Ask an Engineer anything

[mikeveal]

It depends on the field. Civil engineering jobs tend to require C.Eng. Electronics engineering, not so much, maybe in the defence industry, but elsewhere no.
Of all my mates on the ECII course, I think only one has bothered to become Chartered, he was heavily encouraged to by his employers (a government agency near Aldermaston.) On balance that employment wasn't good for him really. He can't put it on his C.V. can't tell anyone interviewing him what he was doing for all those years. Not even allowed to say "I can't answer that." It looks like he was unemployed.

[Pit Pony]

mikeveal said:

It depends on the field. Civil engineering jobs tend to require C.Eng. Electronics engineering, not so much, maybe in the defence industry, but elsewhere no.
Of all my mates on the ECII course, I think only one has bothered to become Chartered, he was heavily encouraged to by his employers (a government agency near Aldermaston.) On balance that employment wasn't good for him really. He can't put it on his C.V. can't tell anyone interviewing him what he was doing for all those years. Not even allowed to say "I can't answer that." It looks like he was unemployed.

I'm sure that's not exactly true.
I'm sure he could say he worked for the MOD and list his transferable skills.
As an aside, it is interesting that you can request an interview panel for Chartered status who are all at an appropriate level of security clearance.

[thewarlock]

I'm currently going through the CEng process.

Been an engineer for 15 years, but its only become an issue now, as I'm employed (as opposed to self employed)

Never caused me a problem scoring a contract for all those years, but now that I've taken a staff job, they want me to do it.

IMechE can get stuffed though, useless shower of tts imo.

[thewarlock]

Pit Pony said:

mikeveal said:

It depends on the field. Civil engineering jobs tend to require C.Eng. Electronics engineering, not so much, maybe in the defence industry, but elsewhere no.
Of all my mates on the ECII course, I think only one has bothered to become Chartered, he was heavily encouraged to by his employers (a government agency near Aldermaston.) On balance that employment wasn't good for him really. He can't put it on his C.V. can't tell anyone interviewing him what he was doing for all those years. Not even allowed to say "I can't answer that." It looks like he was unemployed.

I'm sure that's not exactly true.
I'm sure he could say he worked for the MOD and list his transferable skills.
As an aside, it is interesting that you can request an interview panel for Chartered status who are all at an appropriate level of security clearance.

Yeah, from personal experience, this is absolutely not true. At all. Not even close.

[ALPandy90]

Since we are so far off topic, I might as well throw my thoughts into this!

I gained CEng about two years ago now, just before I turned 30. As a direct result of becoming CEng, I gained a promotion. As well as that, I also now get to take on more responsibility and get the more interesting projects.

It was also a nice surprise to discover the company I work for gives bonuses for achieving IEng and CEng status. They don't advertise it for some reason, the first you know about it is a letter in the post informing you, and asking you not to discuss with colleagues! Not sure why they do it that way to be honest...

[Bobberoo99]

Fusion777 said:

S6PNJ said:

Just checking credentials. OK, BA or UNF then?

I quite like staying in the 21st Century, thanks! It’s bad enough when we have to deal with stateside organisations still using inches full stop. #4 this, TPI that. Join the rest of the world, America.

There are still people in the industry that refer to the “thou”, even though they’re young enough to have been taught in metric at school. Guess old habits die hard.

HA!!!! Try being in the aerospace industry, we can have both metric and imperial on the same component!!!

[vonuber]

ALPandy90 said:

Since we are so far off topic, I might as well throw my thoughts into this!

I gained CEng about two years ago now, just before I turned 30. As a direct result of becoming CEng, I gained a promotion. As well as that, I also now get to take on more responsibility and get the more interesting projects.

It was also a nice surprise to discover the company I work for gives bonuses for achieving IEng and CEng status. They don't advertise it for some reason, the first you know about it is a letter in the post informing you, and asking you not to discuss with colleagues! Not sure why they do it that way to be honest...

