Working for manufacturer engineering couple years. Sharing the manufacturing experience, skill, DFx, design, and information. Be care of this blog is personal share and content may not be 100% correctly.
Today, I want to introduce the responsibilities and role of MPE (Manufacturing Process Engineering). It’s a bit awkward because Workingbear’s own job is exactly this—MPE work. If you’ve read through this blog, you can probably guess that MPE’s responsibilities cover a huge range of tasks. You could say Workingbear knows a lot of different technologies from design to manufacturing, but isn’t necessarily a deep expert in every single one. How deep the expertise goes really depends on how much time, effort, and understanding each person invests.
In short, MPE’s job is to evaluate product designs from a manufacturing engineering perspective—making sure the products R&D creates can be produced in the factory efficiently, with stable quality, and at high volume. The ultimate goal? Overall cost optimization—taking into account material cost, manufacturing cost, and quality loss.
The earlier we bring manufacturing considerations into the design stage, the easier it is to achieve this goal—a practice known as Early Involvement. That’s why MPE is often closely integrated with the R&D team: to work alongside them and ensure designs are manufacturable. Without MPE’s input, some R&D teams—especially engineers with little or no manufacturing experience—might create designs that are nearly impossible to produce.
Of course, R&D engineers aren’t clueless, and they’re not just going to let MPE “watch over” them—you’re not their boss. Some R&D engineers are actually quite experienced in manufacturing. That’s why MPE should approach them with mutual respect—finding ways to help them meet their design goals while also fulfilling manufacturing requirements. This is how you create a win–win situation. If compromises are necessary, at least explain clearly what you need and why, rather than hiding behind “company rules.” Remember, engineers take pride in their work, and pushing the wrong way can easily backfire.
In the end, MPE’s role is to apply manufacturing expertise to work with R&D in solving design issues—not simply to impose a checklist of requirements. Yes, MPE represents the factory, but it’s also part of the same company as R&D.
Companies that have an MPE team are usually those that outsource production (OEM) or separate their R&D and factory operations. MPE acts as the engineering bridge between R&D and manufacturing. To do this well, you need to understand the factory’s processes—SMT flow, depaneling methods, mechanical assembly, testing procedures, and more—because R&D will often rely on MPE’s factory knowledge to judge if a design can be built. For example: Can the product be coated with conformal coating? Does the factory have HotBar soldering capability? What’s the minimum spacing between PCB components? The smallest pad size? Sure, you can ask the factory and get back to them later—but fast answers are always better.
Sometimes, R&D may even want the factory to improve its capabilities to make smaller, thinner products. This means MPE also has to push for process improvements and keep up with new equipment or technologies. If your company works with multiple contract manufacturers, you may also need to align their process capabilities.
When it’s time for new product builds, MPE gathers DFx (Design for Excellence) feedback and sends it to R&D for design adjustments.
Because R&D and manufacturing are often in different locations (and most EMS factories are now in Asia), MPE usually has to travel to the factory during the EVT, DVT, and PVT trial build stages. The main goal is to confirm the product can be mass-produced. During the trial runs, MPE collects DFx findings and reports them to R&D immediately—preferably with a severity rating so they can prioritize fixes. If you wait until the design is locked, getting R&D to change anything will be much harder—not just because it’s a hassle, but because many products (especially pmobilehones) need to pass strict certification processes.
Since this is part of my own work, I ended up writing more than I expected! So I’ve decided to split it into three separate articles:
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