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Interview Transcript
Interview Transcript
Interviewer: Student
Interviewee: Associate Head of Mechanical Engineering
Interview Setting: Interview conducted in office of [professor's] office in the mechanical
engineering building. The interview was conducted at 3:30 PM on Wednesday afternoon.
Affiliation with interviewee: Professor has been my professor for two classes. I have also
spoken with him privately regarding attending graduate school and areas of study.
(Start of Interview)
Interviewer: Particularly in regard to design and development, what are your duties as a
mechanical engineer?
Interviewee: Do you mean before I took this position or in this position.
Interviewer: Both.
Interviewee: In my position I have now, about half of my time is devoted to counseling and
registration and other issues like that. About thirty to forty percent of my time is involved with
teaching, doing preparation, helping out in the labs, and helping students. About five to ten
percent of my time is spent being involved in academic committees and working with
administrative items.
Interviewer: Do you do any research?
Interviewee: Most of my research is education-related. I have a grant from the National
Science Foundation to put some CNC machines in the student labs to teach students.
Interviewer: What types of research did you do before when you were an associate
professor?
Interviewee: I worked primarily with acoustics and noise control, with my emphasis being in
active noise and vibration control. I worked with the aircraft fuselage and all of the vibrations
and noises created in there and limiting their effects on the cockpit. Of course, automobile
engines are also very noisy being so close to the driver. I also worked with compressors. I
worked with really small compressors to really big compressors. I worked on small
refrigeration units using passive and active control techniques. Youd be surprised at how big
an issue refrigerator noise is overseas, in Europe and Asia with their tight living conditions. I
also worked with huge engine compressors of up to sixty horsepower. Thats really big for a
university, you know. I also worked with reciprocating compressors, screw compressors,
had to be connected to other parts. I realized that what Boeing was doing was just a largescale integration project. It requires a phenomenal amount of communication and scheduling.
Being able to plan and schedule things is so important. Youre always behind time, over
budget, and have to get deliverables to the customer. You have to make a decision with
incomplete information. Its a lot of gut feel and just making your best engineering judgement
and taking your best shot.
Interviewer: What are the worst skills, or characteristics, for an engineer to have?
Interviewee: In some jobs, being highly individualistic can be a killer. Not in all jobs, but in
some jobs. In a research environment, where an engineer can go off and do his own thing, that
can be okay. But in the vast majority of jobs, not being strong in communication, and of
course, technical skills, can have a very negative impact on your career. In fact, in a survey in
the ASME magazine about two or three years ago, the top two skills employers wanted were
communication skills and teamwork skills.
Interviewer: What is the difference between the academic world and industry? I know
there are some similarities too, what are those?
Interviewee: In the academic world, people tend to be more reflective, more analytical, and
less hands-on. Thats not always the case, but it tends to be that way. Its partially because
people who are attracted to this environment tend to be that way. In industry, the people tend
to be more hands-on but the analytical skills tend to atrophy when not used. The academic
environment cultivates those skills. But the environment is changing. There are more handson activities being added to the curriculum, along with some tighter links to industry. There is
more of a need to be an entrepreneur and salesmen.
Interviewer: What is the typical day in the life of a mechanical engineer like?
Interviewee: A typical day varies radically for mechanical engineers depending on the job you
have. A guy doing research is more independent, a guy doing customer service is dealing with
people all day long, while a manager deals mainly with projects. It can really vary depending
on what you want to do.
Interviewer: What can a person do to improve their situation?
Interviewee: The first thing is to define the companys best practices. Define the process and
look for ways to improve the process, to make it more efficient. I think thats the idea behind
the 9000 stuff, like ISO 9000 and QS 9000, to document the process. Unfortunately, some
people just go through the motions, which is really a shame and a waste of time. Youve got to
take it seriously to do things the most efficient way. But I think the real key issue is getting
people in areas they love to work. When you do that, the effort will be there. For example, I
met a young engineer at Boeing who had been hired three times in the last three years by
Boeing. She loved working with people and making decisions. Unfortunately, in her first two
jobs she only made decisions once every two or three months and she hated it. Now they have
her in a people where shes working with people and making decisions and she loves it. I
think its real important for companies to match people with what they love to do.
Interviewer: In general, what methods or criteria are used to evaluate mechanical
engineers?
Interviewee: At Boeing, the backs of the engineers badges have criteria that is wanted for the
engineers to work on at Boeing. There are twelve things: technical skills, communications,
teamwork, initiative, productivity, continuous quality improvement, customer satisfaction,
innovation and creativity, integrity thats really become a big issue in industry, especially at
Boeing when I was there with the merger and all, leadership, risk-taking, and developing
people.
Interviewer: I find it interesting to see that risk-taking is on there. It seemed like that
has never been encouraged at GM.
Interviewee: Well, you cant just go taking incredible risks. They are calculated risks.
Interviewer: When designing a new product, what issues are typically given the most
consideration?
Interviewee: Again, it varies depending on the product. First, you have to understand the
customer and find a way to give them what they want. You have to get a sense of where the
market is going. Take inline skates. They came out of nowhere and now theyre selling four
million skates a year. It was a local market in California and they took it national. Being able
to see needs is very important and having the creativity to know how to meet them is the hard
part.
Interviewer: Is the procedure for process development similar to that for products?
Interviewee: Yeah, Id say theyre similar. You need to do some benchmarking on whats out
there to see where you stand and brainstorm to find what you can do.
Interviewer: How are design procedures developed and followed in corporations?
Interviewee: Wow, those procedures vary greatly and to tell you the truth, I dont think theyre
followed very tightly. Part of the problem is that I dont think they are stated explicitly. You
dont want to be rigid, but you need to be efficient. You need to come up with a plan and
extrapolate what you can based on your design. Its a real art at this stage. It needs to be
tailored to what you are trying to accomplish. There are multiple approaches to this, but it
really needs to be designed explicitly and improved from there.
Interviewer: What does a graduating mechanical engineer need to know that he