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ron22

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Ron Hammer
I know there are some engineers and other smart people here so what do you think.

I am working at a company and the current structure is Production, Design Engineering and other unimportant stuff. Currently the design guys will design a new product then dump it on production. Production then figures out best way to build the product and all documentation.
Now we are thinking of hiring a Manufacturing Engineer. This will be for both new products and improving current manufacturing procedures.
Now the question where in the org chart does this person fit?
Production says he is doing work for production so under there.
Engineering says person is an engineer so he fit there.
 
I know there are some engineers and other smart people here so what do you think.

I am working at a company and the current structure is Production, Design Engineering and other unimportant stuff. Currently the design guys will design a new product then dump it on production. Production then figures out best way to build the product and all documentation.
Now we are thinking of hiring a Manufacturing Engineer. This will be for both new products and improving current manufacturing procedures.
Now the question where in the org chart does this person fit?
Production says he is doing work for production so under there.
Engineering says person is an engineer so he fit there.

I would say fits with engineering ( especially since that is in job title )
 
Production for sure. That's why you are considering adding one. That engineer's allegiance needs to be with production or all you have is another design engineer, no?

I keyed on the word 'dump'.
 
I would say fits with engineering ( especially since that is in job title )

To be effective she/he/it has to be in the manufacturing group - they won't want an outsider telling them what to do. Titles are irrelevant, function overrides.
 
To be effective she/he/it has to be in the manufacturing group - they won't want an outsider telling them what to do. Titles are irrelevant, function overrides.

So why not place the person outside of both groups? At that point the allegiance will be to both right?
 
So why not place the person outside of both groups? At that point the allegiance will be to both right?

Then both groups will reject the person. The fact that the groups are not already working together speaks volumes.
 
Then both groups will reject the person. The fact that the groups are not already working together speaks volumes.

That's then a corporate culture that may reject the newby no matter which department then. Perhaps I have been spoiled by companies that have great teamwork...
 
Production for sure. That's why you are considering adding one. That engineer's allegiance needs to be with production or all you have is another design engineer, no?



I keyed on the word 'dump'.


Dump might be a little bad. Design sometimes gives production a sample and says just make like this. :)
Design says if they get the new person/people they will then release it to production all figured out with best way to build and instructions.
Production/manufacturing is all for that, but is worried they will have no incentive to improve current designs to cut down manufacturing times.
 
Production.

His title is one thing, the group he works for is another. His job is to produce the parts that engineering gives to production. And when a drawing need clarification or a decision has to be made, he does that from the perspective of production.

The problem becomes - who does he report to? Another engineer or a former machinist/assembler/screwdriver-turner?

At a place I used to work, the unwritten rule was that an engineer always reports to an engineer. That meant all our supervisors of any department that had a single engineer, and our managers, were engineers. All the way up to CEO.
 
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I've been a Manufacturing Engineer at two plants. In both cases, I reported through the Engineering Manager. One plant had R&D functions, with Eng Mgr and separate Eng R&D Mgr.

Sounds like you don't have a separate Engineering group. Where do the engineers supporting production fit in? Facilities? Machinists? Technicians?

Unusual, or did you lump the HVAC guys and electronics techs into "other unimportant stuff"?
 
From Management 101: When the costs are one place and the benefits are somewhere else, bad tradeoffs happen.

The benefits expected from this guy will accrue primarily to manufacturing, so he should report to the manufacturing department and his salary should be paid from their budget.

If he is put into the design group, his objectives will be slowly subverted towards supporting design efforts. His boss, in whose cost center his salary is, will not reward him for benefits he produces for the manufacturing group if for no other reason than that the boss doesn't appreciate them or maybe doesn't even know about them. In response, the new guy will tend away from manufacturing-oriented work and towards design work. Nothing nefarious or underhanded here, just human nature at work.

This particular Management 101 axiom applied in many places. Like why don't politicians worry about public pension costs? They'll immediately benefit from union campaign contributions and votes and they'll be gone before the problems hit. Why don't politicians fix Social Security and Medicare? Because the problems are growing in the relatively distant future and the elections are next year. ....

(NB: Personalities who focus on stupid things like the "Engineer" title are, in my long experience, best shown the door.)
 
