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The Surveying Engineer is the second largest contingent within the ranks of Professional Engineers. Setting property lines, city limits, and similar activities can involve vast sums of money. States therefore wish to ensure that the work done is done correctly and professionally, and require the surveyors to take a battery of qualification tests as well as frequently requiring an apprenticeship.
Although there is no formal degree program that the authors are aware of with the title of Sales Engineering, there are many opportunities for engineers to enter the Marketing and/or Sales organizations based on their technical training. In particular, if the engineer enjoys working and interfacing with the public, the chances of success are high. Engineers in this particular career path can be successful because of their technical knowledge and their ability to transfer that knowledge to the customer. Most customers are grateful for a salesperson’s ability to break down the technical jargon to something more understandable and much less technical in nature. In many corporations, it is the Sales Engineer who often rises rapidly within the company hierarchy.
When asked about human factors work, most people will think first of the field in its infancy, where time-in-motion studies were the primary emphasis for those calling themselves Human Factors Engineers. Like the Quality Engineer, there are few schools that provide undergraduate programs in Human Factors Engineering. More often, degrees in Human Factors Engineering are found at the graduate and doctoral levels, where specialization is more common. In the undergraduate programs, courses in statistics, CAD, psychology, systems engineering, and communications will help the new engineer understand the needs of the Human Factors Engineer.
Beyond time-in-motion studies, what activities can be found in the realm of the Human Factors Engineer? To begin with, the Human Factors Engineer will be concerned with the physical aspects of equipment. Questions as to table heights versus operator height, control placement versus operator reach, control recognition (color, shape, size, function), color recognition (size, color, shape), and similar physical aspects of the products and machines all fall under the purview of the Human Factors Engineer. Another principle area that came into vogue in the mid-1980s is in operator usability testing. In usability testing, a number of test subjects are organized with a defined educational level, physical characteristics, and other properties representative of the intended final users of the product. The subjects perform a set of tasks, and the completion evaluated to determine whether a product is usable within the defined user population.
The Reliability Engineer is primarily responsible for identifying and managing asset reliability risk. In particular, the Reliability Engineer will review production losses and equipment maintenance costs, and attempt to reduce both for an increased return-on-investment. In the process, the Reliability Engineer will perform root cause analysis on failures, looking at possible hazards, failure modes, equipment maintainability, and, in short, life cycle management of equipment and processes. The Reliability Engineer would be expected to have classes in materials, chemistry, statistics, test methods, and associated labs (to better understand testing and equipment usage).
In an ideal role, the Safety Engineer will be part of the design team, with primary emphasis on the safety of equipment operations and maintenance (especially where human operators are part of the process.) Unfortunately, most often the Safety Engineer will be brought in to review safety issues only after the process and/or product has been placed in operation. In many cases, the Safety Engineer will be reviewing personnel injuries, trying to determine the underlying cause(s). In this latter application, the additional safety requirements for personnel and equipment can drive the cost of production excessively high due to the inherent nature of “fixing” problems in production level equipment. The Safety Engineer will also be required to understand and implement rules mandated by state and federal agencies such as NIOSH, OSHA, and others charged with production personnel safety.
The Systems Engineer is frequently thought of as the jack-of-all-trades. Most are involved with both work processes and equipment operation. Much of the work involves engineering design considerations, but, at the same time, must deal with the human aspects of machines. In short, the Systems Engineer is both an engineer and a project manager. In the latter role, the Systems Engineer must be involved with vendor selection, process/machine interactions, personnel training requirements, equipment staging, material flows, and the list goes on. From systems design, development, installation, to operation, the Systems Engineer has primary responsibility to ensure the whole system works smoothly and as predicted. The role of the Systems Engineer and the Manufacturing Engineer can overlap to a large amount. The Systems Engineer may have a greater role in vendor selection and project management, but the difference is slight. More schools will have a degree program in Manufacturing Engineering than in Systems Engineering.
Originally, the term Industrial Engineer was applied to those individuals within the manufacturing area responsible for the management of equipment, processes, and the people on the manufacturing floor. The term is now more related to the analysis of processes, systems, and organizational structure, and how the interaction of the three operates most effectively. The Industrial Engineer will have a program study similar to that of the Manufacturing Engineer and the Systems Engineer.
As one might expect, the role of the Aerospace Engineer is concerned with the design, research, development, and testing of airborne systems. The field may be broken into two realms, with the differentiation being whether the system is atmospheric (aeronautics) or exoatmospheric (astronautics). Airframes, wing foils, propulsion, cabin pressure, atmospheric conditioning, and similar elements are all part of the Aerospace Engineer’s work. The U.S. space program from the early unmanned spacecraft to Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and the Space Shuttle were all prime career opportunities for the Aerospace Engineer. Other programs such as satellite communications, interplanetary probes, and other space vehicles are also an active part of the space program, all opportunities for the Aerospace Engineer.
The Biomedical Engineer is a relatively new field for engineers. Many of the developments now being made were developed through teams of doctors, electrical engineers, materials engineers, and mechanical engineers earlier. The Biomedical Engineer must have a good understanding of human physiology and how the body reacts to the intrusion of foreign materials. New instruments are being developed by the Biomed Engineer, with such tools as MRI and Catscan being two examples. The field may have more than one development path, ranging from the design of new equipment to the development
