Engineering functions

You need to be able to identify the various functions within an engineering company. These include both commercial and engineering aspects of the company's operation. The commercial functions include sales, marketing, distribution, commissioning, finance and purchasing. The engineering functions can include R&D, design, manufacturing, product development, quality and planning. Product support is another, extremely important, area of engineering. You should also be aware that non-engineering companies often require input from engineering services, such as maintenance of services and equipment. In addition to understanding the functions performed within an engineering company you must also be able to recognize the main responsibilities attached to key job roles within both the commercial and engineering functions.

The most important function within an engineering company (or any company for that matter) is overall management and control so this is where we will begin our investigation of how engineering companies operate.

Management

The production workflow and some of the functions in an engineering firm are shown in Figure 1.1. This production workflow starts with suppliers that provide an input to the various engineering processes. The output of the engineering processes is delivered to the customers. You may find this easier to recall by remembering the acronym SIPOC.

The three functions that we have included in the diagram (there are many more in a real engineering firm) operate as follows:

Planning           The planning function ensures that the correct engineering processes are in place and also that the workflow is logical and timely.

Control              The control function ensures the quality of the output and the cost-effectiveness of the processes.

Purchasing      The purchasing function ensures that supplies are available as and when required by the engineering processes.

Planning

The essential business activities performed in an engineering company can be grouped together under the general headings of planning, controlling and organizing (see Figure 1.2). The first of these activities, planning, is absolutely fundamental to the correct functioning of an engineering company. If no planning is done then activities are almost certainly going to be very ineffective. What is planning? It is the sum of the following activities:

• setting the goals for an engineering company
• forecasting the environment in which the engineering company will operate