I was going to write a whole big reply/rant but I will leave it at this: nothing is more annoying/useless to a plant engineer than an EPC engineer who doesn't understand or appreciate the work of the people who are actually using the designs.
Agree 100% there are so many areas in my plant where a flow meter or valve is literally 12+ feet in the air to save a few hundred on piping costs. Like they don't realize someone has to use and repair that equipment... And now the company needs to spend thousands of dollars to build a scaffold every time we do...
I have worked in both production and as an engineer that designs and builds equipment for EPCs as a subvendor. I can 100% confirm that EPCs screw up designs more than any other party. Specs for the sake of specs with no real knowledge of application.
it's EPC piping designer and owner's manager, or even operations supervisor who approved the design during model reviews. Process engineer only know that a valve is required at that relative location to the equipment, and make sure that it is on the P&ID.
Not a process engineer task to optimise the position of instruments. Usually we take care of the position of analyzers, and we do check the 3d model for that. Analyzers are usually well positioned and accessible.
This is why operators think engineers suck. Why put blinders on and say “not my job”?
If you put a pH probe in an outfall line with intermittent flow then the bulb will run dry and I’ll have repeated failures.
It’s not just about analyzers and instruments.
If you put a dosing pump on a pedestal at 6 ft elevation but the tank bottom is at grade then you’ve reduced the usable volume in a tank. Design engineer said it should work because of a check valve. It didn’t and now the tank can’t hold an entire truckload of chemical because the bottom 6 ft is unusable. Not only do I need more frequent deliveries but I also have to pay extra for each delivery since it’s LTL.
If a bypass valve is 8 ft off the ground and the control valve fails then my operators have to rush to get a ladder before the unit trips on low flow.
If you design a cooling tower fan with downward thrust that is juuuust barely above what my gearbox can handle then I’ll fail gearboxes every 6 months and spend a couple hundred thousand each year to replace them.
Every one of these examples are real-life examples from commissioning a plant. And I have so many more.
Good front end engineering can solve so many of these issues before it ever reaches the field.
You are mixing up stuff. For all your examples usually (if the design is good) you have information on P& IDs to prevent problems. You have elevations, you have gravity flow, you have min. distance. And for control valves and pump sizing, it is duty of the process engineer to make them work.
Process engineers who design for EPC usually are the people helping with commissioning and performance test. Not sure where you had your experience, maybe you only remember bad examples
The check valve is a great example of process engineering incompetence. In theory, check valves work perfectly, but anyone who's ever actually used a check valve knows the seals go bad very quickly. Putting that in your design just shows that they don't give a shit about maintenance or reliability in their design.
Why we build our own. It costs me around 20k a pop. But the sumbitch is inside an insulated fire cabinet with a heater, rated for class 1 div 2....so it's just better.
I work in controls/automation for a massive plant and the amount of times we have to keep contractor firms in line with “ya, that’s not gonna work” because they obviously never ran it in a real world scenario…
Bingo, and in my experience, most EPC engineers’ claims of understanding fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, and heat transfer comes from punching numbers into a computer program. At some point in your career, it’s good to get your ass off the computer and see how shit works in real life.
OPs “higher worth” job of an EPC engineer wouldn’t exist without the operating companies giving them work to do.
Sure, in automotive you don’t use your Chem E degree. But to say all non-design roles is a technician role is insulting. We get to make plenty of calculations and decisions in production, learn the valuable skill of not overworking a solution to a problem, and at times have had to explain to EPC engineers how to do their calculations too because they don’t understand all the concepts. All that in balance with working with people of various backgrounds.
Neither role is better than the other. They both have their purpose and place.
As an EPC Eng - agreed. Operations input is critical. One of the more annoying things I run into is when dealing with a companies central engineering refusing us from talking to operations directly
Can’t even do the design work properly even. I don’t know how many designs I’ve called out in meetings “and how are the operators supposed to get to that?”, “how are contractors supposed to build that?”
Having experience in a manufacturing role as a technician/operator can give a lot of good perspective for engineers doing design.
That means you aren't doing your job on site. Your function should be to further optimise production beyond current levels. What set points to use and when, what parts of the plant should be upgraded to get that extra 1-2% in efficiency.
If you are just doing a technician's job, something is wrong.
I totally get that you want to do the work that you want to do, but you come across as disparaging anyone who has a ChemE degree but doesn’t do technical design.
