I am currently working as a coop at Getinge and I feel that my company is a functional organization. There are separate groups within the organization such as engineering (R&D), production engineering, quality assurance, regulatory, purchasing, and quality control. Projects usually stay within one functional group and the engineer or employee will report directly to their manager. When one goes outside of their group to work on a project, they normally approach one individual for help and then return back to their function. They never report to a different department head. I find that this keeps the technical knowledge strong within a functional group and will lower the costs of hiring individuals to spread out amongst the functional groups.

I am currently not employed in industry nor do I have any industry experience, but I believe working in a project-based industry in the initial phase of my working career would give me a better understanding of various aspects of working with a project group and help me learn new things which I may not be so good at. Having worked in groups for various academic projects I have understood how we learn a lot of new things when working in a group. Eventually I would like to shift to a matrix-based organization after having acquired enough experience.

I currently work as a technician at a tissue bank where I process the tissue and prepare it to go out to the doctor. Our organization as a whole is one of the bigger tissue banks and the department I work in has been steadily growing for some time now. Because of this growth, they are implanting new devices in order to make the technician job easier so we often give feedback on these devices. So there is a lot of back and forth between the two groups in order to create something that will make our work easier but will also satisfy the needs of the FDA

Through my experience at the company that I work at, I see that it has clearly adapted a project based structure. There are various project groups with their own hierarchies and reporting structures, each working towards a certain goal. One employee could be part of several projects, reporting to several different person in each project, and then their own manager outside of the project. In the position I work in, myself and my manager work on several different projects and report to the project leads on our functions for the respective projects. I rather like this structure as it allows one to have a more distributed reporting structure in their position.

I currently work as a manufacturing engineering co-op for a medical device company which is most like a functional organization. Each department has their own managers (Manufacturing, Quality, Purchasing, R&D) and they usually conduct work independently on projects concerning the responsibilities of their department. This can sometimes result in miscommunications and delays in completion of tasks since most activities in a company are interrelated anyway and require input from other departments. As a co-op though, my role is different as I am considered “technical support for the engineering staff”. This means basically anyone from the main departments can come and ask me to complete a task for them. In this respect, my position is closer to a matrix structure. This is nice because I become more versatile and foster relationships with people from other departments, but sometimes I am faced with deadlines from my main boss and this manager from quality or R&D at the same time and it puts me in a bind.
I think I prefer this matrix structure though, as things go a lot more smoothly when you have open communication in the organization which leads to the creation of positive relationships and people learn to trust each other. Things go a lot quicker when you can talk an issue out with someone as opposed to an sending some email to someone you have never talked to before. They will be more likely to help if they know and respect you.

I currently work at Nobel Biocare Procera. We are a project-based organization. Because we primarily focus on developing innovative dental prosthetics and implants, as well as implementing them into various softwares, separating each new product or objective into its own project is both appropriate and effective. All project teams usually consist of around one to two members of each "department" in the R&D group. This provides the resources needed to complete all tasks for each and every project.

I currently work for a medical device management company that rents, manages, and services medical equipment in hospitals throughout the country. The operation of this company can be divided into four core branches: sales, management, logistics, and technical support. Each core branch contains a hierarchy of professionals with varying levels of authority and responsibility. These professionals are only responsible for work related to their department, and top management provides coordination between the four core branches. This structure is known as a functional based organization.

Is there an overlap between these three organizational structures or are they easily distinguishable from one another?

I am currently working with a third part company for IT solution.  Its a small company but each account we work with can be counted as Project by it self. There is a 3 different teams, and each one has it own part but the over all outputs are all connected together.

I am looking forward to work as R&D, where there will be real projects in Bio-Medical devices 

Like the individual a few posts above this post, I also am working at Getinge. I agree that it can be considered a functional organization in most cases. When it comes to routine operations, Getinge has specific departments that handle the tasks they are trained to. For instance, Purchasing is responsible for communicating with vendors to procure components needed for production, and Quality Assurance oversees incoming inspection for those components. However, I would also argue that Getinge's organizational structure shares some aspects characteristic of a project-based organization. The core members of the various project teams I have worked with are consisted only of engineers, but when tasks specific to other departments require completion, such as documentation review and approval, we will have a go-to representative of that department who is responsible for committing a portion of their time to the project. I think this system works effectively since the department representatives still continue to work on their operational responsibilities, while also being available as needed for the project they are designated to. This allows for the project team to be able to complete tasks more efficiently since they know who from each department to reach out to, and that person will not be bogged down with too many other responsibilities that they cannot respond quickly.

I currently work at Micro Stamping Corp in Somerset, NJ. We are primarily a project based organization. All project are run through the Steering Committee. One a week, all project managers/leaders report the project status, critical path, and risks to Executive Leadership. Leadership then identifies bottlenecks and assesses the risks presented by the PMs. 

I would like work under matrix structure as I feel it gives more exposure than any other structure and helps gain knowledge .As In a Matrix structure the resources are shred between the projects I think this will give opportunity to work on different things and helps us gain knowledge .As an entry level engineer I think working under matrix based project is more helpful.

Among functional, project-based and matrix organization, I would like to work in a matrix organization. In a matrix organization, the team members report to their project manager and their functional manager. It could sort out the team based on the project needs. These types of organization promote challenge and creativity. Matrix organization is a combination of two or more types of organizational structures.

I currently work as an intern at Getinge in the Production Engineering department. From the description of different types of organization structures, Getinge is more of a functional one, because there are different departments like R&D, Quality, HR, etc. and has a hierarchy. I do not dislike nor do I like functional organizations because many large, established companies are set up as functional organizations in order to maintain different aspects of the company simultaneously. However, I think functional organizations are not as efficient as project based organizations when it comes to finishing and releasing projects, because each project has to go through each department for approval before launching products. Project based organizations are beneficial for smaller companies/ start ups because there are not enough people within the company to be able to sustain different departments like functional organizations. It is a lot easier to start projects and see the progress with project based organizations. 

Eventually, I'd like to work in a project based organization to be able to work on projects with smaller teams and report directly to a higher up, but as of now, functional organizations are fine too. 

I currently do not work in industry, but am a PhD student who is considering going into industry in the future. I would like to join a project-based industry, as I believe working in teams towards a project goal suits me best. Not only do you interact with people of all different backgrounds working towards the same goal, but you can learn a lot about their various different backgrounds, which makes it all the more enjoyable. Having spent a lot of my time in academia, I have felt that the most enriching experiences were those that involved group projects, and I believe that learning experiences in groups are much harder to forget than those done individually. In a project-based industry setting, one is put into groups with team members of diverse skill sets, which accelerates the learning experience. Furthermore, working in an industry with the project as the main end-goal allows the structure of the organization to focus on the project at hand, with group members assembled and all focused according to the project. 

The industry I work for it’s a cosmetic industry. It is more of a functional organization. All employees are grouped by specialty, skill or related roles. It is based on levels of hierarchy that include different departments, under the direction of designated leaders. Though it’s has its benefits but personally I do not like the functional organization setting. Due to its disadvantages like Segregation, Weakening of Common Bonds, Lack of Coordination, Territorial Disputes. Which are common place in my company presently. 

I would prefer a Matrix organizational setting because it facilitates a horizontal flow of skills and informations. Since it mainly applies to large projects or product development processes, and hiring employees from different disciplines. I would like to expand my capacity, mental faculty and experience in larger projects and responsibilities than been confined in smaller project or departmental knowledge and skills.

However, a matrix organization structure also has its disadvantages of a higher level of internal complexity and some additional people management challenges. But their advantages like Efficient Information Exchange, It Increases Motivation, just to mention a few outweighs its disadvantages.