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Posted by Matt Wilson [96.226.41.46] on Saturday, April 14, 2012 at 16:15:38 :
In Reply to: Regarding engineering threads below posted by Clint Dixon [74.206.63.42] on Saturday, April 14, 2012 at 09:23:48 :
No offense taken, Clint. I can see how unfair it seems (and usually IS unfair) in a situation where someone so knowledgeable and capable (you) has to teach a person how to do his job, AND gets paid less for it.
It sounds like perhaps engineers are not what are needed for much of the work being done at your facility. If most of the work does not require engineering analysis, and really consists mostly of machining and other fabrication work, then good designers and good machinists and welders are mostly what are required. A few engineers may be required for certain aspects, but it could be that there is an excess at your place of employment.
On the other hand, in dealing with helicopters, as I do, and in the case of many of types of machines, a machinist would be woefully inadequate or "grossly unqualified" as you say, to serve as an engineer, just as an engineer is usually "grossly unqualified" to perform critical or complicated machine work. There is no substitute for either function in this case. A person who is capable of fabrication might go to the shop and decide to build a helicopter from the ground up, and judging by eye and feel and previous examples, he might think he has a good design, and it may even work for a while, but if proper engineering analysis and test are not part of the picture, then the product is doomed to fail sooner or later. Helicopters are some of the most complicated machines anyone will run across, in terms of the variety of physical phenomena that are taking place at all times, which must be managed and balanced by good engineering. Other types of machines also fall into this category, including automobiles to a large extent. It is for applications such as this that college degreed mechanical engineers receive the education they receive.
Mechanical engineers receive some, but not much, training in fabrication skills, so it's no wonder the folks who show up at your place don't know much about that stuff. Rather, they receive a broad-based education in basic principles of physics and engineering, including basics of how to analyze for stress, fatigue, rigid body dynamics, structural dynamics (i.e., vibrations), thermodynamics, fluid flow (including aerodynamics), basic electrical (which I'm not any good at), basic manufacturing, metallurgy and other such topics. Most of this is not specific to any particular industry, since it takes long enough to teach just the broad basics. This type of education is not for everyone, as it is very math and science intensive, and that is probably at least part of the reason engineers get paid what they sometimes do - law of supply and demand. Even once degreed, though, the engineer still only knows basics and has to take his broad education into the work world to learn the details of how his employer does things.
A pretty fair number of the engineers I went to school with actually were gearheads, so they had decent working knowledge of machinery, though not experts. I spent my spare time in high school and college taking some automotive repair classes and working as a mechanic (more like mechanic's helper) on automotive and other types of machinery at a shop that performed fabrication and machinery repair. I also spent some spare time learning how to perform basic machining/welding/fabrication on a variety of projects at the university machine shop and at home. So some of us have a clue, but are usually in no way highly accomplished in these areas.
Just FYI - In my place of business, it is the engineers who are generally the most responsible if a design fails, and some have had to testify in court. This is particularly true for those engineers who are designated by the FAA to act on their behalf in certain matters (I'm one of them). So take heart in knowing that your situation is not the case everywhere.
Also, at my place of business, we don't make the distinction between Design and Engineering functions. It's all condidered part of the overall Engineering organization.