Manufacturing Engineers
On the Job
Manufacturing Engineers design ways to make manufacturing processes more productive or cost-efficient. They may look for the causes of failures and work to fix them. They may also supervise technicians or administrative staff.
Physical Demands 
This career requires good eyesight.
Typical Work Tasks
People who work in this career often:
- Determine causes of operational problems or failures.
- Determine operational methods.
- Estimate technical or resource requirements for development or production projects.
- Estimate time requirements for development or production projects.
- Implement design or process improvements.
- Investigate the environmental impact of projects.
- Confer with technical personnel to prepare designs or operational plans.
- Analyze costs and benefits of proposed designs or projects.
- Analyze operational data to evaluate operations, processes or products.
- Evaluate designs or specifications to ensure quality.
Typical Working Conditions
- Using e-mail.
- Working indoors in environmentally controlled conditions.
- Wearing common protective or safety equipment such as safety shoes, glasses, gloves, hearing protection, hard hats, or life jackets.
- Working with a group or team.
- The importance of being accurate or exact.
- Freedom to make decisions without supervision.
- Responsibility for others' health and safety.
- Meeting strict deadlines.
This page includes information from the O*NET 24.2 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA.
Source: You can learn about our data sources in the About Us section.
