The development of our machinery industry here is abnormal, at least in major cities. In many areas, when it comes to mechanical engineers, people immediately equate them with those who touch tools. It is true that at present, more than 7% of mechanical engineers in China are mold engineers. This is a kind of sadness. The reason for this phenomenon is the imbalance of our industry and the industrial imbalance evolved from mass production.
The reason is very simple. If all of them are fine processing, small-batch fine processing, and machining is the mainstream, then at least half of our mold engineers will be unemployed. However, these products are the specialties of European and American countries, so what we do is mostly something that foreigners are not willing to do. Moreover, except for the processing molds of metal products, most of the mold products are organic materials, and the processing is seriously polluting the environment, and we can only pick up things that foreigners are unwilling to do.
From the perspective of the machinery industry itself, the general direction can be divided into: structural application, mold application, application analysis, manufacturing technology, production technology and so on; Small directions can be divided into: structural design, mold design, manufacturing engineering, system engineering (automation control), process engineering, equipment engineering, quality control, logistics foundation, electromechanical integration and so on. Subdivision can be subdivided into various engineers, large and small.
so at present, as far as the machinery industry itself is concerned, due to the serious imbalance in the distribution of the industry, it is not necessary to analyze the problems from such a structure, so we can only analyze them from the general direction.
Secondly, we should make it clear that it is meaningless to discuss the unbalanced industrial structure.
which ones are out of balance, the mould mentioned above is one of them. The result of a large number of mold engineers is not that our mold technology is strong, but that the mold industry is mixed, the business level is low and the industry is chaotic. The mold industry in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces and Dongguan and Zhuhai are a dime a dozen, but the real masters are rare and rare. Therefore, the proliferation of the mold industry has also led to a mess in the prospects of this industry. Compared with other industries, the overall technical level and income of our mold engineers are generally low.
what else is out of balance, and that is the car! Now is the economic crisis, and the automobile industry has collapsed. It seems that the automobile industry is affected by the global economy and is unlucky to be involved. Actually, it is not! This statement is right for foreign companies and absolutely wrong for our domestic automobile industry. Because today's crash was known years ago. A friend upstairs hit the nail on the head, because we only import, and basically we don't have anything we can get ourselves. The automobile industry itself is quite technical, but we do it in a labor-intensive way. Leading to the global economy, the first to lay off employees is the automobile industry. Don't be fooled by the high income of the automobile industry in the past few years. That's because our cars are so much more expensive than those of foreigners, resulting in high profits. Nowadays, the automobile industry can only say that it is precarious and just eat, drink and be merry.
Thirdly, what is the future development trend
The industrial imbalance is temporary, but no one knows how long it will last. However, from the perspective of development, the social industry is self-regulating, so the long-suppressed structural design and automation control, manufacturing engineering, and the rapidly developing electromechanical integration will gradually restore its social status. In particular, the directions of self-control, quality control and mechatronics have made great progress in recent years.
and the industries from primary processing to large-scale simple processing are bound to decline. I have been educating my staff that it is the era of high-quality goods, and we should not continue to design and produce products in the way of small-scale peasant economy.
don't choose industries that "may" become mainstream development, but choose industries that "have" or "will" become mainstream. At present, in terms of specific types of work in the machinery industry, design and research is still the best choice, followed by industrial control/automation control, quality engineering, process technology and so on.
Don't do non-standard jobs, hardware jobs, machine tools jobs and molds jobs. In the mechanical industry, there is a saying, "Make hardware to survive", which itself means that hardware is good for making money, but it will make you half dead, hungry and absolutely unable to make money. Most hardware must be non-standard, and it has a lot to do with machine tools. These industries are still in a very depressed period because of the influence of the big environment, and there are too many employees, so there will be no improvement in the short term.
Finally, the problem of mentality
It is true that from the perspective of career planning, I will also give such a plan when I make a career ladder for my employees, but after all, promotion is spelled out step by step. I've been in the top 5 companies for so long, and I've also been a manager, but I've never seen a Chinese person achieve principle engineer in foreign capital, let alone chief engineer. Therefore, for a newcomer, it is more important to take every step firmly than to fantasize about a bright future in the future (of course, there are still goals, don't give up).
by the way, in foreign capital, the manager's rank is not necessarily higher than that of his employees, but one of my employees has a higher income than me. For example, the income and rank of the principle engineer is higher than that of the manager, which is equivalent to the director. If it is the chief engineer, the treatment is VP. This also reflects foreigners' respect for engineering and technical personnel. In contrast, our country really looks down upon our machinery industry personnel.
Having said so much, I want to give you confidence, but the road is going to be solid. The machinery industry can't be started in 3-5 years. I have been doing it for 6 or 7 years before I feel that I have stepped onto the threshold. Beware of arrogance and rashness, and be steady and steady is the most basic mentality in this industry.
Therefore, the landlord, analyze the current situation and find out the most suitable direction for you in combination with your own situation. I personally recommend that you start with the direction of R&D and design, because this is a comprehensive major, and a qualified mechanical designer should be familiar with almost all the knowledge of the mechanical industry, which is also the strongest exercise for a person's character and ability. If you can have front-line work experience, you will gain more. Because the so-called mechanical design is not just drawing drawings, I mentioned the difference between designers and draftsmen in my answers to other friends. You can refer to my reference link below, which was my post to other friends two years ago. In mechanical design, structural design and analysis application (structure design &; Application analysis), (usually in English, maybe the Chinese translation is not very accurate, including some of the above, please forgive me), and it is very popular to transfer from the design department to other mechanical industries. If you feel that the starting point of design work is too high, you can start with manufacturing technology, but in this case, the road to development will become a little longer.
add some questions about organic materials (plastics) and electronic products.
strictly speaking, electronic products are not classified as machinery. If it is a machinery industry related to electronic products, most of them belong to the category of mechanical structure, and it is simpler than specialized mechanical structure design. Personally, you are not recommended to do it, at least don't try it when you enter the business, so as not to give people a feeling of neither fish nor fowl in the future.
As a branch of mechanical materials, organic materials are very promising. Both personal development and income are first-class. My company was developed into a fortune 5 company by a patented organic material formula. It can be seen that organic materials (plastics) have been a very good specialty for decades, and the annual income of the engineer engaged in the research and development of organic materials under my command is 2w. However, to engage in this industry, the professionalism is too strong, and it is basically impossible for those who come out of the mechanical major to engage in it. Generally, talents in organic chemistry (polymer specialty) can do it.
If the landlord refers to the mold work, as I said before, it is not recommended.
# As for the mechanical design itself, it is independent of industry. Every time I communicate with headhunters, I will educate them not to divide cars, medical equipment, construction machinery, ships and so on. Because there is a big difference between the product itself and the machine itself, it is all the same. It's very simple. If you open the bible of our mechanical design industry, Mechanical Design Manual, it will never be biased towards any industry or product, which only contains design basis, structural strength, tolerance fit, threaded connection, interference connection, welding, linkage mechanism and so on. If you master all these common parts, there is no difference between building a car and building an atomic bomb. It is nothing more than different products, and the complexity of using technology is different.
# For example, if you want to design a car, you need to pay more attention to structural strength, balance stability, material properties, linkage performance and fatigue strength when designing the frame.
If you are asked to design a precision instrument, you may have to consider more, such as module connection performance, assembly performance, machining accuracy, surface treatment and so on.
only at this time will the differences between different product industries be considered. In my design team, there are only two categories: metal design and plastic design, so we will not refine them.