Engineering and Production Management

Being an engineer, especially a mechanical engineer, has a lot of areas and fields to work on. In manufacturing industries and engineering firms, a manager is usually, and often necessary to be an engineer as well, who has not just the managerial skills but also has the knowledge and skills in technical aspects.

Tasks and areas of an engineer manager

As an engineer manager, your job is to both monitor productivity of your workers and at the same time to ensure that the technical conditions of the company are in proper conditions. This job is a combination of being an engineer and a manager or businessman.

As a production engineer, you should be able to perform the following tasks:

• Design or initiate the designing of the whole industrial processes and systems for the production.
• Design and improve the structure of the product as well.
• Keep records on technical data and make those records always updated.
• Analyze technical output and forecast problems that may arise.
• Provide solutions on problems arise.
• Manage and provide proper technical instructions and trainings for the workers that will operate the machines and other working equipments.
• Be updated on latest technology news and issues, and apply new knowledge and techniques as well for the improvement of production.
• Consider the effect of the technology and processes being used on the environment.

Also as an engineer manager, you must have the basic knowledge and background on managerial and business aspects. You must be able to perform the following tasks:

• Management of technology aspects. You should be able to manage the equipments and the workers who will use those as well.
• Negotiate and deal with external stakeholders for business matters of the company.
• Provide schedule for meeting and discuss about the latest technical issues on the company, and the latest news and improvements as well.
• An engineer manager must also be available for consultation. Workers must be able to rely on the engineer manager regarding the processes and the work done on the industry.
• A good engineer manager must also have a basic knowledge on accounting principles, finance, management information systems, and quality control.
• An engineer manager must also have a background in psychology so he can handle all he workers effectively.
• He must also be able to apply safety and health standards all the time in the whole organization.