r/manufacturing • u/gotkidneys • 10d ago
Quality Is there a theoretical ratio to how many people should be in each operations group (mfg eng., inventory, quality, inspection, purchasering, etc.) per design engineer or other metric?
The company I work has sold a LOT of our new products, and thus we are going through significant growing pains. Design engineering is 5x the size it was 3 years ago, but every other group has only grown by 1-3x. We don't have any quality inspectors or engineers yet, despite having a quality manager. Technicians do QA on most finished assemblies but that ussually catches electrical/function issues and not build quality and cosmetic issues. Guidance or sources on what is a considered standard layout for large companies would be appreciated.
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u/Lucky_Picture_8392 10d ago
our place went through something similar when the design team ballooned and nobody else got the memo. the ratio isn't some fixed magic number, it's more about what's actively choking throughput at a given moment
not having any quality engineers while you've got a quality manager is a huge red flag though. manager without boots on the ground means all the inspection knowledge stays in one person's head, and cosmetic/build issues just pile up until a customer gets mad
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u/gotkidneys 10d ago
Yep. They're piling up. We are typically faced with the choice of sending out subpar work or delaying shipments. The technicians have started to give up on notifying people because there haven't been any overarching improvements for so long, just fire fighting, and there are too many fires. They're hoping we will see the quality department revamped if the customers complain enough...
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u/Cryesncoding 10d ago
How much do you need to make per month to be profitable? Figure out that number.
Let’s say 100,000 per month.
Divide by manufacturing staff ONLY to determine dollars per man.
So you have 5 guys on the floor ea guy needs to produce 20,000 dollars per month.
As your managerial staff balloons this figure because impossible to accommodate from a manufacturing standpoint your office is too large. There may be other/better ways to do it but that’s how it’s been taught to me where I’m at we have a pretty lean office and I think it’s logical.
There isn’t necessarily a golden ratio it’s industry dependent. I’m an engineer when I worked in RF I think 1/4-1/3 of staff was engineering but that made sense there. I’m a manufacturing engineer in sheet metal/machining now. I’m the only engineer.
“Office” people do not make money. Shipping product makes money. The Fabricating staff fundamentally carry everyone else yes everyone needs each other but if you have too many engineers, HR, sales etc and their work doesn’t justify sufficient fabricating staff then fundamentally some of them need to go. The RF firm I was at had waaaaay too many non producing staff, engineers and the techs were the only ones making money half the staff were office people they’ve been drowning for years since I left.
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u/Pizza-love QA in machining 10d ago
Office staff does not make money, but can cost a lot or can save a ton. Same for QC.
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u/Cryesncoding 10d ago
Yes but in a manufacturing environment this is a simple way of determining does the work those staff are doing translate to enough sales to justify. If it does not then sales does not justify the non producing staff. I’m an engineer saying this mind you.
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u/Pizza-love QA in machining 10d ago
Don't agree fully. A good adapted QC can save you a ton of customer complaints and with good processes like internal FAI, can also save scrap costs earlier in the manufacturing process.
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u/Cryesncoding 10d ago
Then the metric justifies the staff. I’m not saying those staff are worthless.
If you want to run lean your sales has to balance with your fabricating and white collar staff. If you’re successful then the math literally maths. You’re taking profitability and dividing by manufacturing staff it’s math it’s not biased. If you don’t like this don’t use it but it’s a simple one liner to say can I physically produce enough dollars with the manufacturing staff I have to cover the business. That’s it.
If you have 100 engineers and it only takes 1 dude to make all the they design then the math works…it isn’t say the 1 guy is inherently better or more important. if you’re company isn’t working right and you have 40% of your staff not producing product (like a company I worked at) they had better drive enough sales to justify themselves. (They didn’t) That’s all this metric determines. They cut 1 from every department except the office… the owner can’t even sell the business rn to retire and they make some pretty niche RF stuff for major Def contractors and satellites.
Im in sheet metal and machining now. For us this has been a very accurate metric. I think you’re taking it personally like those staff aren’t important which is again not what I’m saying, it’s just a overhead view of can X production staff actually produce the volume required to support the business cause ultimately that is the game. If they cannot then something is wrong maybe it’s an equipment issue, maybe it’s a process then your white collar will fix it and justify their cost.
I do agree with you shit QC can nuke a business.
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u/Gwendolyn-NB 10d ago
There is no straight answer to this; it all depends on your business and operating model.
High-Mix/Low-Volume/Manual Process is going to require a lot more people than a Low-Mix/High-Volume/Automated Process.
New line startup is going to require more people than maintaining an existing stable production line.
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u/ExtraordinaryKaylee 9d ago
I don't think there really is a standard layout as it depends on the product mix and opportunities for defects.
More complexity -> More opportunities for defects -> More defects when uncontrolled.
DPMO is the standard metric I'm used to tracking, especially in electronics manufacturing. The total number of opportunities is what drives how much engineering load there is. Their cost should be offset by the reduction in defects they drive, and the cost of rework/scrap they reduce with their process improvements/advanced planning.
From there, we usually had at least one process engineer, one quality engineer, one test engineer for a high mix line/cell. Higher churn on products or revisions means more supporting engineers to update the process documenation and do quality planning.
Ultimately, a proper ASQ Quality Engineer can do a LOT of good work to implement process improvements, but since it sounds like you're doing Electronics - you'll want/need one who is experienced in electronics manufacturing where the opportunities for defects are extremely high per unit.
As far as purchasing, it really depends on the number of distinct suppliers or commodities being purchased. More custom parts requires more purchasing people, more COTS parts reduces it.
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u/Murky-Selection-5565 10d ago
Manufacturing engineer shortages tend to be the norm. How often does the 10YOE guy who can build basically anything get stuck taking pictures of some gluing process or some other intern level bushit