Maintenance Engineering

Fixing broken stuff makes you a better engineer, if you have the talent to do this. Look at all the systems you need to learn to do maintenance, whether this be field support of broken product, or maintenance within a factory or chemical production machine.

You become an expert in seeing what works, and what fails. If your lucky you can spin this into making the next generation of products.

But the latest trend is to have managers with zero domain skills in anything but "2 drink minimum" marketing MBA, so they can talk the jargon with the CXO's.

Just my opinion after seeing what worked and how it morphed into failure.

I am a mechanical engineer ,well with my 40 years experience as a maintenance engineer I learnt lot of engineering like civil ,chemical ,food processing ,Construction, but I remained a maintenance engineer where my pears with MBA went on to become general managers, Vice precedent etc may a times my juniors were my Bosses .lesson is don't choose maintenance engineering as carrier.

Why do you both insist on posting anonymously?

AP#1, If you are not making this up, I assume that you have had a job, of some kind for at least 10 years. Working in, "Oil and Gas, Mining and metals and manufacturing industries" three separate and distinct industries takes some time, if you are competent.

In that time, you must have formed some opinions about what your strengths are, and what you want to do.

Strangers will not be able to avise you without knowing much more about you, your specific experience and what your goals are. Money isn't everything.

AP#2, are you a manager with a 2 drink minimun, or just a wanna be?

It seems to me you are talking about two different things, engineers are makers of things, and service is the repair of things, and maintenance is the care and feeding of things....Service and maintenance usually go hand in hand as good maintenance is the preventative part of repair....Designing and making things is the domain of the engineers though....now service people are well known for cursing the engineers for their crappy designs, or shall I say alleged crappy designs....and all most some engineers, consider service people rather simple minded...So if you want to be successful as a maintenance engineer, your first loyalty should be to the service side, rather than the engineering side, otherwise you will not have a good connection with your mechanics.....and imo your career path will be fraught with conflict...better to take a position in some part of the engineering side.....or if you feel you are not suited to that type of work and find that you have a high mechanical aptitude, then become a mechanic and work your way up through the ranks.....

Define Success!

I started life as an electrical tradesman and later in life obtained my electrical engineering degree so have lived on both sides of that particular fence since gaining my degree. The world of design engineers is so far removed from maintenance engineers that it is unusual for anyone to be proficient in both fields (I hated design and got out as quick as I could).

You need to decide which of those areas you enjoyed the most and pursue that career choice. I'm not going to bore everyone with more of my exploits but happy to chat privately if you wish to

1. Identify yourself

2. Accept that my advice is based on my own experience and I am not responsible for your decisions.

Maintenance extends the life of product /system designed/created by engineers. Facility management as a new term is emerging. Growing up in any organization depends upon ones commitment ,achievement and contribution he made in his role as an engineer.

From my perspective, many design engineers have not worked on maintenance of their designs - they are 'designed for manufacture' only, and can be very difficult to change out a simple service part. Gaining experience of maintaining the equipment you intend to design gives a better insight into the overall requirements of all users. This should lead to better products in the future.

Post my Mechanical engineering I worked in mechanical maintenance of a large steel plant for 8 years. It was very satisfying job wise as I could use my learning with so many mechanical equipment. Doing some improvements regularly. Then I joined a process Industry as Chief Engineer and learned Electrical,Civil and Projects, besides maintenance of this new type of plant. Then, after 5 years, I joined a Electro-Chemical industry as Engineering Head for 9 years and Production head for 1 year. I then Shifted to Projects and soon was corporate Project Head for 7 years. Then I got opportunity to be in Manufacturing and ended the career as corporate head of Manufacturing. I think I got some opportunities, but let me advice you, it is very difficulty to leave Maintenance and even Projects to shift to Manufacturing, where career progress is much better.

In my opinion(as you say you have actually "worked" in maintenance) and have some higher education, you are on the right track. You should have gained some valuable experience with the hands on stuff, things you cannot learn from books or educational instruction.

In my particular case, as well as being an business owner, I also happen to be the maintenance man - not an easy job when you have 40 to 50 people "breaking" stuff on a regular basis and still have to keep the work coming in so you can employ those people.

If you know how to fix things, it is relatively easy to instruct/train someone to do a lot of the simpler and more repeatative tasks (and it does earn you respect from others). It also gives you an incite as to what equipment can do what and, if you do have a breakdown, just how long it should take to effect the necessary repairs, a very valuable thing if you are talking about a key piece of equipment. Do not be afraid of taking on "extra" areas of responsibility, even though you think they may not relate to your current position. That is, in my opinion, the best way to learn.

What is really takes to get ahead(unless you work for yourself of course), is a boss how recognizes what talents you have and puts them to the best use. I hold an engineering degree as well as having "been on the tools" just like you. I guess I have been fortunate as I have usually had higher ups that recognized what I was capable of, and acted accordingly, and now the opportunity to go out on my own having had the experience necessary in all aspects of the business world.

Sounds like you are the right track to me.

Maintenance is a great field, but with a limited future. It's the 'two drink clipboard guy' who gets ahead. I learned early that a good man on the workbench stays on the workbench.

Bosses and owners appreciate good maintenance, but don't advance workers up and away from their perceived level of competence.

Move sideways to property management. There you get a percentage of the rent, and more respect, because now you have 'manager' in your title. You can use what you know, but don't always have to do all the work, just what you want to. Farm out the rest to professionals, delegating work shows ability to lead.

reading your post... you seem to have a kinda idea what you want to do and where you want to be.... however one of the primary roles and abilities of any facility/maintenance manager is the ability to set goals, work out the process to achieve those goals and achieve.

You have demonstrated in your post that you can do none of those tasks, so for me your chances of moving on would be zero.

Doing something that makes you happy, enjoying what you needs to be done day in and day out, while getting that feeling of self satisfaction of having accomplished something good at the end of the day is the key.

Since by doing so will lead one (you) to Live a productive life, contributing something good and positive towards life improvement in my opinion equates to success in general

One of my best friends is a Millwright and he's one of the most knowledgeable people I know in many fields of engineering. He not only repairs and maintains, but also creates things that are needed. For having no college education and being a Republican he's pretty smart! His only problem is that he's aging and can no longer do some of the heavy physical things he used to do. He's moved into some management but is looking forward to his retirement if a few years. My dad (a machinist and a great engineer) always said "Anyone can screw something up, but it takes something special to fix others mistakes!" Go for the maintenance if you can see where it will lead your career.

Remembering that Mr Anonymous #1 is in Australia, the term engineer should not be confused with tradespeople. Here they're very distinct and separate and yes very few tradespeople progress past lower to middle management while many maintenance engineers can easily progress to senior management and beyond.

One of the most important things in maintenance/engineering is to ensure the termonology we are using is the same, even within this country many people use different terms to describe the same thing.

Is there a course of studies for "maintenance engineers" similar to civil,electrical, mechanical,chemical,production etc etc ?. Normally maintenance engineers learn by work experience gained but it is worth educating for 3 or 4years including site visits to workshops & various kinds of industries(electrical,mechanical,civil,chemical,oil etc etc),similar to building service engineers.

In Australia there is, only been available for about 10 years plus there are several Masters of Maintenance Management courses available and some universities offer a PhD

Thanks.May I know names of few of them.