Need help from an engineer

C

crazyengineer

Joined
Apr 2, 2011
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I am currently an engineering student, and my last assignment is to interview an engineer. Is there an engineer on here that could give a few minutes and shoot me an email so that i can email a couple questions for my assignment?

the help would be greatly appreciated

ps: you can email me at VTplatham1@gmail.com
 
I'm an electrical engineer and new-product developer. I would be happy to talk to you.

The profession of engineer is broad. I'm in new-product development. I've always done either R&D or new-products because this is what I like to do. I'm literally one of the people who is deciding what future will be like. Other engineers do civil engineering, structural engineering, aerospace, biomedical, operations, demolition, forensics, all sorts of things. So, who you interview may depend on what type of engineering you're personally interested in.
 
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As a former manufacturing producion process engineer, I concur that the "Engineer" title is very broad. For instance, I worked from auto manufacturer's blueprints and specs to develop plastic injection molded products like grilles and facias, designed and built assemby lines after purchasing needed robotics and having special jigs built, trained the assembly workers, worked with QC to assure compliance with changing specs, worked with paint suppliers and the painting department to color match final vehicle paint codes, etc. I hand painted and built the prototypes. Your new vehicle was likely painted in pieces in a dozen locations, all paint having to match in color and chatoyance.
 
Don't get me started on matching color. It's a nightmare. For one of the products I'm struggling to get launched right now, the Industial Designer gave us an ID that had a painted metal piece, an injection-molded plastic piece, and a Mylar decal that all have to match. The mylar has to set the color. Nine shots on the plastic piece... nine. 12 on the paint... twelve. And all the while with the vendors pointing fingers at each other, the ID waiving his Pantone index at me and me pointing my colorimeter at him as if a handgun...

People who just buy a product at the store and pay no attention to the fact that the plastic and the metal are the same color just disgust me. You have no idea what we go through.

Manufacturing engineers are often the unsung heros. To make a product, you have to make all of these jigs and fixtures and tools which are essentially products in-and-of themselves. So, while I'm developing one product, the manufacturing and test engineers are developing dozens of products.
 
Not to mention film build thickness of each coating layer, sample plaques to be painted and tested for color, coating, weather and UV resistance, adhesion, etc, each specific type of plastic taking paint adhesion and color differently. And each manufacturer having their own tolerances for inclusions in the coatings. Some poor cob is doing my job in Suzhou now, the poor bugger.

I forgot to mention that I also had to do a bit of math. I designed the part delivery systems which involved miles of overhead conveyer chains with hook fixtures to carry the parts from their molding machines to the QC stations, wash booths, paint booths, ovens and cure lines and on to final assembly and packing. It all had to be timed exactly right to allow operators time to do their operations, time for the robots to do their programmed painting programs, timed for the specified length of time in the cure ovens after flash, and air cure times before assembly. Every operation took a different amount of time to accomplish, the differences being accounted for with my overhead conveyors. Processes, and process time, often changed due to ECOs (engineering change orders) from the customer and required reconfiguring the line.
 
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Gollnick said:
People who just buy a product at the store and pay no attention to the fact that the plastic and the metal are the same color just disgust me. You have no idea what we go through.

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Something I wish manufacturers would realize.

99% of the time, not only do I not care about the colour of an item- but I actually prefer that it would be black.

Let's stop pretending that plastic is something other than plastic.
I find that wood grained, or "chrome" finished plastic is unattractive and fake.

Just give metals a clear coating, I like the colours of metals.

Just make it black, or some shade of very dark grey, keep costs low and and sell it to me at the lower price.
 
No... not black. Please, not black. It is the most difficult color of all to match.
 
Gollnick said:
No... not black. Please, not black. It is the most difficult color of all to match.
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And it shows faults more than most other colors. And in use, constantly looks dirty, more so than even white. I don't know many people who would be satified with a car whose plastic parts were all unpainted and unplated either. The plastic's composition varies with it's use and so also does the material color and shade of that color. Few would be pleased with a raw plastic grille on their car, nevermind the UV protection that paint or metal plating gives to the plastic structure.
 
Color mixing is crazy. I had a designer hand me a piece of clear tape with dried Pepto Bismol and asked me to match it. I did (cad red, florescent pink, some cobalt blue or something like that). Did a job for Polaroid and had to match their proprietary colors they used in their logo. Mixed them by eye. And yes black is the worst. More than once a designer asked for black and I say what kind of black. And there is gray. Magenta and phthalo blue make a really nice gray. I guess I am a color engineer. Although my brother the civil engineer, would disagree.
 
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