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Warning: I’m an engineer, but not a mechanical one. However, the idea behind is generally the same across the field.
Firstly I’d like to say that I feel for you guys. Now don’t take it wrong; we engineers are engineering because we love what we work on. Things we work on are our brainchildren, end product of long hard struggles with hundreds of thousands of decisions. And at the end of the day, we like to see nothing more than people using our work and be happy for it, having improved a whole lot of peoples’ lives. That’s what engineering is all about, afterall.
Unfortunately, you’re right in that engineers are still rooted in reality and we have a LOT of people to answer to. We don’t forget about mechanics either; were I a car engineer, you guys would be one of my major stakeholders in the end product goal. However, the biggest stakeholders tend to be the business owners, mainly the employers and managers, and they generally tend to make the end business decisions and thus engineering decisions.
Trust me when I say engineers (generally) have noted down every single bolt and nut and screw and wire down to a science in every single one of your cars. When you do see something out of order when pulling your car apart, it’s very most likely there not because one engineer was sleeping on the job (we do work in teams, whole team was sleeping?), but because he or she actively decided on it. Examples to ponder (as thought by one engineer, not a car one though):
– how much will the whole parts cost for x design?
– during initial manufacturing
– during dealership warranty repair period
– during post-warranty repair period (this is often extremely low importance on business requirements, I’m sure you’d understand why)
– are other parts of the car affected?
– can be materials / parts be acquired easily?
– does it meet x y z standards?
– how long will it last until it has to be repaired?
– how long does it take to install this part?
– is it modular and sellable as an upgrade feature?
– can this be used internationally?
– can this all be done before next financial year when new models are released?
– etc etc…and be prepared to have a ~20 page document per part that goes in the car on explaining everything above, and more, and why it was engineered as such, to be signed off by rest of decision makers e.g. managers, auditors, “strategic decision makers”, etc. You don’t just go “uh, that’s a stupid idea, fix it”, and it’s just fixed then and there. If only if.
That said, if you ever find a pain in the ass part to replace in a car, what most likely happened is 1. car is designed to life of x number of years, and 2. part is engineered to most likely fail well past that lifespan. Of course, statistics kick in, and sometimes it does fail earlier, and that’s when you go to dealers for warranty repair. That’s all calculated already; someone decided it was cheaper to hire mechanics as aftercare for the car, rather than try to spend more time and money to re-work the base car design.
Sometimes though, it really is the engineer who failed massively and end up costing everyone frustration, time, and money. We’re human too, afterall. We just hope to learn from the mistakes and move onto newer and better things.
Hope the rant wasn’t too long. I’ll try to answer any engo questions if anyone has them, but I suspect there will be others around these parts to have a say too.
Warning: I’m an engineer, but not a mechanical one. However, the idea behind is generally the same across the field.
Firstly I’d like to say that I feel for you guys. Now don’t take it wrong; we engineers are engineering because we love what we work on. Things we work on are our brainchildren, end product of long hard struggles with hundreds of thousands of decisions. And at the end of the day, we like to see nothing more than people using our work and be happy for it, having improved a whole lot of peoples’ lives. That’s what engineering is all about, afterall.
Unfortunately, you’re right in that engineers are still rooted in reality and we have a LOT of people to answer to. We don’t forget about mechanics either; were I a car engineer, you guys would be one of my major stakeholders in the end product goal. However, the biggest stakeholders tend to be the business owners, mainly the employers and managers, and they generally tend to make the end business decisions and thus engineering decisions.
Trust me when I say engineers (generally) have noted down every single bolt and nut and screw and wire down to a science in every single one of your cars. When you do see something out of order when pulling your car apart, it’s very most likely there not because one engineer was sleeping on the job (we do work in teams, whole team was sleeping?), but because he or she actively decided on it. Examples to ponder (as thought by one engineer, not a car one though):
– how much will the whole parts cost for x design?
– during initial manufacturing
– during dealership warranty repair period
– during post-warranty repair period (this is often extremely low importance on business requirements, I’m sure you’d understand why)
– are other parts of the car affected?
– can be materials / parts be acquired easily?
– does it meet x y z standards?
– how long will it last until it has to be repaired?
– how long does it take to install this part?
– is it modular and sellable as an upgrade feature?
– can this be used internationally?
– can this all be done before next financial year when new models are released?
– etc etc…and be prepared to have a ~20 page document per part that goes in the car on explaining everything above, and more, and why it was engineered as such, to be signed off by rest of decision makers e.g. managers, auditors, “strategic decision makers”, etc. You don’t just go “uh, that’s a stupid idea, fix it”, and it’s just fixed then and there. If only if.
That said, if you ever find a pain in the ass part to replace in a car, what most likely happened is 1. car is designed to life of x number of years, and 2. part is engineered to most likely fail well past that lifespan. Of course, statistics kick in, and sometimes it does fail earlier, and that’s when you go to dealers for warranty repair. That’s all calculated already; someone decided it was cheaper to hire mechanics as aftercare for the car, rather than try to spend more time and money to re-work the base car design.
Sometimes though, it really is the engineer who failed massively and end up costing everyone frustration, time, and money. We’re human too, afterall. We just hope to learn from the mistakes and move onto newer and better things.
Hope the rant wasn’t too long. I’ll try to answer any engo questions if anyone has them, but I suspect there will be others around these parts to have a say too.