What do System Engineers do? 1

[Kinsrow]

Anyone with Mechanical Engineering background becomes
System Engineer in thier respected field? What do System Engineers do?
How does a System Engineer differ from a Project Engineer?

Thanks

 

[GregLocock]

A project engineer is a functional appointment, typically giving one responsibility for, if not control over, a project.

Systems engineering is a field of engineering. I would have thought google would come in handy.

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIGlease see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[SomptingGuy]

It's purely down to semantics. In some outfits they are the same. Job names/titles mean nothing in engineering.

I would hope that "Project" meant bean counting, whereas "System" meant engineering interaction. I'd certainly check the meaning before signing on the line.

- Steve

 

[MintJulep]

A project engineer is responsible for engineering of the project.

As system engineer is responsible for engineering of the system.

If your project is a system...

 

[plasgears]

Systems engineering is what compresses time in complicated projects involving many parallel paths. Instead of doing things in sequence, you perform many tasks during the same time. It was what made critical projects like military weapons reach completion in short times.

In the upper reaches of management of military projects you can see giant Gantt charts with all the paths indicated. It is the ultimate example of project management. It is more management than engineering, but the system engineer needs to talk engineering to many engineering players.

 

[Simba2000]

I googled it and found pretty much what your you guys are saying. I'm in the new product development now and thinking of continuing my education. In many way, I've been doing some of the System Engineering & Project Management tasks in my role as a product development engineer. I looked at the courses and the objective of System Engineering master degree and I'm sure it cen help my role as product development engineer as I interact with customer, design, cost, quality, manufacturing, so on so forth.

My question is if any of you have gone to similar path and would like to share your experience and where did it take you?, where have you gone outside engineering field to apply your System Engineering skills?

Thank you

 

[ctopher]

Not all Systems Engineers are mechanical. There are more these days that do software.

Chris
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 08 3.1
AutoCAD 08
ctopher's home (updated Aug 5, 2008)
ctopher's blog
SolidWorks Legion

 

[GregLocock]

The wiki article on Systems eng is pretty good. I've done some systems engineering courses and find them useful. They are more useful on projects where the systems are complex, the product is poorly defined , or has a new architecture, and where the Systems Engineer can get involved early enough in the design process that the work can be properly structured.

Since my work is largely in a field where the product is very well defined, and has a hundred year old structure, I don't get to do much Systems Engineering, other than the dreaded FMEAs.

I suspect in most organisations there is a big difference between project engineer, and project management.


Cheers

Greg Locock

SIGlease see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[IRstuff]

A project engineer is typically an engineering management position. A systems engineer is one who takes the system specification and allocates the requires to the next level assemblies. As such, he is required to know enough (to be dangerous ;-) ) cross discipline knowledge to be able to flow requirements to different disciplines.

In my specific case, some understanding of ME, EE, CS, physics, etc. is required.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[KENAT]

I went the opposite way, I studied Aerospace Systems Engineering at Uni but now am pretty much a mechanical guy.

At university the course pretty much focused on giving us a basic understanding of all the typical major systems of an aircraft, with the goal of being able to lead the integration of all these systems. Simplisitically speaking to get the experts on each different system/discipline to talk to each other.

However, in industry it can have many different definitions. I'd ask for a detail job description of the specific position.

KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of faq731-376 recently, or taken a look at

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?