Yes, it's the same in a lot of (civil) companies I have found. As I mentioned above, becoming CEng is an inarguable measure of achievement which can be very handy come promotion time.

[Parsnip]

Bobberoo99 said:

Fusion777 said:

S6PNJ said:

Just checking credentials. OK, BA or UNF then?

I quite like staying in the 21st Century, thanks! It’s bad enough when we have to deal with stateside organisations still using inches full stop. #4 this, TPI that. Join the rest of the world, America.

There are still people in the industry that refer to the “thou”, even though they’re young enough to have been taught in metric at school. Guess old habits die hard.

HA!!!! Try being in the aerospace industry, we can have both metric and imperial on the same component!!!

Pffft.

Oil and Gas is the undisputed champion of daft units.

Drill a hole meters deep, with a diameter in inches. Use a fluid of density in s.g. to hold back the formation pressure in psi - while you are at it, check the permeability (in Darcys of course) using a radioactive source with some becquerels, just watch how many sieverts you get on you...

Once drilled, flow some oil measured in barrels and gas in mmscf through a choke measured in 64ths of an inch (and never round it - it's not a 1/2" choke, its a 32/64" choke.)

At times it makes my teeth itch.

[BabySharkDooDooDooDooDooDoo]

h0b0 said:

Do you get angry when plumbers call themselves “heating engineers”?

A few years back I was chatting to a company in the US and their sales people were called “Sales Engineers”

[Bobberoo99]

Parsnip said:

Bobberoo99 said:

Fusion777 said:

S6PNJ said:

Just checking credentials. OK, BA or UNF then?

I quite like staying in the 21st Century, thanks! It’s bad enough when we have to deal with stateside organisations still using inches full stop. #4 this, TPI that. Join the rest of the world, America.

There are still people in the industry that refer to the “thou”, even though they’re young enough to have been taught in metric at school. Guess old habits die hard.

HA!!!! Try being in the aerospace industry, we can have both metric and imperial on the same component!!!

Pffft.

Oil and Gas is the undisputed champion of daft units.

Drill a hole meters deep, with a diameter in inches. Use a fluid of density in s.g. to hold back the formation pressure in psi - while you are at it, check the permeability (in Darcys of course) using a radioactive source with some becquerels, just watch how many sieverts you get on you...

Once drilled, flow some oil measured in barrels and gas in mmscf through a choke measured in 64ths of an inch (and never round it - it's not a 1/2" choke, its a 32/64" choke.)

At times it makes my teeth itch.

It is ludicrous isn't it, i recently had to explain thread classifications and notations to a supposedly apprenticeship served team leader, he took ages to get his head around the difference in thread classifications!!!

[thewarlock]

BabySharkDooDooDooDooDooDoo said:

A few years back I was chatting to a company in the US and their sales people were called “Sales Engineers”

We have sales engineers.

But they are actually engineers. You have to be to understand the product.

[thewarlock]

Bobberoo99 said:

Parsnip said:

Bobberoo99 said:

Fusion777 said:

S6PNJ said:

Just checking credentials. OK, BA or UNF then?

I quite like staying in the 21st Century, thanks! It’s bad enough when we have to deal with stateside organisations still using inches full stop. #4 this, TPI that. Join the rest of the world, America.

There are still people in the industry that refer to the “thou”, even though they’re young enough to have been taught in metric at school. Guess old habits die hard.

HA!!!! Try being in the aerospace industry, we can have both metric and imperial on the same component!!!

Pffft.

Oil and Gas is the undisputed champion of daft units.

Drill a hole meters deep, with a diameter in inches. Use a fluid of density in s.g. to hold back the formation pressure in psi - while you are at it, check the permeability (in Darcys of course) using a radioactive source with some becquerels, just watch how many sieverts you get on you...

Once drilled, flow some oil measured in barrels and gas in mmscf through a choke measured in 64ths of an inch (and never round it - it's not a 1/2" choke, its a 32/64" choke.)

