What is the difference between production engineer and manufacturing engineer and industrial engineer?

Answer 1

The difference between production engineer and manufacturing engineer and industrial engineer varies with both the industry sector and the company's country of origin/ parentage. A UK plant under American ownership uses American-based terminology to keep transparency in high-level management discussions (so large workforces have to use alien terms rather than a few managers/ IT staff learning BOTH jargon sets). Japanese firms and those extensively using their more recent concepts are more likely to include role descriptions such as Kaizen engineer, black belt, etc.

We have to dig deep here and fill in the background to the question, as its very easy to say "they are just the same" - but in at least some situations, there are clear differences that allows selection of the most suitable term.

In some instances, it will be very clear which is more strictly correct relative to the industry and job description. At other times, a role might sit right in the middle of the overlap between two of the disciplines, in which case the choice of the right description is more arbitrary and indeed a more descriptive title could be picked rather than have someone assume the wrong thing from these wide and varyingly defined jobs. Continuous improvement engineer, production systems engineer and process quality engineer are more succint than any of the 3 more generalised terms, while using language clear to anyone likely to be involved. As company size increases, and width of focus of an individual is constrained, the better the scope to use succinct terms.

Paras 1-3 below starts a relatively brief attempt to differentiate between, and show what is most typical among, each of the 3 disciplines.

Additional input, comment and revision is fairly likely as this is from direct experience - additional research may well yield further clarity.

1 A manufacturing engineer is most likely to be heavily involved in techniques like SPC/ JIT/ Kanbans/ Six Sigma, and a slew of more modern related disciplines which are vying for supremacy and try to be more widely applicable, with varying degrees of success. Reading between the lines, there is a tendency to apply new words to old thinking and muddy the boundaries between the compact and understandable manufacturing methodologies listed above. Six Sigma can have issues with its usefulness depending how it is applied, and what to, but in general, the mid to late 20th-century manufacturing methods have robust and effective implications that are best integrated in any new scheme, rather than sidelined.

A manufacturing engineer will be involved in general reporting of good or bad production data to management and liaising with shift supervisors. Whereas a production engineer will have more detailed collaboration with other engineers over specific issues (perhaps identified by a manufacturing engineer) that requires the longer term focus which a manufacturing engineer could not provide with the typical level of routine responsibilities.

2 An industrial engineer will more often be associated with continuous processes relating to amorphous product, such as rather than the production of discrete items with a specific shape. If the process is non-continuous, with discrete rather than bulk output product, the term production or manufacturing engineer would be more useful. Note it would be easy to confuse industrial engineer with industrial designer, the latter being about designing the product form and working on elements such as the user interface, requiring more artistic and human factors knowledge.

3 A production engineer will more often work earlier in the life of a product, managing the general development process and developing production equipment and product features in close conjunction with the dedicated product development team (eg mechanical, electronics, software developer and industrial design engineers). Product development input, specification of assembly equipment and in-depth analysis (eg FMEA) of manufacturing issues are more likely than a manufacturing engineer, who is there to minimise and handle more routine glitches, to maintain high-volume production. Design ability and more significant knowledge of areas like electro-mechanical integration would be appropriate for a production engineer.