All about the profession of quality engineer

There are many different professions and fields of activity. But the idea of ​​a significant number of people about them is very superficial. Therefore, it is time to find out, for example, everything about the profession of a quality engineer.

The name of the profession of quality engineer causes confusion or misunderstanding for many people. After all, any engineer, and just a developer, is ultimately obliged to work on the quality of his product, to improve it in every possible way, to look for additional opportunities to improve products. But the point is that a quality engineer is the same as a quality control inspector (if we take a somewhat outdated analogue). Today, quality control professionals are among the leading figures in any manufacturing facility.

They are just as important as most asset managers or senior managers. If the quality of the products or services does not meet the expectations of the customers, the consumer quickly chooses another company. And then the courts begin, various fines from government agencies.

A typical job description for an ordinary and lead quality engineer outlines the following functions:

• carrying out activities to improve the quality of products;
• control over the activities of structural divisions of the organization (so that they work well and accurately);
• tracking the compliance of products with Russian and international standards, current and expected consumer requests;
• maintaining the compliance of products sent to foreign customers with basic export requirements;
• development and improvement of the quality management system;
• preventing the production of substandard products, the provision of poor services or unfair performance of work.

But this does not limit the range of things that a quality engineer in an organization does. Job description, professional standard and ETKS imply other responsibilities. The specialist in this field performs the following functions:

• examines and analyzes all received complaints, analyzes their thoroughness;
• prepares reports for managers on the results of the studied complaints;
• participates in correspondence following the consideration of all complaints and claims in general;
• prepares conclusions on the quality of incoming raw materials and semi-finished products;
• evaluates the knowledge of other specialists of the norms and requirements for finished products and services;
• prepares, if necessary, documents for claims to suppliers, contractors and other counterparties;
• helps the management to certify products, production lines, technologies and individual innovations;
• monitors the implementation of the orders of the state supervision authorities and court decisions in terms of the quality of finished goods and services, the organization of production.

Of course, such a responsible position implies a wide range of competencies, without which it is absolutely impossible to do even in the smallest production. You will definitely have to study:

• state and regional, sectoral and international requirements in the field of quality and characteristics of finished products, organization of the technological process;
• the structure, features of the activity of a particular company and individual production facilities, lines, their sections;
• methods (methods) of destructive and non-destructive testing, the limits of their applicability and methods for assessing the achieved result;
• office work in general and in a specific organization, in particular in a sphere;
• powers of state supervision bodies and their individual employees;
• the main types of industrial defects, the conditions for its appearance;
• techniques for disguising marriage by unscrupulous employees;
• methods of detecting marriage, methods of detecting specific culprits;
• basic requirements for equipment and tools, workplaces and labor organization, technological process and climate of working premises;
• factors that can have a detrimental effect on quality - along the entire production chain, including from counterparties;
• permissible and unacceptable modes of equipment operation;
• signs of wear and tear on equipment and tools;
• calibration schedules of the equipment used, methods of its testing, adjustment, adjustment, repair, reconstruction;
• fundamentals of labor legislation;
• safety standards;
• rules for testing finished products.

But this is only knowledge, and there are also skills, and the ability to apply them. So, a good quality engineer is always an excellent psychologist. He must be able to establish contact with a variety of people and, by the subtlest moments, grasp what they are trying to hide or minimize. Next, you will definitely have to systematically refresh your knowledge. After all, the same legislation, different standards and regulations, technologies and machines are constantly changing.

An important skill for a quality engineer will be an understanding of assembly, design, engineering, working and other documentation, diagrams and designations. He will have to develop in himself the skill of a comprehensive idea of ​​how the finished product will be used. After all, one and the same thing in a hot summer and in mid-February somewhere in the center of Yakutsk can behave in a dramatically different way. And this is just the most obvious example, and there are many more variables that affect the quality and usefulness of things. It will be useful to master the following aspects:

• foundations of the theory of law and the current practice of quality litigation in their field;
• the fundamentals of the organization's economics (so as not to offer deliberately ruinous measures to improve quality);
• a foreign language (you can even have more than one) - to quickly get acquainted with the requirements in other states, with new technologies;
• principles of labor protection and industrial safety (in order to be protected yourself and not to offer anything that could harm other people);
• the situation at the enterprises of domestic and foreign competitors.