At times it makes my teeth itch.

It is ludicrous isn't it, i recently had to explain thread classifications and notations to a supposedly apprenticeship served team leader, he took ages to get his head around the difference in thread classifications!!!

I'm currently designing a hull girder to ABS naval ship rules.

At least these days, the american rule sets have both metric and imperial units, but even then, the metric units are awful.

2nd moment of area in cm^2 x m^2

Section modulus in cm^2 x m for global stuff, but cm^3 for local structure, allowable stresses in kN/cm^2, it's awful. I'm having to convert everything to units I understand so I can actually get a feel for whats going on.

[RapidRob]

Ok, a question from me, a 26 y/o mechanical design engineer. I work at a scientific research company, and worked my way up from apprentice, technician, designer and now design engineer. I'm quite happy designing things, but struggle with the complex maths calc's to verify designs. Any suggestions on how to improve my knowledge - any good resources or YT video series? I've been ok at maths during training, and am happy with bread and butter stress/strain calc's, but have forgotten a lot, and struggle to get my head around stuff like matrices, integration.
And a related question, what software do you use for your calculation sheets - Mathcad, matlab, excel etc?

[Pit Pony]

Bobberoo99 said:

It is ludicrous isn't it, i recently had to explain thread classifications and notations to a supposedly apprenticeship served team leader, he took ages to get his head around the difference in thread classifications!!!

One of the things I pride myself on as a Chartered Manufacturing Engineer is knowing what I don't know. Knowing and being very clear with people where I am not competent, or lack any experience.

Had an interview a couple of years ago and they were fixated on getting someone who understood the latest geometric drawing standard, and had a drawing that showed the most complex tolerancing I've seen in 35 years.
It was the first time I've seen some of the symbols.
The interviewer was really fixated on this knowledge.
There was no way that I could convince him.that
If I got the gig, I'd go and read the standard, find and do some training and also check my understanding of the drawings meaning with the person who actually did the drawing.
The recruiter said in feedback that they've been looking for 7 months. This is a supplier development role, which for a contractor, needing SC clearance and they were offering a 6 month contract initially.

Instead I got a contract in the precision ceramics industry for aerospace, knowing zero about any of thier processes.

[bucksmanuk]

RapidRob said:

......and struggle to get my head around stuff like matrices, integration.
And a related question, what software do you use for your calculation sheets - Mathcad, matlab, excel etc?

Used matrices probably about half a dozen times in 30+ years - transfer method vibration analysis.
Used integration once, verifying area under the curve results.
Software - yes - all of those listed....

If it’s for my own benefit and I need some nice graphs – then Excel.

If it’s for others, 70-80 page full blown in depth calculations in a technical report – Mathcad. Creating a report of this size in Mathcad is hard work - in Mathcad 14.

Matlab, every now and again, I usually get one someone else to do it though. Places in the past - it was only used for data acquisition analysis – as it is extremely good at it.

There are shipping classification societies, and indeed many others, that won’t accept any technical report with only FEA results in it. There must be calculations done by hand or Mathcad to back it up, Excel isn’t allowed either. I’ve seen a number of companies had the rug pulled out from under their feet with this.

[Pit Pony]

The metric vs American measurements.

Grrrrrrrr.

