1. Technical skills are a priority for production engineers

Before discussing English skills, your priority as a production engineer should be technical skills. You can only discuss language if you have the technical skills to solve problems on the shop floor and can perform the basic tasks of a production engineer, such as equipment specifications, process design and productivity improvement. It's a misguided argument for someone who is immature as a production engineer to emphasize their English skills.

I've seen department heads hiring engineers based on English language skills, but it seems to me that they are missing an important point. This is because, in the profession of production engineering, you cannot carry out your work without technical skills.

2. The Need for English in Production Engineering

Here are some needs of English.

Overseas expansion of the manufacturing industry

Considering the history of the past 20 years and the long-term outlook, Japanese manufacturing industry cannot have a domestic work environment alone. Even if the company you are working for now allows you to work only in Japan, you don't know what it will be like in 10 years time. The company may be acquired. The company may go bankrupt and you may move on to another company.

If you are already working for a company that has overseas base, take advantage of your overseas business trips to learn English. This is a great opportunity to learn English.

Your boss or subordinate could be a foreigner

At my previous company, which was a Japanese company, there were many different nationalities among my colleagues and business partners in Japan. China, Philpin, Germany, India, Mexico, Vietnam, etc. Therefore, the excuse "I'm in Japan..." no longer seems to work.

Considering the current social situation, it is very common to hire foreign workers due to the shortage of human resources. You can't go to a local city without seeing a foreigner. Furthermore, looking at the list of executives at large companies, it is clear that even Japanese companies are hiring foreign executives.

When you think about it, everyone, not just production engineers, has to learn English as a communication tool. If your boss is a foreigner, your communication will certainly be in English.

Technical documents may only be available in English

This is a major reason why production engineers should learn English.

This will continue to be the case in the future.
When shipping mass production equipment prepared in Japan to an overseas plant, it is necessary to support English language equipment. As long as you continue to work in production engineering, whether inside or outside the company, there will always be opportunities to do business with foreign countries at some point.

3. What level of English is required for production engineers?

Now let's take a look at what level of English skills you need to have. By the way, I have enough English skills to live and work abroad.

I don't think you need to be able to speak fluently. I think it's enough to be able to say at least a few words, understand about 30% of what the other person is saying, and manage to understand English document. If you combine a few words, you can manage to communicate with them.

You have to avoid a situation where you can't speak up at all, and you can't understand their conversation at all. If you can't do that, you'll lose the opportunity to communicate. Even if you can't do it well, you need to have a level of English that allows you to communicate with someone.

It may seem challenging to hear this much, but the hurdle of English is low compared to learning any other language from zero. Thanks to your basic education, there are plenty of opportunities to learn nearby if you want to.


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