The fate of Mechanical Engineers 14

[flowdude]

To all,<br><br>I am sure there are alot of engineers who have the experience level (3+ yrs in design) that I do and would like to know the answers to these questions.<br><br>&quot;What is the fate of mechanical engineering? There are many different areas for mech-e's (HVAC, Packaging, Hydraulics, Drive Systems, etc...) which do YOU think will become important in the future? I invite the veterans to answer/debate this issue.&quot;<br><br>I ask this question because after 3+ yrs of working I feel I need to know the direction to take my career so that after 20 yrs I do not look back and think &quot;Hmm.. I should have done the other thing..&quot;. I know the answer is not easy. I am not looking for a &quot;You gotta do what you like son&quot; answer either. I would like to know exactly what is going in each field and what the future holds for the field. Maybe you can shed some light or even point out a direction. <br><br>Any help on this subject is appreciated...<br>Blurry Eyed and Bushy Tailed

 

[jobeth]

I think your question and that your are thinking ahead is good. As an experienced ME, I think you should branch out and study up on other engineering fields such as electrical, optical, and communications engineering. That is what is so nice about these forums. It can get you exposed to the other fields. I think a really good engineer should be well rounded and at least familar with many broad topics in engineering and technology. The electrical fields such as: electromagnetics, micro electrical/mechanical systems (MEMS), and semi-conductors are some of the technology drivers. I think you will see that advances here will influence every other branch of engineering.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <p>William H. Bernhart, P.E.<br><a href=mailto: > </a><br><a href= > </a><br>I work as a development engineer for AMP - Tyco Electronics located near Harrisburg, PA. I help design interconnections and electrical connectors for aerospace applications.

 

[bmoj]

At the early stages of your career you should not work for a consulting firm, but should be out in industry or in the field. You should get a well rounded education in engineering and you will not get that with a consultant. The current trend is to have drawings produced on CAD and there are now engineers who are good computer operators but don't know what they are drawing. This is not just happening in North America but in Europe as well. <br><br>If you work in industry you will get exposure to other disciplines and lots of good experience. The more remote the location the better the experience. The draw back of course is you get too much experience, get too high priced, and price yourself out of the market.<br><br>Depends on what you want:<br>- an exciting and varied career:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;then go the industrial route.<br>- live in the big city:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;join a consulting firm.<br>- good pension:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;work for the government.<br><br>&nbsp;&nbsp;

 

[sbi]

I agree with the statement above, to many Cadd operators with fancy titles, who have no idea of what they are trying to accomplish. Or how it will be made. I get a lot of new designs that the originator has no real idea of how it can be made, and we end up redesigning the whole project to be run with existing equipment.
I do not mind this to much with the exception of the over educated with a attitude that
They are the best there is and will not listen to some one with experience.

My self: besides being a ME, I am a Master machinist and a Foundryman, I came up from the bottom the old fashion way, dirty hard work, which I still believe is a good teacher.
The future is in the past, make sure you know some of the old tricks to solving a problem, (even if you use a computer to fix it) I do, and always look at new trends

Engineers are historians and futurist (sci-fi nuts) all rolled in to one.
[sig][/sig]

 

[jobeth]

sbi, Well done! [sig]<p>William H. Bernhart, P.E.<br><a href=mailto: > </a><br><a href= > </a><br>I work as a development engineer for AMP - Tyco Electronics located near Harrisburg, PA. I help design interconnections and electrical connectors for aerospace applications.[/sig]

 

[KDI]

I agree with a majority of the comments you have received so far.

I have 12 years of experience in the Pulp &amp; Paper industry, I have a BSME, my PE. This June I will graduate with my MSME in Mechanics. In that time I can say that I have used every bit of my education and then some. Work is, like school, what you get out of it is directly related to what you put into it. College only brushed the surface of all the classes that I have taken. College proves that I have the ability to learn. By far, the majority of the things I have learned have been on the job and out in the field. I have always asked for the opinion of others when it comes to design &amp; solving problems. It's amazing the things that you can learn from the shop guys on how to make better designs. Education &amp; Experience go hand &amp; hand, but I would rather have the experience people around me if I had to choose.