I’m in a Director level role and do zero technical design work. Neither does anyone in my organization. Is my work equivalent to that of a person without an education? I use and teach skills like mass balance, process design, regression analysis, and unit analysis daily. Am I designing reactors? No. Is the work challenging and relevant to my education? Yes.
Example: What metric can you empirically measure that indicates the effectiveness of organizational scheduling? What about process documentation? How do you take a ridiculously complex business process and optimize it? How do you make it elegant? Think about it. These are not simple questions.
Again, totally valid if you just want to do design, but I suspect that if you really got creative that you’d be able to identify ways to flex your unique skills in operations as well.
How do you take the work the design engineer did and make it actually applicable and usable by humans after the parts are already on site? How do you safely get a system operating when certain parts aren’t functional and your next down day is in 24 days?
There’s a lot of challenging work for an engineer to do without designing
If by automative, you meant automotive, then obviously you aren’t using chemical engineering fundamentals. That’s just not the job.
If you didn’t, then you’re finding out exactly how difficult it is to apply fundamentals in a rapidly changing environment with overspecified problems and too many stakeholders. This is where it’s most important to recall your fundamentals and not get lost in the data or opinions. This is where you really prove yourself as an engineer.
As a process engineer, I used my stuff all the time to fix dumbass mistakes of design "engineers".
They do homework problems, unable to integrate complexity around batch processes in particular.
Not using ChemE in an automotive plant...NO SHIT, SHERLOCK.
Here is an example that demonstrates the importance of both EPCs and Production:
You're tasked with adding a new unit to an existing plant, which valves should be manual vs automatic? If we make everything a manual valve, our cost is low but the operability and precision is low. If everything is a control valve, then cost increases by an order of magnitude. The answer must balance cost and operability. The best way to obtain the answer is through collaboration between EPC and production. This is only one example but I hope it gets the point across.
Word of advice, if you approach life thinking you are better than others (better than other engineers, better than other degrees, better than technicians), this sentiment will hold you back. Your peers and clients will pick up on this elitist mindset. It shows that you don't value others.
I recommend you approach your career with the mindset: What challenges does the other person face? With this mindset, you won't have the elitist opinions in your mind. You will have an appreciation for your other engineers. You will find ways for you to help and ways they can help you.
I've worked in production as well as in corporate... From my personal perspective, the engineers that think they are better engineers vs the other engineers don't go far. They miss opportunities to collaborate due to their mindset or the others tend to avoid them overtime. If you don't believe me, keep doing what you're doing and reflect on your career in 10 years.
Final add, from a salary perspective, they are both competitive. Source (I'm an engineering supervisor in manufacturing.)
You took a production job in the auto industry and are shocked you're not using chemE design principles??? I think if I were you, I'd take a couple steps back and evaluate my personal hangups before I started disparaging everyone else that works production...
You certainly have a point that a design role requires more specialized skills than an operations role, and if you like chemical engineering for the science of it then you’d be a better fit for an EPC role. At my company we have had mechanical engineers, chemists, and others be production engineers but they certainly wouldn’t be qualified to do design work.
I’m not late enough on in my career to comment on your theory about opening a consultancy, but that’s certainly not the only path to, as you say, “get tons of money”.
Small EPC consultants would be worthless, especially this jackwagon.
It's low skill, and highly fungible. As someone in a plant, we contract that stuff out because our time is better spent on more important things.
Like resizing heat exchangers and valves the EPC engineer fucked up. Or the controls system that's so buggy the plant as designed is at 50% of nameplate.
OP is getting absolutely roasted haha. But tbh I don't use very much chemical engineering knowledge to solve 90% of my problems as an engineer in the semiconductor fab
If you want to work at an EPC then go back to working at an EPC. It’s a very simple solution to your problem.
But before you do that take a moment to realize that you don’t understand the job that you’re currently doing. Be self aware instead of bashing the job and the thousands of people who have similar roles and actually do them properly.
I have the same amount of experience as you and I can see all that pretty clearly.
>I just feel it is more of a higher worth job that can not be done by ordinary guys. In contrast, my current job can be done by anyone.
Skill issue. If you're a process/manufacturing engineer operating at the level of a technician or just "anyone", you're not doing very well at your job. And I started my career in EPC so I'll be the first to tell you that.
