What is Engineering Management
Engineering management is a career that brings together the technological problem-solving ability of engineering and the organizational, administrative, legal and planning abilities of management in order to oversee the operational performance of complex engineering driven enterprises.
Areas of Practice
Leadership and Organization Management
Leadership and organization management are concerned with the skills involving positive direction of technical organizations and motivation of employees.
Operations, operations research, and supply chain
Operations management is concerned with designing and controlling the process f production and redesigning business operations in the production of goods and services. Operations research deals with quantitative models of complex operations and uses these models to support decision making in any sector of industry or public service. Supply chain management is the process of planning, implementing and managing the flow of goods, services and related information from the point of origin to the point of consumption.
Engineering Law
Engineering law and the related statutes are critical to management practice and engineering. Engineering legislation makes engineering a controlled activity and an engineering manager must know which statutes apply to their practice.
Management of Technology
Introducing and utilizing new technology is a major route to cost reduction and quality improvement in production engineering.
New product development and product engineering
New product development (NDP) is the complete process of bringing a new product to the market. Product engineering refers to the process of designing and developing a device, assembly or system such that it can be produced as an item for sale through some product manufacturing process.
Project Management
Project Management techniques are used to manage the design and development progress using the phase – gate model in the product development process.
Systems Engineering
Systems Engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design and manage complex systems over their life cycles.
Industrial Engineering
Industrial engineering is the branch which deals with the optimization of complex processes, systems or organizations.
Management Science
Management Science uses various scientific research-based principles, strategies, and analytical methods including mathematical modeling, statistics and numerical algorithms to improve an organization’s ability to enact rational and meaningful management decisions.
Engineering Design Management
Engineering design management represents the adaptation and application of customary management practices, with the intention of achieving a productive engineering design process.
Corporate Finance and Engineering Management
The relationship between finance and engineering is a simple one. Engineering costs money and finance provides it. The role of corporate finance is to raise the money that a company needs to operate. Then, the department is responsible for controlling these funds, and growing them through investing and other ventures in order to cover the liabilities, or expenses, that the company has. Financial knowledge can help engineers who supervise projects and provides strategic direction.
Labor Relations Management
Labor Relations Management is the interaction of employees, their exclusive representatives, and management to resolve, bilaterally, concerns affecting the working conditions of bargaining unit employees.
Engineering managers plan, coordinate and oversee the technical and engineering activities of an organization. Since leadership and organization management and project management are the areas of practice of an engineering manager, their responsibilities include solving problems and seeing that employees and resources inside the company are fully optimized.
Marketing in Engineering Businesses
Although technology is important, marketing helps engineers to create better products that meet the needs of the customers. One of the most common versions of the marketing mix is the 4Ps of marketing:
1 Product – Designing and creating new products and services is the core job of an engineer. Marketing helps engineers to create targeted products for consumers. Engineering focuses on technical aspect of a product; marketing teaches how to extract value from that product.
2 Place – Supply chain logistics is a common problem for engineers who design facilities to ship products and services around the globe. The place component is a common problem for engineers to solve.
3 Promotion – Promotion dimension of the marketing mix includes all communication with the beneficiaries of the project. Community engagement is crucial aspect of public engineering works and needs marketing skills.
4 Price – Determining the price of a project is a common task for engineers. Engineering price estimates use technical considerations loke cost of materials and labor and external services.
Corporate and Business Law
Corporate law (also known as business law, enterprise law or sometimes company law), is the body of law governing the rights, relations, and conduct of persons, companies, organizations and businesses. The term refers to the legal practice of law relating to corporations, or to the theory of corporations.
Engineering managers need to have a workable knowledge of laws that affect their work so that:
. They can follow regulations
. Stay compliant with government ordinances
. Know which permits are necessary in which circumstances
. Protect their work
. Know the boundaries of liability
. Avoid lawsuits
. Negotiate contracts
. Know when to contact a lawyer
Intellectual Property Protection
Intellectual Property Protection is the protection for inventions, literary and artistic works, symbols, names and images created by the mind by using Patents, Trademarks, trade Secrets, and Copyrights.
It is absolutely critical for protecting a company’s proprietary designs, processes and inventions that if leaked can ruin a company’s market advantage or lead to costly litigation.
Ass engineers are often on the frontline of innovation, they are privy to confidential work. Hence, all engineering managers should be well aware of all aspects of IP protection, especially the patent law as if a company’s advantage does not come from the products but from its production methods trade secrets regarding the production method may be the best way to protect it.
What information to seek from students applying for Engineering Management
As a content writer, you do not need to possess intricate knowledge about the various analytical techniques and algorithms mentioned above, though some familiarity of them does help. However, once you know their typical applications, the challenge that you need to be able to handle is how to extract the right information from students to be able to frame descriptions of projects/industry experience related to the above field.
Here is a set of questions that you could ask
1 What is your reason for choosing this field?
2 What was your coursework for your undergraduate degree?
3 What are some skills you have worked to improve upon?
4 What internships/ project work/research have you undertaken during or after your undergrad/graduation?
5 What career fields interest you the most?
6 What are your future goals?
Careers in Engineering Management
Project Engineer
Project Manager
Cost/System Analyst
Operations Manager
Technical Manager
Client Services Analyst
Design Engineer
Construction Project Manager
Chemical Process Engineer
Who all can apply
An accredited Bachelor’s degree program in an engineering or science discipline or its equivalent with a good CGPA. GMAT or GRE scores are required by most universities.
Conclusion
‘The conventional definition of management is getting work done though people, but real management is developing people through work’ – Agha Hasan Abedi
Written by Ms.Anu Chopra- Jitin Chawla Team
