Smack an Engineer in the Head Day

screensnot · May 2, 2016

I'd like a day that is dedicated to machinists confronting engineers.

I'm picturing a day (once a year/month/week) where a machinist gets to pick a print, confront the engineer responsible, then partake in an arbitrated debate on whether any heads need smacking.

If the machinist wins the debate, he gets to smack the engineer up-side the head. If the machinist loses the debate, he gets smacked 10x, and the engineer is immune to being smacked for ten rounds.

I realise I am dreaming, engineers are too girly to agree/abide by those rules.

JRIowa · May 2, 2016

I'm just going to guess that you've never made a mistake.

I'm an engineer. Degreed and certified. I've also made plenty of mistakes over the years and admitted to all of them. I've had to explain many drawings to machinists, electricians, toolmakers, and others. Most of them because they didn't do their homework before coming to my desk and saying "WTF is this shit". I would say that 99% of the time, they saw the light.

Now, in your defense, I've worked for and with some of the dumbest guys you can imagine. If you compared them to a box of rocks, the rocks would be insulted.
JR

yardbird · May 2, 2016

screensnot said:
I'd like a day that is dedicated to machinists confronting engineers.

I'm picturing a day (once a year/month/week) where a machinist gets to pick a print, confront the engineer responsible, then partake in an arbitrated debate on whether any heads need smacking.

If the machinist wins the debate, he gets to smack the engineer up-side the head. If the machinist loses the debate, he gets smacked 10x, and the engineer is immune to being smacked for ten rounds.

I realise I am dreaming, engineers are too girly to agree/abide by those rules.

Ha!Ha!

This ought to be good.

Brent

PlasmaOnTheBrain · May 2, 2016

Some people are actual engineers who have a working knowledge of the wingits they are attempting to have made and are very well informed about lots of good things to make life easy for everyone.
Most of the rest are CAD jockeys that barely took a materials course during their college years and have forgot most of what they almost knew about it in the first place. Some are OK provided they are aware of how far they have their heads lodged up other bits of their anatomy...
Then you get a selection of total jackwagons who make you wonder how they continue to breathe unassisted, let alone continue to have jobs.

screensnot · May 2, 2016

JRIowa said:
I'm just going to guess that you've never made a mistake.

I'm an engineer. Degreed and certified. I've also made plenty of mistakes over the years and admitted to all of them. I've had to explain many drawings to machinists, electricians, toolmakers, and others. Most of them because they didn't do their homework before coming to my desk and saying "WTF is this shit". I would say that 99% of the time, they saw the light.

Now, in your defense, I've worked for and with some of the dumbest guys you can imagine. If you compared them to a box of rocks, the rocks would be insulted.
JR

You should feel safe that you'll not often be called on then. Or if you do get called, you'll earn the 10 round exemption.

Your post seems to concur with the most engineers I've met, that a machinist is out of his element if he is trying to educate an engineer.

WHHJR · May 2, 2016

I spent 25 year Translating engineer speak to pipefitter/electrician/machinist speak. The main learning was that communication is hard. No matter what you say or write someone will get it RONG.....
2¢

Limy Sami · May 2, 2016

IME ''Proper'' engineers are very seldom a problem, CAD jockeys OTOH? -nuff said

kustomizingkid · May 2, 2016

The real frustration comes when there is no window for communication... If you are able to speak to the engineer, and both parties communicate reasonably and sensibly there will be no need for smacks. That said when you are stuck holding a print calling out +-.0005 on EVERYTHING for no good reason and nobody can say why, frustrating indeed. At the same time when a machinist decides that every single engineer is dumb, end of story it is equally frustrating.

L Vanice · May 2, 2016

I got my first metal lathe in 1954. I got my BSE and MSE degrees in 1963. I figure I was a machinist before I was an engineer. If I make a mistake, I don't know whether to blame the engineer or the machinist. By the time I got a desk close to the CAD terminals, my boss figured I was too senior to be forced to learn Unigraphics. I was happy about that, not least because I am partially color blind and did not know what all those colored lines on the screen were called. And yes, most of the kids running the terminals (or drawing boards, for that matter) knew nothing about manufacturing processes and materials. Personally, I spent a lot of time in the engineering shops watching the machinists, pattern makers, sheet metal workers and welders. It was continuing education, improving both the machinist and the engineer in me.

Larry

IronReb · May 2, 2016

Last job I had was in a tool room for a large manufacturing plant.
Engineers were in all the time dropping off prints for their next whatsit.

There were 3 other machinist in the tool room who were up in the years and were Gods gift to the machining world.

They would talk to these young engineers like they were stupid as shit because they would put a +-.0005 tolerance on a lifting handle.
Or have a feature that could not be machined..like blind pockets or tapped holes in areas you cant get to to tap.