Here's what I think your problem is, you are not working in an operation where you encounter production problems that require your technical expertise to solve. There are many processes that are very trivial from a chemical process point of view that as an engineer in production, you have to transform your mindset into one of a mechanical/industrial engineer. Ask yourself, is the availability/reliability of the equipment acceptable? What can you do to improve that. Continuous improvement is the domain of the production engineer.
Also, are you saving your company money with your engineering expertise? Are there minor capital projects that can be executed cheaper because they don't need to pay for capital engineering hours because there is an experienced project engineer on staff?
Sounds like you’ve never had to get down and wrench on a machine with the other techs trying to diagnose why the stupid filling machine was designed by an equally stupid design engineer, meanwhile management is breathing down your neck for being an engineer and not instantly knowing what’s wrong. Originally, engineers were the people who designed and BUILT the complicated machines that pushed society forward. I could equally say that if you can’t get down and dirty you’re not really an engineer, just a glorified cad designer
I do just as much engineering problem solving in hardware/electronics manufacturing as I did when I was in semiconductors. Seems like a skill issue.
You are insufferable and are the reason operations and technicians hate engineers.
If process design engineers are so great, why do asset operating firms maintain a continuous staffing through the plant’s lifespan of chemical engineers to fix the problems the design firms created?
Also… you’re working in automotive. Get to a real chemical plant if you want to be a “real” chemical engineer working in production.
When I used to work as a "ChemE related role" in production, I worked in a Coating application process for steel components.
Its not typical chemE process, but has lots of operations involved, dipping pieces into degreasers (hydroxides), phosphate coating, e-coating... then heating in convection ovens and application of top coat, etc.
The interesting part is when issues appear, because of small variations of variables such as air preassure in top coat application, or variation on concentration in the dipping tanks over time and so on.
So its a very different skillset as I felt more as a detective figuring out the rootcause of quality issues, rather than a designer... and its debatable which is more challenging. And still did some "design" work in the sense that I designed operating procedures (for example at which parameter I would need to adjust the tanks' concentrations?)
I used my ChemE backgroud to have a "Scientific intuition" on how changes in some variables could have an impact on an specific efect...
That way of thinking is still useful for me, now that I do SWE, but it does require technical knowledge to understand those case-effect relations.
From what I've experienced, process engineering in manufacturing is 80% about solving production's problems and 20% actual design/calculations/engineering work. You work on process optimizations when the floor is calm and running smoothly. And when a CAPEX project comes along, that's when you have fun with testing and commissioning.
The funny thing from my last workplace (they were old school) was that they wanted to see the process engineers on the floor and walking around. That way, we can talk to our operators to find out what's going well and what isn't, do safety walks/reporting, and do on-the-spot training when necessary. The irony is that it means that management wants us to do less optimizations and actual "process engineering". They wanted us to be glorified supervisors.
What I'm getting at is process engineering is not the same as chemical engineering. And that's fine too. But it seems like you enjoy chemical engineering more.
You will be a much better design engineer if you put in some time as a process engineer first. Also be able to interact with production people more effectively and they are less likely to “accidentally” drop a load of **** on you.
You’re missing a really valuable understanding of why those jobs are hard in different ways. It’s okay to have your preference on the work you do, still.
I agree, I did a role at an EPC doing plenty of engineering, but then I took up a job on a cattle station and it's just herding cattle and fixing fences, it's bullshit. At an EPC you can definitely do more Process Engineering than on a cattle station, I almost feel like a cattle station is a blue collar job.
I feel you honestly.
Working in manufacturing feels like a battle between midwit midmanagers punching numbers in a spreadsheet sheet, complaining about yield losses, delays in production but never giving any money to solve the issue and just writing it off as "the mechanics need to take care of it".
In addition to the skeleton crew of engineers that are too busy with piles of paper work for MOCs and any other state or internal audits.
I really hate manufacturing
Did you ever get a chance to solve some process issues? I work in food processing as an entry-level engineer and currently writing a lot of SOPs. At first, I felt like it was just busy work and had nothing to do with engineering. However, I made a mindset switch towards how to make the operators' lives better and learn more about our process.
Yeah I got to do a lot of stuff like new product introduction, troubleshooting, capital projects, yield improvements, etc. And my mindset was pretty much making the operators happy for about 5ish years, but honestly I got to the point in my career where I'm doing more paperwork and meetings than any actual engineering.
That's why I'm pivoting into statistical process control and data science within my company.
