Careers in Mechanical Engineering

Hello friends
This is my first article on the series. The series will be dedicated to the career options for engineers in the field of Mechanical Engineering.

Profile No. 1

Production Engineer

Well I am writing this on the basis of my experience as Production Engineer in Subros Ltd and Philips Electronics India Ltd

The role is of handling Production lines anywhere like in the field of Automobiles one handles assembly lines, machining lines, heat treatment lines, sheet metal lines, tube bending lines, etc.

The career path is normally a fresher is hired ( campus or off campus) as GET( Graduate Engineer Trainee). And the first few months goes to get accustomed to machinery. Especially in Japanese companies, it is ensured that engineers are trained to handle machines themselves. Then the Engineer comes into role of coordination. This includes, to delegate and monitor tasks of operators as per the scheducle given by PPC ( Production Planning & Control). Then to coordinate with Maintenance Deptt, Quality Deptt, Stores Deptt, Purchase Deptt, HR deptt and virtually every department.

This is most critical profile in production based companies, because here is the actual operations are conducted, others are support functions.

The issues one has to deal with are :

1. Material Shortages
2. Machine Failure
3. Bad Quality
4. Audits
5. Thefts
6. Absentism
7. Union Problems
8. Accidents
9. Production Targets Failure
10. Overtime

But, as the pressure is high so are the rewards. Production Engineers gets maximum increments and faster growth. Normally these are the people, who become Plant Heads, Operations Head and finally CEO's

The package starts in SME's is around 1.8 lac/annum and grows to 5 in next 3 years. After that it depends on the person's performance and the career path he has created for himself. Apart from money, this is the field for leaders, who have dominant and assertive personalities. They work like generals of army in the field.

My suggestion to everyone who wants to build career in Mechanical Engineering is spend at least 6 months in Production Department. The learning will be actual operations, around which the whole company revolves. So, once a person has been through this experience, he can work in any department keeping the actual situations in mind.

It will be good, if you read this article then comment on it. It will motivate me to write more in the series.