Materials process engineer - Heat Treatment

This occupation is found in a wide variety of Thermal Process related fields including Casting, Forging, Machining, Coating, Heat treatment and Surface Finishing processes. These specialist areas are also found in a wide range of industries where materials and their processes are fundamental to the technology . Industries as diverse as Medical, Defence, Energy, Oil and Gas, Aerospace and Nuclear all incorporate the skills of Materials Process Engineers.

The broad purpose of the occupation is to perform a role which is unique to the materials/manufacturing community, controlling and managing the complex manufacturing processes and support services that are applied to products for the automotive, aerospace, medical, energy and construction sectors. They do this by collecting and organising all the information needed to understand the whole problem, exploring it from all angles, and then finding the most appropriate solution for integration into a sustainable product life cycle. A Materials Process Engineer might typically work in either the problem definition or solution provider environments, making critical decisions in the process and utilities to produce high-quality, cost-effective parts and systems, then testing and accepting the designed solutions. They provide essential support to their associated businesses providing guidance and leadership in improving company metrics of quality, delivery, new product introduction and support key financial and business decisions.

In their daily work, an employee in this occupation interacts with all departments within the companies they work for and at a range of levels within the departments depending on the project in which they are engaged. Their main focus will be with the Engineering team and they will also have strong links in support of the Operations team. However to fulfil many of the projects, links to finance, supply chain and customer support will be a day to day occurrence and as the activities broaden there will be strong communication to the wider external customer base both in a sales support activity and during technical project discussions.

An employee in this occupation will be responsible for implementing new products and processes and for many cost reduction and process improvement initiatives. They have direct responsibility for defining the methods of manufacture of complex engineering systems and the asset base and services which are used to produce high value manufactured products. In many cases weekly and monthly reports will be required at both team level and to senior members of the company.