I too, have had the experience of starting out doing code calculations by hand, board drawings, doing things the old-fashion way, then learning the ins and outs of the P.C. spreadsheets, engineering software applications such as Pressure Vessel Design, CAD, FEA, and now learning the Parametric Design rope.

In this down-sizing engineering world, I feel that engineering and the methods of getting it from your brain onto a sheet of paper so someone or something can manufacture it, are becoming automated, but still require the attention to detail and the &quot;Reality Checks&quot; that real experience brings to the table. Garbage into the P.C. equals (Garbage out)^2. The computer is a great tool, it gives engineers the ability to solve more difficult problems, even problems we don't understand (a Bad thing), but people need the ability to recognize when the computer is lying to them. You will be successful in any direction you go in if you, &quot;like the Machinist&quot;, keep your tools sharp. ie. Keep learning whether it's higher education, a college tech class, a training course, talking with the shop/field guys that have to deal with what you design, or listening to the guy that's been sitting in the same seat doing it for 35 years......believe me, they have a valuable contribution, whether it's the way to do things, or the way not to do it, it will save you latter on. Good Luck.

 

[don246]

I started working as a Mechanical Engineer in Silicon Valley for over 20 years ago and ask myself the same question all the time. If you are asking the question so you know where to go to make the most money you have to ask yourself what you are willing to do. I have gone from Manufacturing Engineer to Product Development Engineer to Director of Engineering to Program Manager to Mechanical Engineering Manager. I have worked in communications, medical devices, industrial systems, opto mechanical instruments and bio tech companies.
It sounds like you want to stay in a traditional mechanical engineering position that has a good future. You need to evaluate each job and ask yourself what you are learning that other companies will be looking for in the future. I have always picked areas that are cross fuctional such as opto mechanical, mechanism design and project management. If you are a good instrument designer you are needed in many of the new fields such as bio tech, optical communications and next generation semiconductor manufacturing equipment. These type of companies are always reinventing themseves because their product lifecycles are so short and there are many spin off companies that have very high growth rates. Where there are high growth rates there are more opportunities to move up and do what you like to do while making a good living.
Inr the field of fluid dynamics you can design large plants for refining oil with a 3% growth rate or work for a genetic engineering bio tech company with a 30% growth rate. Both areas have the need for engineers with fluid dynamics knowledge.
I think the future will be using mechanical engineering to help develop new technologies and products in telecommunications, bio technology and eviromental life sciences. That's where I'm going to be.

 

[varudi]

Dear Flowdude
A million dollar question for all the dare devils who were attracted towards Mechanical engineering for its elements of challenge, creativity & applied common sense, for job satisfaction. Slowly the fire of real hardcore mechanical engineering is cooled off.Most aspects of mechanical are perfectly covered by standards to achive optimum.
Engineering companies all over the world, excluding a few, are selling their once so called premium products, at throw away price just for survival. Fierce competition & well informed customers makes bussiness tough.
Future is for Technology in evolving stage where the mantra is &quot;So much to do & so little is done&quot;. Few of them are, composite materials, cost effective manufactuing, enviorment engineering &, clean water & power projects.
With the web of Information Technology customer is strongly placed. Those who are in the bussiness of adapting to the requirements of the client shall perish while those who are able to change the requirements through pace setting shall survive.

Regards

I'm Bharat Dani working in field of Power Generation since last 13 yrs, & enjoying every bit of it.

