Manufacturing and Engineering Career Guide

Manufacturing is a very intricate and detailed process of using mechanical help along with labor and raw material to produce useful goods for the customers. It can range from simple process of making a flower pot to assembling an entire car. The first manufacturing belt product was unveiled in front of the world in 1908 when Henry Ford introduced Ford's model T to the people of America. The methods followed by the workers on the conveyer belts of that time are today part of history. The entire manufacturing system has undergone a paradigm shift. Today there are no workers waiting at the conveyer belt manually putting on caps on toothpaste tubes. Rather the entire system has been mechanized. Now the machines don't need us; we need them.

Manufacturing has become a specialized field today. It has expanded in its operations unprecedentedly. Today when it comes to manufacturing, a list of varied job divisions come to mind - assembly and fabrication, assembly line management, food processing, machinist job description, material handler, machine operator, machine repair person, etc. while all the machines in a production assembly take care of the production and packaging of the finished products, there have to be people to look over the process. There is a separate manufacturing process for knobs, pistons, pumps and then these finished products serve as the components to other bigger manufacturing jobs like building tanks, airplanes, cars, electrical appliances and much more. From your basic household appliances to the industry standard machinery, everything is being produced in bulk to meet the ever increasing market demand. Be it chemical industry, automobile industry, FMCG, electronics and what not; everyone is a producer and everyone is a consumer.

For example, if a person is a manufacturing engineer in an automobile plant then his roles and responsibilities would involve production, design and development.

• Production- charting out the production plan, re-aligning machinery for the specific part's production, looking into quality control and ensuring a strict schedule in accordance with the production plan
• Design- This would include him to develop blue prints, preparing testing stage plans, deciding upon the car's look and feel, making it as user friendly as possible, ensuring safety and reliability and achieving all this with an optimum use of resources
• Developing- This stage involves designing concept models using computer graphics, taking physical tests of the model to ensure user-friendliness and match safety standards and suggesting any changes in the design

A manufacturing engineer is the master-mind of all the technology and designing that goes into a product. Broadly speaking, a manufacturing engineer uses his mathematical and physics knowledge to design a new product for the market. While developing such products they have to take into account all the fundamental governing factors like center of balance, elevation, angle, etc

Qualifications of a manufacturing engineer

While a manufacturing engineer has to have a graduation degree in engineering, his degree should be recognized by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). This kind of course imparts good knowledge in mathematics and physics on a higher level. One should have also interned with a company that is into manufacturing equipment. Apart from this higher education in specific field also goes a long way in ensuring a good job.

Following is a list of categories involving various kinds of manufacturing engineer roles.

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