At my current job, I would say that my company is still growing in terms of project management awareness at least in my department. At my company we do have Project Managers or PJMs as we call them that oversee the project budget, deadlines, customer communication, and also dictate information to all different teams involved, teams such as thermal, mechanical, procurement, integration team, and so on. Once the details of the project are out there, they watch from afar to ensure each team is meeting deadlines or progressing at a good pace. They intervene when there are issues causing delays, customers present new information that has to be told to the affected teams, and so on. So far from my short time with the company, I see the system working fine. How well, I can’t say for sure but with each passing project I do see success and improvement being made.

As part of the Mechanical Engineering team, I am involved in the design aspect of the project. I am given a description by my team lead/manager about an accessory or required part that the customers is requesting be made. I then brainstorm and model the new part using SolidWorks. Once the design is complete, I get it approved by my manager. Then I work with the Procurement Team on communicating the design to vendors and have samples be made for fit check and functionality proposes. So in the project I’m on the lower end of the process.

In terms of project management software, my company uses a few. I’ve seen a database software used that creates and keeps track of part numbers of items designed by the engineering teams. Any changes to the items are documented and put into the database to ensure the latest parts are used. These part numbers can used to create BoMs that the database keeps track of. There is also a system that keeps track of inventory via part numbers to ensure we have enough parts to fulfill any customer demands that might arise.