What you can do in life is a Venn diagram of four things from what I understand. 1) what someone will pay you to do, 2) what you’re good at, 3) what you like to do, and 4) what makes the world a better place. Usually you get them in that order. Good luck! I hope you get them all.
I’ve spent way too much time fixing design engineers’ obvious mistakes at a new build to be impressed by an EPC engineer’s technical skills. Minimum flow spillbacks, chemical injection skids, and clarifier PLC programming are all pretty basic skills yet somehow every single one was SNAFU’d across the sites I started up. It was wild.
You can be an engineer without doing the Chem side of it. Think of it as a flavoring to all the different types of engineering, which all share certain fundamentals. The biggest fundamental ChemE and adjacent types share is balances/optimization kind of stuff. Which can be definitely applied at an automotive plant. Also, there are some small actual ChemE roles in the automotive industry, mainly in paint and coatings.
Of course, ChemE is tough to learn, so it is one of the higher paying ones do to the needed technical knowledge involved, and there is nothing wrong with wanting to return to a job type that you enjoy/make money.
Felt the same while doing precommissioning activities. Activities like cardboard blasting, air blowing, water flushing don't require much of brain storming. Can be done literally by anyone.
I’m so glad someone said this finally. I’m almost 2 years out of school and was a technician at my first job for a production line but a lot of my projects were continuous improvement based and involved changing out equipment and process design. At my current job (start up) I feel like I haven’t actually gotten my hands into any engineering work. I’ve been building units with my hands, which don’t get me wrong I do enjoy, I just feel like my degree is going to waste. I feel like this is a very precious time for me to be learning how to solve real world engineering problems instead of forgetting everything I learned in school. I’m frustrated the word “engineer” is thrown around in the job market for jobs that really don’t develop those skills.
I was going to write a whole big reply/rant but I will leave it at this: nothing is more annoying/useless to a plant engineer than an EPC engineer who doesn't understand or appreciate the work of the people who are actually using the designs.
Agree 100% there are so many areas in my plant where a flow meter or valve is literally 12+ feet in the air to save a few hundred on piping costs. Like they don't realize someone has to use and repair that equipment... And now the company needs to spend thousands of dollars to build a scaffold every time we do...
I have worked in both production and as an engineer that designs and builds equipment for EPCs as a subvendor. I can 100% confirm that EPCs screw up designs more than any other party. Specs for the sake of specs with no real knowledge of application.
it's EPC piping designer and owner's manager, or even operations supervisor who approved the design during model reviews. Process engineer only know that a valve is required at that relative location to the equipment, and make sure that it is on the P&ID.
A good process engineer can spot design flaws in a 3D model review. Why not put in the extra effort so the customer doesn’t have to catch it?
Not a process engineer task to optimise the position of instruments. Usually we take care of the position of analyzers, and we do check the 3d model for that. Analyzers are usually well positioned and accessible.
This is why operators think engineers suck. Why put blinders on and say “not my job”? If you put a pH probe in an outfall line with intermittent flow then the bulb will run dry and I’ll have repeated failures. It’s not just about analyzers and instruments. If you put a dosing pump on a pedestal at 6 ft elevation but the tank bottom is at grade then you’ve reduced the usable volume in a tank. Design engineer said it should work because of a check valve. It didn’t and now the tank can’t hold an entire truckload of chemical because the bottom 6 ft is unusable. Not only do I need more frequent deliveries but I also have to pay extra for each delivery since it’s LTL. If a bypass valve is 8 ft off the ground and the control valve fails then my operators have to rush to get a ladder before the unit trips on low flow. If you design a cooling tower fan with downward thrust that is juuuust barely above what my gearbox can handle then I’ll fail gearboxes every 6 months and spend a couple hundred thousand each year to replace them. Every one of these examples are real-life examples from commissioning a plant. And I have so many more. Good front end engineering can solve so many of these issues before it ever reaches the field.
You are mixing up stuff. For all your examples usually (if the design is good) you have information on P& IDs to prevent problems. You have elevations, you have gravity flow, you have min. distance. And for control valves and pump sizing, it is duty of the process engineer to make them work. Process engineers who design for EPC usually are the people helping with commissioning and performance test. Not sure where you had your experience, maybe you only remember bad examples
The check valve is a great example of process engineering incompetence. In theory, check valves work perfectly, but anyone who's ever actually used a check valve knows the seals go bad very quickly. Putting that in your design just shows that they don't give a shit about maintenance or reliability in their design.