Glad I left after 6 months, not from working with young inexperienced engineers, but from working with a bunch of arrogant prick machinist who knew more
than any college educated dumb engineer.

Engineers put more ass meat on the block than we machinist do if you think about it.
We build a project to print and it fails, its the engineers reputation that takes the hit, not ours.

Get a group of engineers and machinist who work together and they can build ohh I dunno, space shuttles and shit.

smalltime · May 2, 2016

I've worked for actual certified engineers. To a man, (and one woman) they are fine folks, and most can explain their decisions concisely.

I've also worked for "engineers". Who majored in art history or something........But definitely NOT engineering.

We have a saying about such folks:

Anything is possible......When you don't know what you're talking about.

solidworkscadman · May 2, 2016

please see attached print for quote

EPAIII · May 2, 2016

Guys, like JR, I am as much of an engineer as I am a machinist. Or as much of a machinist as I am an engineer. I worked about 45 years of my career as an engineer but that was a hands on experience, not a desk/computer jockey.

Anybody can make a mistake, engineer or machinist or boss. I have been a boss too and believe me, they make many, many mistakes. Most who are really good at their jobs are willing to admit to that possibility and listen to the problems and suggestions of others. The ones who won't aren't very good, IMHO. We should all learn to work with each other. Things work a lot better that way.

KilrB · May 2, 2016

solidworkscadman said:
View attachment 170509

please see attached print for quote

Those are easy to do on an Escher with live tooling ...

gnadoc · May 2, 2016

OK, Full disclosure - we often buy things from the low bidder.
So, two years age we bought these 30 machined castings (roughly 300 Lbs each). Picture a big connecting rod with an offset and an angle between the bores. After the machine shop finished TEN of these, some pics land on my desk. Obviously they are wrong - FROM PICS! We had to send the guy who drew the parts to the shop so they could determine whether it was the pattern maker of the machinist who screwed up. It was the machinist. He measured the angle from the wrong bore, and didn't understand why it made a difference.

I'm here several times a day, every day, because I have incredible respect for the excellent machinists who contribute here. We need to keep in mind that there are "Bozos" in every field.

redlee · May 2, 2016

Anyone who designs something should have to build it and run it before he or she puts the screwing thing into production.
https://blu172.afx.ms/att/GetAttach...00ee1592034a6cf1d8223fbb16f1d350ce&oneredir=1

extropic · May 2, 2016

Pretty rational thread, so far, about a real and really frustrating issue.

One point I'd like make is that the "engineer" may have approved the drawing, but may not have prepared it.
I agree that "approval" connotes responsibility for all aspects of the print. However, too often, the approving authorities don't include much skill in "producibility". Producibility is key to keeping the shop happy, IMO.

All types and sizes of organizational structures are represented here. 'One-size-fits-all' solution not possible.

I was very proud of my producibility record. Change rates were nearly zero, very few questions from the shops, drawing errors were quickly corrected, the part costs were predictable and rational, the parts/systems worked. No such thing as perfection, but damned good.

Tension between engineers and machinists will probably always exist to some degree. Minimizing tension depends on open communication (both ways) and mutual respect. Both factors may be nonexistent in some working environments.

I feel your pain brother. However, I don't want to risk being smacked up side my head. How about if I just deliver drawings comprehensively describing the requirements with cost effective producibility and very few errors?

Milland · May 2, 2016

I'm going to turn this around a bit, and talk about how the most satisfying work of my career has always been when I've been in a "partnership" with the engineers (and students, scientists, etc.) who I've made parts for. Maybe I've been lucky, or perhaps there's a tiny bit of competency involved. Almost always when I've made clear that my goal is to help them succeed, I've gotten lots of cooperation from the people handing me drawings when I offer suggestions to improve manufacturability, help with cost reduction, or otherwise bring my years of experience making stuff to bear on their projects.

It's a nice, fun way to work, and has led to a lot of rewarding projects that I've gotten patents from, a lot of hardware in space, and a general sense of accomplishment that a guy with just a high school diploma perhaps doesn't get too often. I'll take this over looking for an excuse to "bash the engineer"...

isvrcek · May 2, 2016

I vote for engineer confrontation day every day. I say make it fair though and allow a 1:1 engineer:machinist slap ratio!

Full disclosure, I am mostly an engineer and have a selfish reason: I want to know when I let a stupid feature or tolerance slip into my drawing. There is a likely a good reason but I want to know in case there isn't.

Ivan

jim rozen · May 2, 2016

"a machinist gets to pick a print, confront the engineer responsible,...."

Now exactly *what* do you do when the engineer, and the machinist, are one and the same?

Leads to the interesting effect where one person keeps swatting himself about the head for
hours at a time. Nobody said it was gonna be an easy job....

Smack an Engineer in the Head Day

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