I made that sound worse the.n it is. Never post when you are at bar waiting for a flight.
Ok here is full story.
Small electronic design/assemble company. Currently head engineer and 2 under him(all electrical engineers) Production manager (me) purchasing, shopping/receiving, assemblers and all maintenance fall under me. 1 sales/marketing guy. All three of us report to owner.
We do everything from design to complete assemblies. Runs from 1 to thousands.
We are a team and do work well together. We are just wondering what others do here and what the norm is.
Engineers say they are not manufacturing people and do not know best way to build things, so that currently falls on me.
They are right they do not understand the average assembler and what kind work instructions they need. They also do not really understand "waste". Need to get them to some lean classes.
Still at bar and more drinks now so if this makes no sense you know why.
New person would either report to production manager (me) or head of engineering.
 
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It depends.

What is the new employee's job description? I presume someone decided what this person would do and how they would contribute prior to creating the position, right? I can imagine that someone said "oh, let's just hire someone and then figure out where they fit". It doesn't happen, someone is doing the paperwork to fund the position.
 
In my experience, there is often a disconnect between engineering and the folks putting the engineers designs/ideas into practice. In my line of work (natural gas processing), I would love to have an engineer that is part of the operations group. I say if he's part of the engineering group, he's just another engineer, and apparently the company see's a need for something different, hence the addition of the new position. So, I would say make him part of the production group, that way he can be something of a liaison between the two groups, going about his work with a vested interest in both perspectives. That's my opinion, and it's never counted for much :wink2:
 
I made that sound worse the.n it is. Never post when you are at bar waiting for a flight.
Ok here is full story.
Small electronic design/assemble company. Currently head engineer and 2 under him(all electrical engineers) Production manager (me) purchasing, shopping/receiving, assemblers and all maintenance fall under me. 1 sales/marketing guy. All three of us report to owner.
We do everything from design to complete assemblies. Runs from 1 to thousands.
We are a team and do work well together. We are just wondering what others do here and what the norm is.
Engineers say they are not manufacturing people and do not know best way to build things, so that currently falls on me.
They are right they do not understand the average assembler and what kind work instructions they need. They also do not really understand "waste". Need to get them to some lean classes.
Still at bar and more drinks now so if this makes no sense you know why.
New person would either report to production manager (me) or head of engineering.

That explanation is some better. The answer doesn't change and that the new person supports production directly so she/it/he should be in the production group. Stay with functional lines on the org chart.
 
So my 5 cents is off course manufacturing engineers goes under manufacturing.

New Product Development and design engineering goes under engineering.

Believe me it's the best way to do it. I can back it up with being a current President of a fortune 300 publicly traded American company.
 
I can back it up with being a current President of a fortune 300 publicly traded American company.

May inquire as to what company that is? No good reason. Just curious, and it's rather impressive. I understand, of course, if you'd rather not divulge that info.
 
Engineers say they are not manufacturing people and do not know best way to build things, so that currently falls on me.
They are right they do not understand the average assembler and what kind work instructions they need. They also do not really understand "waste". Need to get them to some lean classes..

I do this stuff every day. You need to find some better engineers - probably an IE, and preferably one with some balls who is capable of standing up for what is good for the business, not what's good for his silo. Your new engineer needs to spend months on the shop floor getting a good understanding of the business.
 
May inquire as to what company that is? No good reason. Just curious, and it's rather impressive. I understand, of course, if you'd rather not divulge that info.

You are correct. To Many nuts on the web :D.

Midwest industrial corporation. Publicly traded. But more important I worked my way here and have held all the other positions you mentioned and in my experience that's what work best in an American operation.
 
You are correct. To Many nuts on the web :D.

Midwest industrial corporation. Publicly traded. But more important I worked my way here and have held all the other positions you mentioned and in my experience that's what work best in an American operation.

No prob. I totally agree with you. Of course my perspective is from a little lower on the totem pole, half a rung up from peon. I've made it to Sr. Peon. It's a noble title ;)
 
Two thoughts:

Who do you want to be his or her boss?

If you're only hiring one, you'll be single sourced for whatever either group can blame on him or say they're waiting for from him, when they're out of the office. A very common management mistake when setting up a new position.