A survey of potential employers showed that during the interview and during the trial period, they pay special attention to the following nuances:

• knowledge of English;
• an idea of ​​the main GOSTs in their industry;
• understanding of ISO 9000;
• special education (corresponding to the industry, that is, somewhere even biological, for example, is suitable);
• knowledge of ISO 17025;
• work experience in the specialty.

Sometimes (but very rarely) they require ISO 14001, GMP, Lean Sigma. However, it's good to at least understand what all this means. Knowledge of statistical techniques and efficiency gains is usually not tested.

By itself, training of such a serious specialist should also be organized as seriously as possible. Even the job descriptions stipulate that he must have a higher education. The Moscow Engineering and Economics Institute can become a good educational institution. Such specializations as "management" and "quality management" are suitable there. For residents of a number of regions, South Ural State University is geographically more attractive (and no worse in terms of training).

Alternatives:

• MIREA (mechanical engineering, standardization and metrology, quality management);
• RANEPA (management, quality management);
• Baltic Voenmech (instrument making, standardization and metrology);
• Kurgan State University (standardization and metrology);
• St. Petersburg Polytechnic University (mechanical engineering, product technology and catering);
• DFU (quality management, chemical technology);
• UrFU (technology of printing and packaging production, quality management).

A quality engineer can work in any production profile. But good specialists have a narrow range of application of forces. It is extremely unlikely that one and the same person, for example, will be able to manage quality equally well in the food industry, in the nuclear industry, and on the railway. Also, this specialist can find himself a place in:

• pharmacology;
• car manufacturing;
• production of building materials;
• textile industry;
• service sector;
• woodworking;
• mechanical engineering;
• metallurgy, metalworking;
• garment, footwear industries;
• construction and repair organizations and many more dozens of different areas.

A quality engineer often accompanies entire projects throughout their entire life cycle... So, development of new types of products cannot do without his participation. And even the withdrawal of a product from the range of actual products is usually associated with its corresponding conclusion.

On average in Russia, the spread of salaries for quality engineers is from 25 to 120 thousand rubles... In the capital of the country, the minimum indicator is about 40,000 rubles. The most advanced specialists can count on 150,000 rubles. But for this it will be necessary to already very well prove oneself, “make a name” in the professional community.Career prospects are usually limited only to practical specialization, which does not allow easy and simple transition to another industry. The next step (no longer connected, however, directly with engineering activities) is getting the position of the head of the department or supervising a large infrastructure project.

With experience, a quality engineer will be able to enter the service of government agencies. There, his skills will be of interest to both outsourcing departments and various expert departments. But basically, such a transition implies employment as an inspector or inspector. This is quite reasonable: after all, a quality engineer in the process of work begins to understand how certain shortcomings are masked. This means that he will become the most competent controller. And here it is worth mentioning a few more subtleties that directly affect the work of such a specialist.

Further, the professional activity of a quality engineer at the present stage is unthinkable without computer-aided design systems and other information technologies. It is also important that product characteristics should not be an end in itself; you will have to think over everything so that they correspond to its purpose.

Only a person who knows how to weigh different scenarios and the likely consequences of each step can stay at the quality manager's workplace for a long time. Moreover, this will have to be done immediately according to many criteria, given the lack of time and sometimes the deliberate incompleteness of information. Eliminating uncertainty in such an area is impossible and never will be possible. If only because each new type of product, each new technological process has its own "pitfalls".

Finally, it is worth giving information on the average income of a quality engineer in several more regions:

• Yekaterinburg - 53,000 rubles;
• Rostov-on-Don - 49,000 rubles;
• Novosibirsk - 48,000 rubles;
• Volgograd - 32,000 rubles;
• Vladivostok - 56,000 rubles;
• St. Petersburg - 60,000 rubles.