Journey of a Project Engineer
It has been a while since i post from year 2013 till now 2019. I always wanted to do a post on sharing of my experience back when i was working as a junior project engineer in my ex-company.
I can still remember back in year 2004 when i join a SME in plastic injection mold company. My friend who was my Master's classmate roped me in as he need people to join as the current batch of project engineers are serving notice. You can imagine my surprise when i join the company thinking that i will be learning from my seniors but most of the seniors have tendered or serving notice. It didn't help that my classmate who is also my boss was busy with fire fight and i was left to fend for myself.
I recalled very fondly that i will be taking over from a colleague who is serving notice. He shared with me the projects that had on hand and tried to guide me as best as he could for his last week. I tried to learn as best as i could. However 1 week is really too short and how i wished that i could have a mentor to guide and show me the way so i can make less mistakes. I was 27 years old, not too young but not too mature.
I compiled the Journey of a Project Engineer so that any new Project Engineer could understand and relate on and perhaps it can also help you in understanding how projects are run in SME company.
Let me start the clock back in year 2004. I remember i was playing MU online when i got a call from my ex-classmate (Alan). He invited me for an interview in a local SME doing plastic injection toolings. I went for the interview and was shortlisted. I half felt that it could be basic pay was low and they don't mind to give me a opportunity. Off i start my career in a SME in May 2004.
My first day of work and my ex-classmate (Alan) who is my Manager assigned me to a project Engineer. He told me to learn from him. Little do i know that he is serving notice and he will be going off in 1 week time. That 1 week was the most intense week that i endured. Besides meeting local customers and Overseas customers (Tyco Electronics, Avaplas, Philips, Kodak), i was busy trying to absorb whichever things that my fellow colleague was throwing to me. I took down as best as i could. After the 1 week of honey moon period, my colleague left.
Fast forward 4 years + in the company 2008 before i left to go my operation on my shoulder. I had handled more than 200 toolings and handle 30 toolings in production as well.
Let me share my experience and insights for managing plastic injection molding projects well in SME company.
I had zero experience in injection toolings when i first join in 2004. Along the way as i was managing the projects, i read up and pick up the skills. From understanding what is cold runner & hot runner toolings, cycle time, mold size, machine size, shot size, cooling time. All these built up my confidence and enable me to be able to liase and coordinate with my internal and external customers.
What is cold runner tooling? Cold runner tool can be 1/2/4/8/16/24/32/64/128 cavities. 3 plate tooling. In my experience dealing with cold runner tooling, balancing of the runner is always a challenge when it goes to 16 cavities and above. My experience is using Meltflipper. with
http://www.beaumontinc.com/meltflipper/
You can be sure for the amount of money that is being paid, it will be worth while then keep on tweaking the insert, tooling or runner. Imagine you only need to test the tool 2 times at most. It is a based in US and they use UG. The runner solution that they provided are the best so far that i have encountered.
What is hot runner tooling? It is basically a runnerless tool. It helps in saving material and cavity balancing. There are 3 hot runner brands that i encounter before. Not in order of preference.
Moldmasters / Husky / Maenner. These 3 brands are top notch in Singapore and most tool makers look for them for supply.
I still can't believe that i have hang on to my project engineer. The only thing that kept me going was i believed that tomorrow will be better and the experience that i gain now will put me in good stead and i will be able to leverage my experience for my next job. After which i got another offer by my ex-customer who introduce me to another top notch injection tooling company in Singapore. Till this day i am still very grateful to my customer. My advice to junior engineers working in project engineer field is to keep you eyes open and work with everyone you can. This will enable your experience to build up and at the same time network with people. I kept an open mind and work with anybody. I love working with people who don't mind hard work and i constantly remind myself that do not efforts that put in today will be realised tomorrow even though the tomorrow may not come soon.
In a local SME setting, there will be people in key positions that warrant your attention as they are key to getting things done. Some may be old timers, may know how to network, may know how to boot lick. Depending on your character, you can choose to learn from the old timers (experience gain is alot), network (learning the skills of communication), boot lick (to position yourself in front of your bosses). I am very poor on the boot lick part and it has set me back on promotion. Besides that whenever i want to gather support or resource in my project, it was very tough.
For the first 2 years that i was in the company, i only gain a $60 increment. Total $120 for the 2 years effort.Other people would have quit and move on. I did not mind the increment as i know the indirectly the company is sponsoring me to manage the projects on their behalf and i was gaining the experience (old timers) and network (suppliers / customer). Little by little as my work rate and project completion goes higher and higher, i was given more projects and handle more difficult customer. Besides learning from the old timers, i read up all i can on plastic injection molding and practice it. The more practice i did, the better i become and i was able to determine the root cause in a fairy fast time. In a SME company if you do well and your customers and suppliers speak of you highly, your boss will definitely take notice and will support. Although i struggle in my first 2 years. My third year in the company, my boss give me a 6% increase however knowing the leverage i had and my work rate. I ask for $500 increase. I got it and i know that they needed me due to my customer/supplier/old timer relationship. At that point of time i was getting 3k+ before i left my the SME company in 2008.
I want to share in SME company, as a project engineer, you must work with the team and create a team effort to showcase the customer and supplier that there is a company working with you to deliver the end product. I will get the team to play football together (Prod, QA, Testing) These will assist to break down the barriers of communication and everyone can work together. It is important to note that working hand in hand is better than doing it alone. Besides that must be open to communication, that means let others do the talking and you listen. Too often the project engineer that comes under a mentor that don't practice communication will be in deep trouble as when you need to get things done, you need support.
As a project engineer, you will face countless decision making, knowing your boundary to make decision is important as you gain more experience and leverage. For the start will recommend to learn from past projects as a guide, if there is not past project as a guide, ask from the tool makers / tester / QA. With that you formulate a plan whether which can deliver the project best. My experience tells me testing is crucial, from each test of the tooling, you will know whether do you need to open up more vents, open up more tolerance or tweak the tool. I relish all testing as every tool is different even though you may have the same design, same machine testing. There will be things that will be missed out. Last but not least do not give up. At least 3 years to gain the experience before moving on. Hope that it will give you confidence by my story.