We're about to make the same mistake.
 
Sure someone can blame you for mistakes BUT if YOU don't have the responsibility you can NOT take credit for success. bring value or you are out. Take a risk. Make **** happen.

Managers make excuses leaders make **** happens
 
Two thoughts:

Who do you want to be his or her boss?

Because then I can boss him/her/it around. I like to boss people around :D

Because if I am the Boss my priority will be the ones they work one. My priorities are to make product as efficiently as possible.

I really do not need more people directly reporting to me.
 
Sure someone can blame you for mistakes BUT if YOU don't have the responsibility you can NOT take credit for success. bring value or you are out. Take a risk. Make **** happen.

Managers make excuses leaders make **** happens

I do not need to take credit. I do want to make sure stuff happens and gets done.
I also have no problem make it happen and if I am wrong I will admit it and we will fix the problem.
 
Engineers say they are not manufacturing people and do not know best way to build things
This is the root of the problem. There is no point in designing a product except to produce it and sell it. If the designers don't have a vision of how it's to be produced, then fixing that is job 1.

For example, my current job is in a small engineering group doing semi-specialty locomotive designs. One example of design for manufacturing - in our group every design review includes consideration of fabrication & assembly sequence, with the 3D models being put together one piece at a time on the projector to consider access for welding, wiring, plumbing, sub-assemblies that need heat treat before proceeding, etc etc. When it comes time to write the shop floor traveller and work instructions, the assembly planners already have a start in their heads because they were part of the design reviews.

Another division of our company manufactures diesel engines. Engines are built in plants that are in different states and countries from design engineering, but at the same complex as design there is an area with replicas of parts of the engine assembly lines set up, so that new designs can be checked for fit, order of operations, etc.
 
I do this stuff every day. You need to find some better engineers - probably an IE, and preferably one with some balls who is capable of standing up for what is good for the business, not what's good for his silo. Your new engineer needs to spend months on the shop floor getting a good understanding of the business.

Yup.......

Nothing worse then an engineer designing a part that is next to impossible to machine...
 
In my experience, there is often a disconnect between engineering and the folks putting the engineers designs/ideas into practice. In my line of work (natural gas processing), I would love to have an engineer that is part of the operations group. I say if he's part of the engineering group, he's just another engineer, and apparently the company see's a need for something different, hence the addition of the new position. So, I would say make him part of the production group, that way he can be something of a liaison between the two groups, going about his work with a vested interest in both perspectives. That's my opinion, and it's never counted for much :wink2:

this is where my reasoning came from. In my line of business which is close to yours---us in the engineering group work right with operations . Now that I understand how ops business is.....by all means the new position should be in manufacturing.
 
I spent some time as a Manufacturing Engineer (my wife was impressed that I got an 'Engineering' title with a 'Business' degree).

In my role, I reported to Operations via the "Process Improvement" group. We had a separate group of "Engineers" that were responsible for product design, tooling design, etc. In my time with the company (it was a 4-month internship) I never interacted with the other Engineering group - I was solely focused on manufacturing processes, line layout, materials delivery, etc.

IMO, that was the best way for my role to work. I worked in a group that was dedicated to process improvement so we had overlaps of skillsets and could bounce ideas off of people within our group, but our reporting structure went through the Ops channel to the plant manager while the product development engineers had their own channel to the plant manager.
 
Dump might be a little bad. Design sometimes gives production a sample and says just make like this. :)
Design says if they get the new person/people they will then release it to production all figured out with best way to build and instructions.
Production/manufacturing is all for that, but is worried they will have no incentive to improve current designs to cut down manufacturing times.

You don't need a manufacturing engineer, you need a new corporate culture. Or stop hiring MIT guys and get engineers that know which end of a soldering iron to hold.
 
I do not need to take credit. I do want to make sure stuff happens and gets done.
I also have no problem make it happen and if I am wrong I will admit it and we will fix the problem.


Oh if you're hiring people to sit between designers and operations to try to fix them communicating to build what customers want.. you're already far past making sure stuff happens and gets done, and well buried in silliness.

Somewhere the incentives to do the work are broken. As in, if people are still getting paid for bad designs...
 
