Manufacturing Engineering
Manufacturing Engineering Job Descriptions
We've all seen the increase of outsourcing production work to China and Mexico that led to a decrease in the need for skilled manufacturing engineering workers. Now that the spotlight is on China's use of lead in paints, chemicals that mimic the date rape drug when ingested, and shoddy workmanship, the buzz is that manufacturing might be drastically increasing within the United States and more manufacturing engineering workers will be necessary.
To keep product costs down, many manufacturing companies have gripped lean manufacturing, a system that increases production, keeps customers happy, while keeping overhead costs down. Lean manufacturing is one of the best steps to managing the budget in manufacturing plants, and manufacturing engineering graduates are the people who can make it happen.
For years, manufacturing engineering students learned only about the process of manufacturing including developing new products leading to the actually full manufacturing of these products in mass quantities. Manufacturing engineering workers often supervising machine operators to ensure that products were running smoothly, meeting the company standards, and not resulting in a lot of scrap (waste.) As jobs started heading to other countries and prices started soaring, many companies realized that they needed a system that allowed strong production rates, cost cutting measures, while keeping customers happy. The Toyota Company's manufacturing engineering team came up with their seven-step lean manufacturing plan that met all of these goals.
The manufacturing engineering team's ideas included a number of common sense items that were somehow being overlooked. Instead of manufacturing items before they had been sold, production lines stopped stockpiling finished products and instead produced only the amount needed to complete a sales order. Manufacturing engineering workers also discovered that time spent moving items around to get to items needed for a specific order was wasting valuable time, so organization became a key factor.
Not having the necessary materials in stock was another time waster, so inventory control practices became a key issue. Other troublesome issues that were determined by manufacturing engineering teams included too much running around by machine operators, so most factories now have one person run and fetch materials for all operators. Finally, too many people troubleshooting a problem at the same time is proven to be wasteful and can cause delays in manufacturing output.
