Automotive engineering; the job title is short, sweet and to the point -but hidden inside this simple title is a wide variety of jobs each requiring a slightly different specialty and expertise. If you think about all the complex parts that make up today’s automobiles then it should come as no surprise that the automotive engineer has to be an expert in a variety fields in order to properly design, manufacture and deliver a high quality automobile to the market.
Automotive engineering has three key areas that must all work together to make a quality vehicle. The three key areas that fall under the automotive engineering job description include: applications/design engineering, manufacturing engineering and quality engineering. Each has specific roles and responsibilities but they must all work together design and produce a vehicle.
Design Engineering and Applications Job Description
Applications and design engineering kick off the product development process by outlining the product specifications and requirements and then beginning the design of the product. When a design has been initiated engineers will begin by using computer assisted design programs or CAD to draw the specific product attribute on drawings and prints. The drawings will highlight all the measurements required to build the part and ensure that it will fit in the desired location and operate as inspected. The design engineers will build the bill of materials (BOM) which is essentially an ingredients list of all the individual pieces that get assembled together to build a product. Product design will select the correct materials to meet the performance requirements of the product and sometimes will custom develop composite materials to increase the durability and performance of the part.
Besides overseeing the creating of new designs, drawings and materials design engineers also develop acoustic systems, electronics, controls and even color and lighting schemes that will be part of the vehicle design. During the design process applications and design engineers interface with production and quality engineers to keep them involved in the design and to help identify potential issues before it will be too late to make changes to the product design.
See Design & Development Roles in Automotive if you want to learn more about this area of automotive engineering
Manufacturing and Production Engineering Job Description
Manufacturing Engineers begin working with the applications and design teams to ensure that the vehicle they are design can be produced in a high volume environment. They will review how all the parts are assembled to ensure that they can develop a process that will be able to assemble and install everything from the circuit boards in the radio all the way to the bumper of the vehicle. From bumper to bumper manufacturing engineers will put the assembly puzzle together in the correct most efficient manner possible. Test engineers work alongside the manufacturing engineers to implement check points in the assembly process to verify both correct assembly and functionality of the part at points in the process where mistakes can be caught and corrected early in the process before too much rework must be completed which slows the production process. There are specific roles within the manufacturing and test engineering jobs that include robotics, process, machining, tooling, logistics, material, final test, production, and industrial which break down specific functional areas of assembly and help make it as efficient as possible.
See Manufacturing Engineering in Automotive if you want to learn more about this area of automotive engineering
Quality Engineering Job Description
Quality engineers are responsible for overseeing all aspects of the design, development and production processes to make sure that the end product will be as robust and meet the highest quality standards possible. The role of the quality engineer is particularly important in the automotive industry where product flaws can require costly product recalls and even deaths. Quality engineers control the quality control process and create the documentation and processes to develop the highest quality products. Quality engineers work quality on all levels from supplier quality to customer quality and addressing manufacturing related issues. Quality is involved in every aspect of product development and test.
Quality engineering will control the validation testing required to certify the process. Many quality engineers will spend considerable time in the test lab running testing and completing test reports. Quality engineers work in the day to day production environment as well monitoring statistical process controls (SPC) charts to keep quality levels high and addressing any issues that are found. Finally, quality engineers set up the procedures to maintain and calibrate measurement equipment and facilitate internal and external audits to maintain product development certifications.
Each of the three automotive engineering branches have their own roles and responsibilities but they must work together to bring the entire automobile together as one high quality, reliable vehicle that will on the roads in the future.
See Automotive Quality Engineering if you want to learn more about this area of automotive engineering
Comments 1
its inspiring and fantastic