This occupation is found in large and small engineering and manufacturing organisations providing products and services throughout a wide range of sectors, such as Automotive, Aerospace/Airworthiness, Chemical Processing, Land Systems, Marine, Maritime Defence, Materials Manufacturers and their respective supply chains. Research indicates that the sector needs to recruit approximately 124,000 engineers and technicians every year. The broad purpose of the occupation is to provide specialist technical support for engineers, so that organisations can develop, produce or test new/existing products, processes, or procedures to meet a customer specification in terms of quality, cost and delivery, as efficiently and effectively as possible. Engineering Manufacturing Technicians gather information and data from a range of sources and analyse the information/data. They will make decisions, solve problems and produce and/or update technical documentation, reports or specifications covering areas such as quality, reliability, production schedules/targets, costing or other technical documentation that informs others, either internally or externally what needs to be done such as how a product must be designed, manufactured, tested, modified, maintained, stored, transported, commissioned or decommissioned.
In their daily work, an employee in this occupation interacts with their line manager to confirm departmental programmes of work and to agree individual responsibilities. This in turn will align to an overarching organisational resource and delivery plan. Engineering Manufacturing Technicians can be office based, manufacturing/plant based or more commonly combination of both, working with engineering and/or manufacturing teams at an operational level such as with production team leaders and/or management level working with specialist quality or design engineers. As well as liaising with internal colleagues, they may also be responsible for working directly with customers and/or suppliers or with representatives from appropriate regulatory bodies.
Typically this would involve interaction with auditors to demonstrate compliance to specific organisational or regulatory requirements (such as Civil Aviation Authority).Their time will be spent between working in an office environment and working in the manufacturing environment or visiting customers or suppliers as and when required.