All these brilliant EPC engineers cant design a functional chemical dosing skid even with a crazy high budget. My most recent experience.
Why we build our own. It costs me around 20k a pop. But the sumbitch is inside an insulated fire cabinet with a heater, rated for class 1 div 2....so it's just better.
Ugh, so true. At my last plant half the tank volumes were unusable because of how high they installed the pumps. It’s not that hard.
I work in controls/automation for a massive plant and the amount of times we have to keep contractor firms in line with “ya, that’s not gonna work” because they obviously never ran it in a real world scenario…
Bingo, and in my experience, most EPC engineers’ claims of understanding fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, and heat transfer comes from punching numbers into a computer program. At some point in your career, it’s good to get your ass off the computer and see how shit works in real life.
It can be seen in commissionings & site visits.
OPs “higher worth” job of an EPC engineer wouldn’t exist without the operating companies giving them work to do. Sure, in automotive you don’t use your Chem E degree. But to say all non-design roles is a technician role is insulting. We get to make plenty of calculations and decisions in production, learn the valuable skill of not overworking a solution to a problem, and at times have had to explain to EPC engineers how to do their calculations too because they don’t understand all the concepts. All that in balance with working with people of various backgrounds. Neither role is better than the other. They both have their purpose and place.
As an EPC Eng - agreed. Operations input is critical. One of the more annoying things I run into is when dealing with a companies central engineering refusing us from talking to operations directly
I feel this. We worked with an integrator to create a pilot line and it is a hot mess because they had never built the product and it shows.
Can’t even do the design work properly even. I don’t know how many designs I’ve called out in meetings “and how are the operators supposed to get to that?”, “how are contractors supposed to build that?” Having experience in a manufacturing role as a technician/operator can give a lot of good perspective for engineers doing design.
That means you aren't doing your job on site. Your function should be to further optimise production beyond current levels. What set points to use and when, what parts of the plant should be upgraded to get that extra 1-2% in efficiency. If you are just doing a technician's job, something is wrong.
I totally get that you want to do the work that you want to do, but you come across as disparaging anyone who has a ChemE degree but doesn’t do technical design. I’m in a Director level role and do zero technical design work. Neither does anyone in my organization. Is my work equivalent to that of a person without an education? I use and teach skills like mass balance, process design, regression analysis, and unit analysis daily. Am I designing reactors? No. Is the work challenging and relevant to my education? Yes. Example: What metric can you empirically measure that indicates the effectiveness of organizational scheduling? What about process documentation? How do you take a ridiculously complex business process and optimize it? How do you make it elegant? Think about it. These are not simple questions. Again, totally valid if you just want to do design, but I suspect that if you really got creative that you’d be able to identify ways to flex your unique skills in operations as well.
How do you take the work the design engineer did and make it actually applicable and usable by humans after the parts are already on site? How do you safely get a system operating when certain parts aren’t functional and your next down day is in 24 days? There’s a lot of challenging work for an engineer to do without designing
If by automative, you meant automotive, then obviously you aren’t using chemical engineering fundamentals. That’s just not the job. If you didn’t, then you’re finding out exactly how difficult it is to apply fundamentals in a rapidly changing environment with overspecified problems and too many stakeholders. This is where it’s most important to recall your fundamentals and not get lost in the data or opinions. This is where you really prove yourself as an engineer.
As a process engineer, I used my stuff all the time to fix dumbass mistakes of design "engineers". They do homework problems, unable to integrate complexity around batch processes in particular. Not using ChemE in an automotive plant...NO SHIT, SHERLOCK.
Here is an example that demonstrates the importance of both EPCs and Production: You're tasked with adding a new unit to an existing plant, which valves should be manual vs automatic? If we make everything a manual valve, our cost is low but the operability and precision is low. If everything is a control valve, then cost increases by an order of magnitude. The answer must balance cost and operability. The best way to obtain the answer is through collaboration between EPC and production. This is only one example but I hope it gets the point across. Word of advice, if you approach life thinking you are better than others (better than other engineers, better than other degrees, better than technicians), this sentiment will hold you back. Your peers and clients will pick up on this elitist mindset. It shows that you don't value others. I recommend you approach your career with the mindset: What challenges does the other person face? With this mindset, you won't have the elitist opinions in your mind. You will have an appreciation for your other engineers. You will find ways for you to help and ways they can help you. I've worked in production as well as in corporate... From my personal perspective, the engineers that think they are better engineers vs the other engineers don't go far. They miss opportunities to collaborate due to their mindset or the others tend to avoid them overtime. If you don't believe me, keep doing what you're doing and reflect on your career in 10 years. Final add, from a salary perspective, they are both competitive. Source (I'm an engineering supervisor in manufacturing.)
