1. Production Engineering Job Description

The job descriptions are roughly as follows.
I won't explain each item, but the overall impression is as follows

Job descriptions vary depending on the assignment and the policies of the organization

The nature of the work varies depending on the project for which you are assigned. For example, document preparation is also a part of production engineering. The installation of new equipment is production engineering job. On-site improvement work is also production engineering job. Depending on the organization you belong to, you may feel that your job is different from what you expected at first.

Since you work as a production engineer, you mainly work on the production site. The company I used to work for did not have any production sites in Japan, and There were only overseas factories. As a result, I often had to travel to overseas plants. Sometimes I was away from Japan for 6 to 8 months out of the year. This is the way you work when you do production engineering at office with no production line.

I was once asked by someone outside the company, "What are you doing if you don't have a production site?"
One is, as mentioned above, a long trip to factories to perform improvement activities and set up a new production line. The other is to prepare for new projects. This includes process design of a new mass production line to be introduced in one to two years.

If you are going to work as a production engineer, you should work at a company that has a production line. If you belong to an organization that does not have a production site, your skills will not improve and the way you work is structurally unreasonable.

2. Skills you can learn from doing production engineering

Here are some of the skills you'll acquire while working in production engineering.
I've been in production engineering for over 10 years. It's not just a matter of doing it for a long time, so it's up to you whether or not you'll acquire the skills, but here's a quick overview of what I've learned.

Looking back over the past 10 years, these are the items listed above, although it depends on the company's policies and business conditions. Among these, items 1 to 5 can be considered purely production engineering job. Item 6 was incidental items.

Versatile production engineering jobs if you develop your skills

In addition, items colored in yellow are largely dependent on the product and equipment specifications of your company, so if the products and equipment change, the job description will change significantly. When you look at it this way, the job description of production engineering seems surprisingly versatile. If you master it, you will have no trouble finding a job even if the company you are working for collapses.

However, the reality is that this does not seem to be the case for all production engineers. At the company I was working for at the time, at business partners, overseas bases, and at new company where I changed jobs, I saw a lot of engineers at work, but only 20-30% of them were successful in their field. I think the situation is the same in any industry, not only in engineering.

As you gradually build up a record of achievement in production engineering work, various projects will come along with it. These are the items mentioned in "6. Others" above. I encourage you to try various challenges in order to increase the scope of your work and increase your market value.

If you think of working in production engineering field, you should also learn foreign languages. Since the manufacturing industry in Japan will not grow in the future, there will be more and more opportunities to work overseas.

There are more people who can speak English than ever before. It is becoming more and more commonplace for people to be able to speak English.

Even if you can't speak now, you can take it easy if you think about targeting the next few years. If you have technical skills, you can be successful in your main field, even if your English skills are low. However, it's no good if you can't speak English at all.

3. Important things in career of production engineer

As a quick conclusion, you should try to acquire "PLC skill" in your production engineering career development. I will explain why.
    (*Reference: PLC learning page for beginner)

Job field you must cover as a production engineer

First of all, the job field of production engineer can be roughly defined as the design of processes and equipment on the manufacturing floor. Simply put, they are production line professionals.

If it's a problem caused by production equipment on the shop floor, the production engineer should take the lead in solving it. (If the problem is product design factor, quality factor of delivered parts, or operational factor on the shop floor, then it is a different department. Other department should be responsible.)

When you look at the reality, there are quite a few engineers who can't solve equipment problems, can't even investigate the cause of the problem, wait for someone else to solve it, or turn away from the problem.

I am not blaming them, but they simply don't have the skills to solve the problem, and they don't make the effort to learn the skills they lack.

They are supposed to be equipment professional, but they can't solve equipment problems. There is nothing more miserable than this.

If you have an equipment supplier nearby, they may be able to help you, but if you're an engineer, you should be able to solve the problem by yourself. If you can't solve the problem, you're just a serviceman, not an engineer.

Again, when you are in the business of production engineering, you need to take care of your equipment. It is not enough to be able to operate the equipment, you must have a detailed understanding of its inner structure.

It means you understand the details of what control instruments are used and how they are programmed to operate. If any of the equipment at production line breaks down, the entire production line will stop. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the entire process, as well as the inner structure of those equipment.

Reason for recommending PLC skill

As technological innovations have increased the quality of control instruments and automation, production equipment is becoming more complex. Every production engineer should have the experience of equipment stop for unknown reasons.

The only way to reasonably investigate such complex equipment failure is to monitor the internal operating program. If you don't monitor the status of each signal, you won't be able to figure out where it's coming from. This is why I recommend PLC skills.

4. Unexpected equipment problems are inevitable

If the equipment doesn't cause problems in the first place, there's no need to debug it. You might think so. However, this is unavoidable. Let me explain why.

Reason 1) Equipment is custom-made

Unlike machining centers and plastic molding machines, all equipment used on a general assembly line is custom-made. Each machine is designed specifically for its own use. In the case of repeat equipment, a high degree of perfection can be expected.

However, in most cases, this is not the case. It is impossible to eliminate all future problems in advance with equipment that is newly designed and manufactured each time.

Reason 2) We can't assume all the issues at the initial stage

In the case of an assembly equipment, in addition to Reason 1), the operation can only be checked in a limited range due to the cost of the materials consumed.

With new equipment, you will notice minor problems as you use it. Each time, corrections are made. In short, the program designer cannot assume and verify all the possibilities from the beginning. Of course, it is impossible to complete a program with perfect accuracy for newly designed equipment. Moreover, the period of time and materials available for operation is limited.

Reason 3) Increased complexity of control due to automation

Equipment has become more complex than before. The volume of programs has increased and the design load has increased. Programmers themselves cannot keep up with the demand, and it's getting harder and harder to achieve perfection.

It is not easy to assume all the safety actions and automatic recovery actions in trivial areas. I have experienced what is called a "standstill" situation (a situation in which the equipment operation stops for some reason and is not able to get out of the situation automatically) on many occasions.

If you've actually done software design, you'll know what I mean. It's almost impossible to cover every situation perfectly with automated equipment. The only way to do this is to squash problems as they are found and make them more complete.

5. summary

For the reasons mentioned above, PLC skill is an essential skill for production engineer who takes care of mass production equipment. The other skills can be acquired to some extent naturally as long as you do the job. The hurdle is not so high.

However, if you don't plan to work on PLC on your own, you won't acquire them forever. If you want to work as an engineer, make it a goal of your career development.

As a production engineer, you can't avoid this field as long as you are taking care of the equipment, and once you understand PLC, you will be able to expand your work scope and make your life easier.
If engineers are unable to take care of the equipment, they will not be able to deal with problems when they occur, and will lose their presence and value as engineer.

There was a shortage of such engineers in the company I was working for at the time, so I repeatedly suggested to the director to hire programmers from equipment manufacturers. I worked at several locations, and this was a common situation.

In other words, if you develop your skills in this field, it will give you an advantage and expand your opportunities.

(*Reference: PLC learning page for beginner)
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