Discussion

Participant Demographic

This survey also would like to test the knowledgeable of the participant on information of ME and MT
including the educational level, degree emphasis area, and service time in manufacturing, and age of
participant. Thus the data obtain and concluded in Table 1 indicate about the participant educational
background where 34.5% of the participant are engineering-focused educational background, 42.5% had
manufacturing focus background, and the remaining 23% had other educational background hence this
survey is an appropriate group to provide an information.

Table 1. Participant Educational Background

Participant Education Percent, %

4 year (Bachelor’s) engineering 25.7
2 year with technical focus 17.6
4-year (Bachelor’s) manufacturing technology focus 9.6
Advance degree manufacturing 9.2
Advance degree other 9.2
Advance degree applied engineering focus 7.3
Other formal training 6.9
4-year (Bachelor’s) industrial technology focus 6.1
4-year Bachelor’s other 4.6
No technical school or college training 2.3
Advance degree theoretical engineering 1.5
This survey also include the participant’s age and year of experience within the manufacturing
community. It found that over 83% of the participants reported greater than 10 year experience in
manufacturing, with 56% on that having 20 or more year of service. 71.4% of participant were 40years
old, thus this survey were in position to provide knowledgeable information regarding to the question
presented.

Roles and responsibilities of engineering and technologies

The data was collected from the participant where the question is about the identification of the ME and
MT most important area would be regularly involved and they were allowed to select multiple area. The
data will be included in Table 1 below represent as the percent of the total response which based on
rank order analysis where insight from the importance of various roles and responsibilities.

Table 2: Roles and Responsibilities of the Engineering and Technologist

Survey Answer Choices % of Total Rank Order Engineer +

Responses Technol0gist
Enginee Technologis Engineer Technologis
r t t
Designing new products and 4.4 2.4 12 13 13
product features
Developing manufacturing 9.3 10.1 1 2 2
 methods, processes
and systems
Troubleshooting production 8.6 12.9 2 1 1
problems
Selecting or designing 8.3 6.9 3 7 5
equipment and tooling for
manufacturing
Supervising professional staff 2.8 1.0 16 18 17
Facilitating process improvement 8.0 10.0 5 3 3
methodologies on the factory
floor
Factory floor layout and design 7.7 7.5 6 5 6
Financial analysis 4.0 1.3 13 17 14
Machine programming 4.9 8.5 10 4 7
Interfacing directly with 3.2 1.7 15 16 15
customers
Supervising production 2.4 2.8 17 12 16
operations
Preparing capital spending plans 6.1 2.4 8 13 11
and business case
justifications
Researching new methods or 8.4 7.1 3 6 4
processes for improving future
manufacturing performance
Interfacing with vendors or 6.2 5.0 7 10 9
purchasing
Education and training 4.7 4.6 11 11 12
Quality assurance or quality 5.4 6.4 9 9 8
control
Production scheduling or 1.7 2.4 18 13 18
inventory control
Maintaining equipment and 3.8 6.6 14 8 10
facilities
From the table 1 found that the, 56.4% of total response are from top Six of ME while 56.1% are from
top six of MT. The above five roles and responsibilities amount to 41.9% for the ME and 47.6% for MT of
total response. The difference from that data shows that the participants response state that ME is more
likely than the MT to prepare the financial analysis, design a new product and product features,
supervise professional staff, and select or design equipment and tooling for manufacturing. From the
table 2 row number 4 also rank high in the ME and echoes according to Termini. But, for the MT
response found that, it is more likely to troubleshoot production problem, facilitate process
improvement on the shop floor, do N/C or CNC machine programming, and maintain facilities and
equipment. To determine is there any relationship from what participant reported as the roles and
responsibilities as ME and MT, a Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient analysis was used and found the
Correlation of result to be is 0.82. The significance of this correlation will be tested on the following
hypothesis:
H O : pS =0 ( reject H O if p S ≤0.05 )

H O : pS ≠ 0

From the table 1, the pS value found is 0.0003 that lesser than 0.05, thus the null hypothesis is rejected
as reported in the survey indicate there is significance correlation between the roles and responsibilities
of the ME and MT, and this statement lead to participant consideration about ME and MT job roles and
responsibilities similarly.

Technologies Required: ME versus MT

From the survey questionnaire also investigate about what technologist are being utilized by
manufacturing professionals. This data obtain from a list of common technologies that believes are
required for use in today’s environment by the ME and the MT and will be finalize as Table 2 below
where the participant were asked and allowed to select the multiple answer. There are top five
technologies are common to both ME and MT such as Lean Process Improvement Tools, CAD, CAE,CAPP,
or CAM, Flexible manufacturing system, integrated manufacturing system, and Six-Sigma. From these 5
technologies, 47.5% are response from ME while 49.8% are response from the MT and conclude that
there is approximately equivalent in term of the technologies used by both of them. Only a bit
difference from the ME that was more likely use design of experiments, composite materials, and
simulation compared to the MT. while the MT was more likely to use lean improvement tools, sensory
technology, and flexible manufacturing systems.

Table 3: Technologies Required in Today’s Environment

Survey Answer Choices % of Total Rank Order Engineer +

Responses Technol0gist
Enginee Technologis Engineer Technologis
r t t
Expert systems, artificial 4.9 4.3 12 12 12
intelligence, and networking
Automated material handling 7.8 8.2 6 7 6
Sensor technology, such as 7.4 8.7 8 5 7
machine vision, adaptive control,
and voice recognition
Laser applications, including 7.0 6.5 9 9 9
welding/soldering, heat-treating
and inspection
Integrated manufacturing 9.1 9.1 3 4 4
systems
Advanced inspection 7.6 7.8 7 8 8
technologies, including
on-machine inspection and
clean-room technology
Flexible manufacturing systems 9.0 9.9 4 3 3
Simulation 6.0 5.2 11 11 11
 Composite materials 3.7 2.3 13 13 13
CAD, CAE, CAPP, or CAM 10.0 10.8 1 2 2
Manufacturing in space Bio- 1.2 0.7 14 14 14
technology
Lean Process Improvement Tools 9.9 11.5 2 1 1
Six Sigma 8.5 8.7 5 5 5
Design of Experiments 6.9 5.4 10 10 10
Bio-technology 0.8 0.4 15 15 15
From the table 2 also found the value of the Spearman Rank Correlation analysis and the pS value is
0.996 and 0.0012. Since the pS value is lesser than 0.05, the null hypothesis ( H O) is rejected thus
conclude that there is significance between the technologies utilized by ME and MT.