 

[rdhd]

Hi Everyone,
I too am afraid of what the future is bringing down the pike. Engineering used to come from knowledge that started on the bench or out in the field, was built on by experience of making mistakes and fixing them. Or simply being exposed to many ideas due to the need of finishing what was started.
I am very impressed with the knowledge that new engineering grads have as far as being &quot;book smart&quot;, but what is happening to the to the old toolmaker who has a number of tool boxes with every wigget you can possibly imagine in it to get thru a job that there seemed to be no fix for.
I just hope that we don't end up losing all of that &quot;hands on&quot; knowledge to someone who makes a weld projection to .0025 tolerance because of a book telling him that is what it has to be.
Thanks for the ear,
Rick (rdhd)

 

[Rich2001]

Engineer need to push their chair away from the computer and walk through the shop or plant, talk to the workers, they are the experts.

Get your hand dirty, learn who to run a mill, lathe, or welding. Mix book smarts with hand-on experiences. I paid for college by working as an operator in a refinery. In one of the companies I worked for all employees had to work on the shop floor for 1 month to learn the products that we manufactured.

40 % of all product involve some welding, bonding or soldering. What do you know about these processes? Some of the areas that are in need are: plastic bonding & welding, bonding of biological materials to metals and polymers, composite materials.

Material handling? not everything is transmitted by electronic means. This whole are is in despaired need of innovation.

Learn about automatic identification systems and how they are implemented. How are barcodes used?

Improve yourself, take classes and get certified. I am a PE, Certified Plant Engineer and Certified Welding Engineer.

 

My core background is in hydraulics. I have worked designing valves for off road machinery, then shifted to designing hydraulic solenoid valves for automotive transmissions, then dealing with suppliers making sensors, ICs and Actuators, then managing a design section designing a hybrid electric powertrain with a CVT.

What I would recommend is to be strong in your core engineering experience. Know how to do your calculations, design tolerances and know your materials. These are foundations that when you keep them up to date, you can always learn a new engineering discipline.

I would enhance your core ME background with some classes in control theory. Most technology today requires controls and the ability to fine tune the operation of a system.

Just in the automotive industry, hybrid power trains, fuel cells, CVT transimissions, improved plastics are challenging engineers all over the world. Pick what you enjoy, be flexible and always keep up with your learning.

 

[visitor]

The mention of of limited experience is notable, actually since starting to work in the feild over the last 3-4 years have had to shelve a lot of the taught techniques learned on the way up to the MS level of using the computer and software to design and fabricate in the feild. The old fashioned yellow pad is still the most critical tool I feel. Along the way since starting to work in a research/protoyping environment have had to pick up elementry skill in engine lathe, milling, welding, sheet metal forming and so on. This is very useful knowledge when skethcing up on the yellow pad (or CAD but my time is so relatively expensive and the yellow pad so quick I have interns do the CAD from the sketches). Ability to listen to and adapt the experience and wisdom of the technicians, machinists, welders, etc. is a most critical skill to succeeding in the field. It is best to spend some time in the shop. The process and the design insight on the yellow pad is the hardest thing to master; by comaprision failure/performance analysis (by hand or computer), individual fabrication steps, and so on is not as bad. So I guess I have worked backward on a path inverse to that of sbi above. I have noticed that if you have practical fabrication skills (or at least awareness and appreciation), you'll be very well placed in industry - as many recent graduates, even those of 10 years ago, are not practically versed in fabrication, troubleshooting, and manual techniques of rapid thumbnail calculation.

 

[riggs]

There seems to be a lot of HVAC jobs out there right now. There will always be industry (chemical, food processing, refineries) so I think that is a good area as well. As far as the future, I think that engineering in alternate energy sources is going to be big. I have several years of experience working in industrial facilities as a mechanical project engineer. I also have several years working for an aerospace company designing and testing rocket motors. If one field goes south on me I still have a foundation of experience in the other field. I think diversity is the best way to proceed. Of course you don't want to get 2 years of experience in 10 different areas becuase you will always be starting new in each of those fields. I think it is important to try 2-3 areas (automotive, industrial, aerospace, HVAC, etc.) while you are a young engineer to determine what you really like and plus to give you some broad basis of experience in case a particular field goes south then you have something to fall back on.