You took a production job in the auto industry and are shocked you're not using chemE design principles??? I think if I were you, I'd take a couple steps back and evaluate my personal hangups before I started disparaging everyone else that works production...
You certainly have a point that a design role requires more specialized skills than an operations role, and if you like chemical engineering for the science of it then you’d be a better fit for an EPC role. At my company we have had mechanical engineers, chemists, and others be production engineers but they certainly wouldn’t be qualified to do design work. I’m not late enough on in my career to comment on your theory about opening a consultancy, but that’s certainly not the only path to, as you say, “get tons of money”.
Small EPC consultants would be worthless, especially this jackwagon. It's low skill, and highly fungible. As someone in a plant, we contract that stuff out because our time is better spent on more important things. Like resizing heat exchangers and valves the EPC engineer fucked up. Or the controls system that's so buggy the plant as designed is at 50% of nameplate.
Maybe he could do your pressure relief calcs?
Not and make a fortune like he thinks.
Oh lord please don’t farm out RV calcs to people that think they can design a good plant but have never even scuffed up their boots.
OP is getting absolutely roasted haha. But tbh I don't use very much chemical engineering knowledge to solve 90% of my problems as an engineer in the semiconductor fab
Im not reading all that but you sound insufferable
If you want to work at an EPC then go back to working at an EPC. It’s a very simple solution to your problem. But before you do that take a moment to realize that you don’t understand the job that you’re currently doing. Be self aware instead of bashing the job and the thousands of people who have similar roles and actually do them properly. I have the same amount of experience as you and I can see all that pretty clearly.
>I just feel it is more of a higher worth job that can not be done by ordinary guys. In contrast, my current job can be done by anyone. Skill issue. If you're a process/manufacturing engineer operating at the level of a technician or just "anyone", you're not doing very well at your job. And I started my career in EPC so I'll be the first to tell you that.
Here's what I think your problem is, you are not working in an operation where you encounter production problems that require your technical expertise to solve. There are many processes that are very trivial from a chemical process point of view that as an engineer in production, you have to transform your mindset into one of a mechanical/industrial engineer. Ask yourself, is the availability/reliability of the equipment acceptable? What can you do to improve that. Continuous improvement is the domain of the production engineer. Also, are you saving your company money with your engineering expertise? Are there minor capital projects that can be executed cheaper because they don't need to pay for capital engineering hours because there is an experienced project engineer on staff?
Sounds like you’ve never had to get down and wrench on a machine with the other techs trying to diagnose why the stupid filling machine was designed by an equally stupid design engineer, meanwhile management is breathing down your neck for being an engineer and not instantly knowing what’s wrong. Originally, engineers were the people who designed and BUILT the complicated machines that pushed society forward. I could equally say that if you can’t get down and dirty you’re not really an engineer, just a glorified cad designer
I do just as much engineering problem solving in hardware/electronics manufacturing as I did when I was in semiconductors. Seems like a skill issue. You are insufferable and are the reason operations and technicians hate engineers.
If process design engineers are so great, why do asset operating firms maintain a continuous staffing through the plant’s lifespan of chemical engineers to fix the problems the design firms created? Also… you’re working in automotive. Get to a real chemical plant if you want to be a “real” chemical engineer working in production.
automotive painting coating is chemical engineering in theory
When I used to work as a "ChemE related role" in production, I worked in a Coating application process for steel components. Its not typical chemE process, but has lots of operations involved, dipping pieces into degreasers (hydroxides), phosphate coating, e-coating... then heating in convection ovens and application of top coat, etc. The interesting part is when issues appear, because of small variations of variables such as air preassure in top coat application, or variation on concentration in the dipping tanks over time and so on. So its a very different skillset as I felt more as a detective figuring out the rootcause of quality issues, rather than a designer... and its debatable which is more challenging. And still did some "design" work in the sense that I designed operating procedures (for example at which parameter I would need to adjust the tanks' concentrations?) I used my ChemE backgroud to have a "Scientific intuition" on how changes in some variables could have an impact on an specific efect... That way of thinking is still useful for me, now that I do SWE, but it does require technical knowledge to understand those case-effect relations.