I worked for a company where the parent company was in.the USA.
We had a high volume product designed in the UK
The main body used 25 mm hex standard bar, machined on.the inside.
I introduced an automated system to assemble this and it was a success. As our volumes multiplied, we avoided employing 6 more people on manual assembly tasks.
One Monday morning, I came in to find the p production director looking pale. They'd lost all production, due to."my" rig.
It was timing out on the final.assembly.task. Which involved a 25mm hex drive coming over it and tightening it into a valve body.
2 hours later I was measuring the parts and they were 25.6 mm hex bar. Which our drive didn't fit.
Because on the drawing it had a little * and a note in the corner saying that 1 inch (25.4 mm) bar could be used by the supplier. Add .2 for the tolerance and our drive unit wouldn't fit.
Is that my mistake for not spotting that. Well maybe.
Except that change was part of a drawing update, so that our American.parent company could produce the same part over there. I'd not been invited and design reviews and wasn't party to any of the changes. Although I probably would have missed it.
The reason, we suddenly switched size in the UK ?
The Americans running a sourcing project where they went China and bought the cheapest st they could. And the team was run by Americans who are overpaid fickwits
The drive socket we were using was modified from a standard forged one, so we had to get a tool maker to drop everything and modify one for us. The machine came back into production about 6pm.
We'd lost 3 days production.

[r159]

Fusion777 said:

r159 said:

Between elec, mech etc...more on the maintenance side of things.

Edited by r159 on Saturday 13th March 16:32

Don't have too much issue with this. Most firms now probably have some sort of work database where the shop floor can raise issues and assign things to the appropriate team. Sometimes there's a bit of wrangling and delaying while one team wants the other to look at it first, but it's not too bad.

Here's a question from me then, as there are more experienced people to ask- what's the best route forward for someone in my position who would like to earn more. Aim for a management position, more experience at other companies, different role, different industry? Equivalent jobs to mine tend to offer around the same pay- some less, some more.

Consultant, management or same job but for a higher paying business/sector (the difference between different companies and sectors can be huge). I moved from a day based job looking after 300+ people 24/7 to a shift job looking after 12 and my package was worth a 60% increase in salary, and worked 100 days less a year. The other option is work abroad (a few challenges at the moment...).

While more money is nice, do not underestimate the value of having a job you enjoy. I have made the mistake of changing job for money & progress it ended up being an absolute nightmare.

[Pit Pony]

thewarlock said:

We have sales engineers.

But they are actually engineers. You have to be to understand the product.

When.i worked at a turbo charger manufacturer, the sales engineers were recruited from Design and Development. The main ability they seemed to have above other Engineers was a poker face. I remember being in a big meeting and the Sales Engineering Manager, was briefing the team.about his trip to a major truck manufacturer. He relayed that he'd given them a price and they'd gone off at the deep end. Taking about cancelli g the project.
The main boss started to panic. Sales guy couldn't stop laughing. Look. Now we know what they can't afford, they'll come back.and tell us what they can afford.....no.point in guessing the max they can pay, we want them pleading with us to reduce the price.

[Bobberoo99]

So full disclosure time, I consider myself an engineer, my current job title is Manufacturing Technician, I have multiple City and Guilds qualifications in engineering craft studies, CAD/CAM, machining and an NVQ level 3 in Lean manufacturing and business improvement techniques, I work in the aerospace industry running a 5 axis machining centre, I'm involved with 5s, C.I., kaizen events, RIE and Value Stream Mapping, I have absolutely no interest in furthering my career and fully enjoy what I do, which I describe as "a mixture of knob twiddling and button pressing", and like a lot of you I really don't like seeing random jobs grouped into the catch all of "engineer"!!!!

[Fusion777]

RapidRob said:

Ok, a question from me, a 26 y/o mechanical design engineer. I work at a scientific research company, and worked my way up from apprentice, technician, designer and now design engineer. I'm quite happy designing things, but struggle with the complex maths calc's to verify designs. Any suggestions on how to improve my knowledge - any good resources or YT video series? I've been ok at maths during training, and am happy with bread and butter stress/strain calc's, but have forgotten a lot, and struggle to get my head around stuff like matrices, integration.
And a related question, what software do you use for your calculation sheets - Mathcad, matlab, excel etc?

bucksmanuk answered this better than I could. I'm not a design engineer so don't have to do the kind of verification you describe. I'd be surprised if you had to use matrices in mechanical design, though?

The "Engineering Mathematics" textbooks (old school, I know) by Stroud are decent. They were the main resource I used in my degree to support the maths.