Operational vs analysis/design engineering 1

[sbullet86]

We all know the engineering field is probably one of the most broad professional choices out there. Out of all the jobs out there, it seems like they all fall either into two categories: the more analysis or designing side, or a conducting operation or over seeing trades and get sh1t done side.

I'm kind of wondering, from experience, are engineers who never really got any real world (work) experience in playing with numbers and doing analysis and design, get the shaft later on in life if they choose they prefer to do more actual "engineering"?

I stayed in touch with some engineering professors, and some urge me to look for something that actually involves "real engineering". On the other hand, just being in the work environment of a defense contractor, it seems operations is what makes the world (company) go around.

Any comments from more experienced professional whose been around the block? Im sure this thread may also help many new engineering graduates who are deciding on which jobs to take.

 

[GregLocock]

I'd say you really need to do both at some point. The vast majority of my career has been spent in labs or hugging screens, but I certainly don't regret the years I've spent running production jobs, welding things (badly), and helping sort out production problems on assembly lines. Straight out of uni I'd say getting involved on the shop floor has a lot going for it, painful as it might be.

I do regret the total of a year or so I spent doing just plain stupid jobs but that motivates me to make sure I (and preferably nobody else) don't have to do them again. For example - we used to calculate the price of building a car by hand, including an estimate of how long it took to tighten each bolt etc. I suggested they do it by computer (OK, this was a LONG time ago) and suggested how it would work. Or we used to tighten greased wheelbearings up on a temperamental machine (which I spent weeks trying to get right), to 1.4 Nm (basically fingertight). That is an impossible spec. Now we use preassembled hub units.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[sbullet86]

Locock to the rescue haha.

What you described sounds like a technician or engineer aide.

I'm not implying doing physical labor. When I talk about operations, i mean being responsible for X and Y systems in a scope and making sure they are operating by making decisions for repairs, writing procedures for trades to conduct work on X and Y systems, and making sure trades follow A and B controls and regulations.

 

[zdas04]

sbullet,
Very good post, thank you.

"Real" engineering is a very elusive concept. When I was doing pipeline construction management, the task could have been done by a high school graduate with a decade of experience (and it usually is), but by spending a year building the projects I designed I designed better projects for the rest of my career. When I was doing project management, the task could have been done by someone with a business degree since most of the work involves making sure that next week's resources are on site before they are needed and dealing with schedule changes, but again the time I spent juggling those balls made me better at specifying what was needed on future projects.

The only job I ever had as an engineer that felt like "office crap" was working as an Engineering Manager, because I never DID anything productive (I did do a bit of mentoring to make sure that the boys and girls considered the ramifications of their actions, but they all felt I was a meddling old dolt and they were probably right). I got out of that role very quickly.

In short, if it feels like what you are doing will improve your knowledge for future tasks then it IS real engineering even if it feels menial at the time.

David

 

[GregLocock]

Ah OK, your reference to "getting sh1t done" rather misled me, I thought you meant actually getting it done, rather than writing a procedure about it.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[TheTick]

engineers who never really got any real world (work) experience in playing with numbers and doing analysis and design

Just what do you think these engineers are analyzing and designing? Where are these things being made? For whom? By whom?

Sounds like your perception of design engineering came from some world other than "real".

 

[sprinkler1000]

I would say that some people get to work more close to the manufacturing side of any business-trade. For example, I work in a consulting firm and sometimes feel a little departed from the physical part of the job, which is done by the contractor. On the other hand, I have much more contact with Codes, analysis, and design. I never done welding for a job, except at some courses. It all has to do with the worker division that Peter Drucker described, particular of contemporary era. You can see it when a lot of people are working designing on computers (CAD), but they may never go to the job site. The day we can be as good in treating the matter, as we are in conceptual work, we will be complete as proffesionals.

 

[ctopher]

A real engineer used to be one that drove trains. Then a real engineer worked on products that sent men to the moon. Now a real engineer is close to retirement.
The next real engineers will be signing off on outsourced designs, while being mobile and working from home.


It is very easy for some engineers to be pigeon-holed and eventually laid off.

