is by far the best advice provided given the situation. I will definitely digest and use your advice as best I can.

The meeting went fine and I was given a pretty cool and innovative project. It's been difficult to get anything done on the new project with the amount of production support, customer issues, and other regular and frequent problems because of the aforementioned issues, but at least the new project is a step in the right direction. Someone from one of the other departments recently asked the CEO if one of our most troublesome product lines would be redesigned soon and the CEO said "No, do you know how many we sell?" I don't disagree totally, but the market is passing us by on quality and new features as we stick to our guns, and our sales growth is stale if not tapering off slowly quarter-by-quarter.

In time I suppose.

 

[Enginerd9]

I've seen people say "they have successful products" more than once, and it bothers me. The point the OP was making is that they are not, in fact, successful products. They are cobbled together by people who lack a fundamental understanding of the bigger picture, and as a result they are products which have made the company money but are not reliable, safe, or sustainable.

So, let's stop saying "they obviously make successful products." Because what they've really done is successfully sold crap to oblivious customers, and wasted a shload of money on continued support for those products thanks to all the inherent problems which could have (and should have) been avoided initially.

I don't know if it's a job worth keeping, to be honest. I would recommend updating your resume and going someplace better, where your skills and energy are more appreciated / valuable.

Do you care? Yes. That's obvious. But trying to save a sinking ship may be misplaced energy.

Experience: accumulated knowledge over time.

Talent: the ability to use experience.

Which is more valuable?