 

[owg]

There are likely hundreds of specialty areas in Mech Eng and I have read that there are thousands in Elec Eng. Twenty years ago after twenty years in the oil industry as a chemical engineer, I decided to specialize. After about 5 years I found a specialty that no one liked, most people thought had no future, seemed to be so easy that it appeared to need only a few days to learn, and matched my training and experience. I also thought that society would tend to demand more of this over the years, and that downsizing companies would want to contract it out rather than set up a department to handle it. After another 5 years I had a thriving HAZOP and Process Hazard Analysis business. Mr. Robinson recommended plastics but everyone heard him.

 

[chua]

Hi, I am currently just over the first year working in a MEP consulting firm in north america. This company is mainly doing consulting on R&D, healtcare, education, and commercial buildings. However, I will be going back to my home country soon which is in asia. May I know what I have learnt here would be applicable in asia in the next 5 to 10 years? What is the trend of Asia's HVAC indusctry would be?
Thanks

 

[Cueball]

I'll give you the point of view of a Master's undergrad.. We are being taught a lot of electronics and communications related subjects at Uni' these days. Lectures etc are starting to focus upon the computer dependant solution of problems once the foundation theory has been laid down.

As one of our coleagues said, earlier in this thread, it is annoying when people hand in a CAD drawing with no real idea of how it is to be physically rendered and perhaps this is because the students of the profession are getting more theory than hands-on experience now.

To my mind and from what my peers, etc have said, Engineering is heading toward PC orientated solution's and students are being taught that PC's are the start and end point of every problem thus learning more about Comm's, CFD, FEA, CAD, electronics et al should be the way to go for anyone contemplating a move in specialism.

However, I think that this kind of attitude will produce PC literate engineers with no practical background upon which to base designs etc and this can only be for the worse.

Where is engineering going, I would like to know too as a budding engineer myself.. but back to basics for all may be a good place to start.. and that is why things like these forums are so good.

Keep it up everyone, spread the knowledge and help all of us out..

 

Looks as if the future of engineering lies here........

that is if no one gets hurt by falling apples........

 

[quark]

Hello to All!

Be Jack of all trades (don't be master of anything) is what I feel is correct now a days and in future.

Note: Mind you I am still practising it.

Regards,

 

[Steviehvac]

Well if your young and single, I would suggest diversifying. Try out 2 or 3 different industries...perhaps up to 4 - 6 years. This could be tough..you'll probably make several lateral salary moves. To be successful in your engineering career begin understanding who you work for..If its a commidity industry...you may find only MBA's, marketeers, sales managers at the top..This isn't bad, you will find many engineering challenges adopting emerging technologies etc.(hey it takes capital and investing to keep us employed !)just be aware of it...for long term growth in the engineering field try to pick an industry rapidly evolving. How do you know ?... Look at the leaders running the company..are they technical people ? Is the company using the best tools to develop products or complete designs ? Do they keep good people (i.e. low turnover)...have engineers left the company to form their own companies ? Remember most engineers are pretty animated about their work (if their happy, challenged etc.)...so always interview the engineering team (not just the hiring manager). Maybe some of these observations will help...

good luck !

 

[Cantilever]

I am a mechanical engineer, then did my MBA in finance, worked in the field of leasing and venture capital. Now i am going back to my mech engineering.
In my view, an engineer should first get a good grasp on the elementary principles of his/her trade. Then he should polish it by working in two or three branches of the field selected by him for 5-6 years. Then, he must, repeat, must, acquire a management degree MBA etc. This is required for him to understand the management principles, and also to understand the mind of owners/enterpreneurs for whom he will be working, or perhaps he becomes an enterpreneur himself in time to come.
Additionally, he must be a master of at least one area, be it machining, welding, transportation, or what have you. Believe me this is the era of specialisation, not generalists.