Chris
SolidWorks 10 SP4.0
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[IRstuff]

"responsible for X and Y systems in a scope and making sure they are operating by making decisions for repairs, writing procedures for trades to conduct work on X and Y systems, and making sure trades follow A and B controls and regulations."

That makes you a manager, not an engineer. And why is writing procedures "real engineering" while analysis is not? In my world, we get "shlt" done by doing the trades, and not by writing procedures to do the trades.

TTFN

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[rowingengineer]

Engineering is an activity other than purely manual and physical work which brings about the utilization of the materials and laws of nature for the good of humanity.
R. E. Hellmund

Engineering is the professional art of applying science to the optimum conversion of natural resources to the benefit of man.
Ralph J. Smith

The ideal engineer is a composite ... He is not a scientist, he is not a mathematician, he is not a sociologist or a writer; but he may use the knowledge and techniques of any or all of these disciplines in solving engineering problems.
N. W. Dougherty


ANY FOOL CAN DESIGN A STRUCTURE. IT TAKES AN ENGINEER TO DESIGN A CONNECTION.”

 

[Ron]

This conundrum always works out about as badly as the "licensed vs. unlicensed" engineer argument.

I agree with zdas04...real engineering is elusive. Sometimes it is getting your hands dirty...sometimes it is pulling out the calculator....sometimes it is developing a concept on paper....sometimes it is all of those.

There are no clear dividing lines. This argument of "practical vs. theoretical" has no answer. I've been incredibly lucky to have a career that has thus far given me a good mix of the two, both in manufacturing/industry and in construction. I think that each has served me well in assisting my clients in the other. For instance, my experience in analysis and design lets me understand not only what will work today, but what will work for the long term. My practical experience lets me understand a more efficient way to achieve results than just putting it on paper. I don't try to separate them, because they are the experience from which, in the words of the great philosopher Popeye..."I yam what I yam".

You find good and bad in all of these...both in experience and in people. You'd also be surprised, if you think about it, how close the two happen to be most of the time. A good "practical" engineer, working in a manufacturing or industrial setting, uses his theoretical training as second nature, sometimes without even considering that when making a decision "on the fly", that he has just "analyzed" and/or "designed" something, no less so than if he sat down with calc pad in hand and ran the numbers. Similarly, a good "theoretical" engineer gets his analysis and design tempered properly when he knows from practical experiece what will work in place, and what will not work.

I maintain that you need both to be well rounded and provide expedient solutions to engineering issues and problems.

 

[SomptingGuy]

Operations vs Engineering is clearly divided where I work. Graduates can dabble in each for a couple of years before deciding which to focus on. There are several good examples I know, who have made an unexpected (to me at least) jump from one to the other. The operations people have more scope for advancement, since they manage people and plant. They tend to be the risk takers.

- Steve

 

[sbullet86]

Those are some pretty strong replies. Nice to hear input from a large variety.

why is writing procedures "real engineering" while analysis is not? In my world, we get "shlt" done by doing the trades, and not by writing procedures to do the trades.

There must have been some misunderstanding here. "Real engineering" is referred to as making calculations and designing systems, according to many engineering professors.

The products and services our company does deals with naval nuclear reactors and systems that support them. We can't just pick up tools and start working on them if we felt like it. Engineers write the procedures, the trades (whom went to school to do their trade skills) do them.. even if it just changing a light bulb (not kidding).

"responsible for X and Y systems in a scope and making sure they are operating by making decisions for repairs, writing procedures for trades to conduct work on X and Y systems, and making sure trades follow A and B controls and regulations."

That makes you a manager, not an engineer..

Yes and no. Our supervisor owns the scopes. He then divides certain systems to the engineers that works under him.

 

[MikeHalloran]

Tradesmen do the actual work of cutting a hole in the boat, welding a whatzit to the beam, machining a useful object from billet, and stuff like that.

Engineers tell the tradesmen "where" and "how big" and stuff like that, sometimes by crawling into the bilge alongside the tradesman and making a mark, sometimes by creating a drawing, sometimes by causing someone else to make a drawingsometimes by writing a procedure.


Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[sam74]

Sounds to me like you are working in construction management. I'm just now trying to figure that end out with the new position I accepted with a DOE contractor. So far it has been a cake walk compared to consulting engineering.

I can tell you that if you attempt to find employment doing engineering you will likely take a large pay cut. Although that may not be the case in the nuclear industry.

It seems to me from personal observation, if you are lucky enough to get hired or can get a position by who you know, being employed by a contractor doing federal government work is desirable life long employment. Typically higher pay, a desirable work schedule, and can usually weather recessions by working on jobs created by federally funded projects.

Design engineering is something that will likely require on the job mentoring for years or massive amounts of time during the day if you are expected to figure everything out for yourself.

I have known several guys who started with a federal contractor and switched to consulting early in their careers. 3 out of 4 of them I greatly respect their engineering knowledge and abilities as displayed in their work and management ability. One who never displayed any engineering ability but was my manager didn't garner as much of my respect because he didn't have a clue how to do my job.

 

[rmw]

I have managed to have a go at both and right now it is paying dividends. I started out in field service on major Power Generation equipment (some of it nuclear, but not Navy). My next job was in analysis/design engineering and my field experience came in real handy when helping he designers and draftsmen lay out equipment. They didn't have the experience in their work to allow for pulling a tube bundle from a Hx for example, because they had never had to pull one. I was able to show them how to do it an explain how they laid it out made a difference.

Over the years, I have managed to keep up a good mix of both. Now I am in analysis/design, but my real world field experience in the plants, mostly fixing what real smart design engineers with no real world experience screwed up is coming in real handy. I work with a lot of real smart, but young engineers that have never done anything but 'hug a screen' (loved that one Greg). If I hadn't had the real world experience, I'd be too old to be kept employed, but because of it I am asset that is valued and sought out for my opinion. I do my share of 'hugging the screen' too.

rmw

 

[IRstuff]

" "Real engineering" is referred to as making calculations and designing systems, according to many engineering professors."

Well, professors are often wrong. What do you base your calculations and designs on? Do requirements simply fall out of the sky, fully formed? Who allocates requirements to the various subsystems and subassemblies? How do you know that you've fully complied with all the requirements? Who does all that, if not an engineer?

Now, it's true that in many situations, the design engineers "know" what they need to do, but not always, and when they get into trouble with the requirements, they always come running back to the systems engineers, looking for an escape clause, because they didn't bother reading all the requirements and just "designed" without laying all the foundations, assumptions, and conditions.

TTFN

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[HandsOnEngineer]

Ron...you are my man.

Quote:
A good "practical" engineer, working in a manufacturing or industrial setting, uses his theoretical training as second nature, sometimes without even considering that when making a decision "on the fly", that he has just "analyzed" and/or "designed" something, no less so than if he sat down with calc pad in hand and ran the numbers. Similarly, a good "theoretical" engineer gets his analysis and design tempered properly when he knows from practical experiece what will work in place, and what will not work.
End Quote.

Many many times in my work I have found myself switching from being a Theoretical reasoning engineer to being a Practical reasoning engineer both in my head and to my listeners.

 

[KENAT]

"On the other hand, just being in the work environment of a defense contractor, it seems operations is what makes the world (company) go around."

Ha, ha, you'd have fit right in with management at my first employer. They always gave priority to operations, down sizing design office when any cuts came etc. A lot of the production stuff was 'build to print' for the govt.

Until, when they started to run out of things to build, they realized that most of the things they built were things that the Designer Dept had originally designed or at least had design responsibility for and so they started to increase the design office again.

Seems what you're doing is what is variously called Industrial/Production/Manufacturing engineering. Never appealed to me.

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[KENAT]

Doh, what I meant to say was, both sides need each other.

Get too carried away with one being more important than the other and things can go awry.

More than once I've had to stop manufacturing engineers from doing something that would have negatively affected the end function of the item.

Likewise, more than once I've asked manufacturing engineers for their input or had them come back to me asking for changes to improve manufacturability.

Of course, if we went back to having truly skilled labor then arguably manufacturing engineering departments could be slashed, so maybe us designers are more important after all;-).

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