Process and design engineers: two roles that get confused

Where one role ends and the other begins

A design engineer works from a functional requirement, and the output is documentation describing a part or an assembly — shape, dimensions, material, tolerances, surface requirements.

A process engineer takes that documentation and converts it into a manufacturing procedure. They deal with the choice of machine and tooling, the clamping, the sequence of operations, the times, and whether the part can be made economically in that operation at all. This is also where feedback to design arises — the process engineer is often the first to point out that a proposed shape will be difficult to make.

In smaller companies the two roles merge into one, and the brief then has to say which part predominates.

Technical preparation of production as a discipline of its own

Technical preparation of production covers more than writing a procedure; it reaches as far as working with purchasing and quality.

One practical consequence for recruitment: a candidate who wrote procedures for one-off production was solving something different from someone out of high-volume manufacturing. In one-off work what decides is the speed of preparation and versatility; in series production it pays to optimise even small things. It is worth naming that difference in the brief.

What the discipline covers in detail:

• Creating and maintaining manufacturing procedures
• Managing documentation, its versions and change control
• The choice of tooling and its records
• Time standards and working with planning

Drawings are the most verifiable skill

Working with a drawing is, for both roles, the most verifiable thing selection can assess. It is not only reading dimensions but understanding tolerances, specified surface quality and geometric requirements.

A practical check over a real drawing from your own operation says more in a few minutes than a list of software in a CV — and it is fair to candidates who worked in a different system but understand the craft.

CAD and CAM: a company’s requirement, not the trade’s

The particular CAD or CAM system is chosen by the company. No regulation prescribes it, and moving between systems is easier than usually assumed — especially for experienced people who understand what they want from the system.

What decides is whether the operation has capacity to train. If a process engineer starts as the only one and has to take over orders immediately, knowledge of the particular environment carries weight. If they join an established team, it is more flexible to ask for an understanding of the procedure and a willingness to learn the system.

The same holds for product data management systems. Experience with them is an advantage, but it tends to be tied to a particular deployment and does not transfer mechanically.

How to narrow a brief sensibly

The most common mistake is a brief listing every system used in the company and every type of production. The result is a profile nobody matches.

It is better to describe what the person will do in the first three months, and to say what has to be known immediately and what can be learned. That split also makes the interview easier — you then ask about things that actually happen.

A designer and a process engineer are not the same role, even where one person covers both.

Four questions narrow a brief faster than any list of systems:

• Whether design or the preparation of production predominates
• One-off, small-batch or series production
• Which skills are needed from the first day
• Who hands over the brief and who takes over the result