Oh if you're hiring people to sit between designers and operations to try to fix them communicating to build what customers want.. you're already far past making sure stuff happens and gets done, and well buried in silliness.

Somewhere the incentives to do the work are broken. As in, if people are still getting paid for bad designs...
Thats a little harsh. Engineering liason roles are pretty common and often useful. Although to be fair to your point, the OP's company seems a little small to need a role like that.
 
Put him in with the "other stuff" group. They will end up controlling the company (and ultimately destroying it) anyway.
Think I'm kidding? Study the life cycle of almost every company in the world.
 
Thats a little harsh. Engineering liason roles are pretty common and often useful. Although to be fair to your point, the OP's company seems a little small to need a role like that.


Perhaps that was my real point. If two teams smaller than ten people can't communicate, via a little management help with making the meetings happen, another body in between isn't going to help.

Been reading a lot of inside stuff on Shuttle at NASA lately. 80s stuff. My lord, no wonder they killed 14 people. All you had to do was look at the management structure. They tried hard to push safety but it could always be overridden by middle managers three or four steps removed from the problem being reported.

There's certainly a need for liaisons in large organizations. They're also given significant leeway to squash things quickly that will spin out of control. This doesn't sound like what they're hiring for. They want someone to babysit two groups that haven't figured out how to build what customers want and not what they want to build.

Trust me, I'm living that right now. We will either figure it out or be an also-ran. Customers don't wait for you to straighten out internal communication problems. They just move on to the competitor with an 80% solution.
 
look at functionally what this person does....and make them accountable to what he affects the most.

I worked for a fortune 500 manufacturing company and Mfg engineers reported to the plant. Production engineers were part of purchasing....and led most of the cost reduction efforts once a product was in production and the bugs were worked out.

Our engineering was part of a new products group that did R&D and new products development.
 
Not sure I expected some of the harsh replies. But I was hard on people in first post and this is the internet :)
We have electrical engineers they are very good at what they do. They design circuits, PCB and firmware. They are not mechanical engineers or continuous improvement engineers. When we have customers bring us a complicated mechanical assembly we design and program the board. I do not expect our EE to know best way to manufacture it. I have way more manufacturing experience so it falls on me.
As for a team we work together fine. We decided it would be a good idea to hire someone with manufacturing experience to help us stream line out processes. You know work smarter not harder.
The question was who does it make the most sense for that person to report too
 
And the answer is, structurally it shouldn't really matter because your team is so small. Whomever is best suited to supervise his contributions (best aware of what his role is supposed to accomplish) is the correct manager.
 
Not sure I expected some of the harsh replies. But I was hard on people in first post and this is the internet :)
We have electrical engineers they are very good at what they do. They design circuits, PCB and firmware. They are not mechanical engineers or continuous improvement engineers. When we have customers bring us a complicated mechanical assembly we design and program the board. I do not expect our EE to know best way to manufacture it. I have way more manufacturing experience so it falls on me.
As for a team we work together fine. We decided it would be a good idea to hire someone with manufacturing experience to help us stream line out processes. You know work smarter not harder.
The question was who does it make the most sense for that person to report too



And the answer is, structurally it shouldn't really matter because your team is so small. Whomever is best suited to supervise his contributions (best aware of what his role is supposed to accomplish) is the correct manager.


Then we are full circle to my question: Who do you want their BOSS to be? Who has the ability and interest to supervise them? Who's paying for them from their budget? Who will want them to make a difference to their bottom line and will be "injured" if the new employee doesn't do the job?
 
I'll add my .02 late in the discussion. Our manufacturing engineers have always been under the plant controller/operations manager in terms of who their boss is. They help design and maintain our machines/fixtures/tooling/etc, as well as ensure the shop is using proper processes and material flow. They work with our quality engineers when a product has an issue, of which the Quality guys are also under the operations side.

We have design/development engineers who are their own entity and work on new products and improvements to existing products. Those engineers are really in a different department (and different building for that matter), so they have next to nothing when it comes to input on manufacturing an item.
 
Quick update.
We will not make a formal decision until end of month. Person currently playing Manufacturing engineer and documentation person will stay in limbo until then.
If I remember I will try to update with what we decide as a TEAM. See we can work together :)
 
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