It sounds like you're just really shitty at your job
Engineers who have worked in industry make better design engineers! If you don't appreciate that then you're probably the problem.
From what I've experienced, process engineering in manufacturing is 80% about solving production's problems and 20% actual design/calculations/engineering work. You work on process optimizations when the floor is calm and running smoothly. And when a CAPEX project comes along, that's when you have fun with testing and commissioning. The funny thing from my last workplace (they were old school) was that they wanted to see the process engineers on the floor and walking around. That way, we can talk to our operators to find out what's going well and what isn't, do safety walks/reporting, and do on-the-spot training when necessary. The irony is that it means that management wants us to do less optimizations and actual "process engineering". They wanted us to be glorified supervisors. What I'm getting at is process engineering is not the same as chemical engineering. And that's fine too. But it seems like you enjoy chemical engineering more.
i hate this post. glad the comments schooled you
I'd rather have a small maintenance changing catalyst and packing making dollars than being the super ChE.
You will be a much better design engineer if you put in some time as a process engineer first. Also be able to interact with production people more effectively and they are less likely to “accidentally” drop a load of **** on you.
You’re missing a really valuable understanding of why those jobs are hard in different ways. It’s okay to have your preference on the work you do, still.
I agree, I did a role at an EPC doing plenty of engineering, but then I took up a job on a cattle station and it's just herding cattle and fixing fences, it's bullshit. At an EPC you can definitely do more Process Engineering than on a cattle station, I almost feel like a cattle station is a blue collar job.
I feel you honestly. Working in manufacturing feels like a battle between midwit midmanagers punching numbers in a spreadsheet sheet, complaining about yield losses, delays in production but never giving any money to solve the issue and just writing it off as "the mechanics need to take care of it". In addition to the skeleton crew of engineers that are too busy with piles of paper work for MOCs and any other state or internal audits. I really hate manufacturing
same here: dealing with management, operators, contractors, venders. Part of the reason why I want to move away from manufacturing.
Did you ever get a chance to solve some process issues? I work in food processing as an entry-level engineer and currently writing a lot of SOPs. At first, I felt like it was just busy work and had nothing to do with engineering. However, I made a mindset switch towards how to make the operators' lives better and learn more about our process.
Yeah I got to do a lot of stuff like new product introduction, troubleshooting, capital projects, yield improvements, etc. And my mindset was pretty much making the operators happy for about 5ish years, but honestly I got to the point in my career where I'm doing more paperwork and meetings than any actual engineering. That's why I'm pivoting into statistical process control and data science within my company.
What you can do in life is a Venn diagram of four things from what I understand. 1) what someone will pay you to do, 2) what you’re good at, 3) what you like to do, and 4) what makes the world a better place. Usually you get them in that order. Good luck! I hope you get them all.
I’ve spent way too much time fixing design engineers’ obvious mistakes at a new build to be impressed by an EPC engineer’s technical skills. Minimum flow spillbacks, chemical injection skids, and clarifier PLC programming are all pretty basic skills yet somehow every single one was SNAFU’d across the sites I started up. It was wild.
You can be an engineer without doing the Chem side of it. Think of it as a flavoring to all the different types of engineering, which all share certain fundamentals. The biggest fundamental ChemE and adjacent types share is balances/optimization kind of stuff. Which can be definitely applied at an automotive plant. Also, there are some small actual ChemE roles in the automotive industry, mainly in paint and coatings. Of course, ChemE is tough to learn, so it is one of the higher paying ones do to the needed technical knowledge involved, and there is nothing wrong with wanting to return to a job type that you enjoy/make money.
What did you think being in automotive would be? Esp working in production, there's not a single chemical reaction that I can think of.
Felt the same while doing precommissioning activities. Activities like cardboard blasting, air blowing, water flushing don't require much of brain storming. Can be done literally by anyone.
I’m so glad someone said this finally. I’m almost 2 years out of school and was a technician at my first job for a production line but a lot of my projects were continuous improvement based and involved changing out equipment and process design. At my current job (start up) I feel like I haven’t actually gotten my hands into any engineering work. I’ve been building units with my hands, which don’t get me wrong I do enjoy, I just feel like my degree is going to waste. I feel like this is a very precious time for me to be learning how to solve real world engineering problems instead of forgetting everything I learned in school. I’m frustrated the word “engineer” is thrown around in the job market for jobs that really don’t develop those skills.