Experts in the Field of Manufacturing Engineering

Big Names in Manufacturing Engineering

Eiji Toyoda

In this day and age the changes in manufacturing processes are so rapidly changing due to automation that manufacturing engineers aren't doing any ridiculous huge changes. This being said, the big change in the approach of manufacturing engineering was the introduction of lean manufacturing. Lean manufacturing was developed by Industrial Engineers Taiichi Ohno and

Taiichi Ohno

Eiji Toyoda, Yes Toyoda as in Toyota. The idea of lean manufacturing was created through the Toyota Production System which was a whole new way to look at manufacturing. The system was refined throughout the 1950's, 60's, and part of the 70's to about where it is at today. Lean Manufacturing was created after Henry Ford put the first moving assembly line into play in 1913 and there were still some pieces that didn't click right. Lean Manufacturing, is a method to eliminate waste within a manufacturing system.

 Women in Manufacturing Engineering

Connie Rokke is a Supply Chain Manager at John Deere Electronic Solutions in Fargo, North Dakota. She is also a part time lecturer at North Dakota State University, which she teaches quality control. She was told by her boss at the plant that she needed to start a quality department from scratch, and that she did. She started with one worker and now runs her own quality control department focused on design engineering. While also doing this, the company paid for her to return to school to acquire a masters degree in quality engineering.

Writing in Manufacturing Engineering

I also asked Connie about the types of technical writing she does in her field. Her primary source of communication is Email, which she uses to acquire new parts for her development projects. She uses the email to act as liaison between design engineering and her suppliers. Email seems to be the most common form of communication when it comes to the professional setting. She also utilizes power point presentations to put together training, inter department communications, or updates to higher levels of management. She says they are by design very concise, to get the information across. Power points were her biggest area of struggle because she had to change the style and information they contained. She used to have a very detailed and data focused power point and now uses a more brief power point utilizing more pictures, smart art, and etc. Her last area of writing is her reports that must be written to reflect their activities and how to continuously improve. She monitors workloads, support areas, timeliness, and other things that must be written about monthly. They contain a lot of data and are very simple because it is in a concise format. These different types of communication each display a different directive of writing. The emails being on a person to person basis to the power points and reports being to a general audience.