8 Mar 2012 ... Hydraulics engineers at Sauer-Danfoss create prod- ucts and systems that ...
Bottom: Industrial Hydraulics class working on an exercise with a ...
Above: Christopher Jeffery (Senior Instructor for fluid conveying products) teaches a student how to use a hose crimping machine at Eaton. Below: Instructor explaining concepts during Eaton’s F(x) & IEC 61131-3 Certification course. Bottom: Industrial Hydraulics class working on an exercise with a Fluid Power Training Simulator at Eaton.
Calling all hydraulics engineers As the industry knows all too well, hydraulics engineers are hard to come by; a look at how companies are hiring, training, and, most important, retaining engineers. by Debbie Sniderman
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n today’s economy, engineers working at companies making hydraulics systems or components such as sensors, controls, fluids, or braking systems for offhighway vehicles aren’t changing jobs often, so finding experienced engineers can be a challenge. Hydraulics engineers at Sauer-Danfoss create products and systems that transfer power from the engine to the tires or tracks, and also devices that perform working functions, such as moving cylinders, fans, or powering other devices in off-highway machines. “As it is getting harder to find qualified, trained engineers, Sauer-Danfoss has developed a threepronged strategy involving improving our external recruitment of experienced engineers, developing solid relationships with engineering programs for new college graduates, and creating a strong, world-class intern program,” said Craig Klocke, Director of the North American Technical Center. He believes this long-term strategy and high investment of strengthening all three areas will develop a much stronger pipeline of qualified candidates now and for the future. To speed up and increase the effectiveness of its process, the company is also strengthening its internal training programs. By partnering with groups such as the Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power, Sauer-Danfoss sponsors hydraulics power research and seminars at www.offhighway-online.org
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Calling all hydraulics engineers universities that produce excellent graduates who are later recruited at on-campus job fairs and online. The company also increases its direct contact with university students by hosting facility tours for undergrads, which helps its employees make contacts with underclassmen so then they can support senior design projects, or meet potential interns. “The intern program is very important to make connections with undergrads, because it produces candidates to fill the pipeline with interns who will grow into full-time employees,” said Klocke. When new engineers are hired, experts in topics such as spring design or kit design help them learn how to design new components. Additionally, internal competency centers and five worldwide “Technical Centers” provide training and other services to engineers working in their propel division.
Rewarding relationships help retention
To help keep engineers around, Klocke says SauerDanfoss provides a good working culture, challenging and rewarding assignments, and opportunities to grow into new areas or to go deeper into current interest areas. Engineers are encouraged to attend conferences, present papers, attend and chair seminars, and participate in membership in professional organizations, such as SAE International. Klocke believes that one-on-one mentoring is very important. Mentors, sponsors, or champions help train new engineers and answer questions. The company is starting to assign a second mentor in a different functional area who is not a peer, “so it’s ok to go ask the ‘stupid’ question if they don’t want to expose themselves to their neighbor, peer, or boss. It also works in reverse. Engineers are assigned to be mentors or as connections for people in non-engineering areas such as sales, so they have someone technical to go to in the engineering world.” Even more important than the experiences provided to engineers are the opportunities to make a variety of connections. Engineers can be assigned temporarily or long term to work in other areas in a variety of teams focused on product support, assembly, new product development, or research. Cross interaction between different areas is encouraged, to be exposed to the challenges and issues that the other teams have, not only within their functional area, but also globally. Klocke says that all design reviews involve technical experts that may be located in any of its global locations via virtual collaboration tools.
Local networks and reaching outward
Taking a different approach to hiring, MICO needed engineers for its recently opened electrohydraulics facility in Shakopee, MN. The Electrohydraulics Group located there develops and manufactures components and controls for hydraulic brake systems, antilock brake systems (ABS), traction control, and electronic stability control systems for mining, military, and construction equipment.
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Engineers develop electrohydraulic components for offhighway vehicles such as these made by MICO.
EH Group Director, Manfred Maiers, says that hydraulics engineers are hard to come by. Software engineers can come from almost any industry with a safety component. Electrical or controls engineers come from industries with a heavy emphasis on processes, like medical, military, avionics, or automotive. Hydraulics engineers, on the other hand, typically come from the mobile or stationary hydraulics industry, which is much smaller. Finding people is the biggest challenge. “In our area, the engineering market is empty, especially in the 3-5 year experience range. Finding people with the right skill set is a real challenge right now,” said Maiers. “Recruiting engineering personnel is all about networking, and the importance of online networking and recruitment can’t be stressed enough. All of the people that I hired last year were connected to me and my online network,” he said. MICO emphasizes many forms of continuing engineering training including courses hosted by tool vendors, in-house training programs, and on-the-job learning during customer vehicle start-ups. Peer reviews, other team activities such as design failure mode effects analysis, design reviews, and brainstorming sessions also provide valuable learning opportunities. Hydraulics engineers often attend seminars, conferences, and many different activities with their customers. MICO engineers visit customer sites, develop compo-
Educating future engineers
By backing industry groups such as the National Fluid Power Association (NFPA) and the National Science Foundation’s Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power (CCEFP), hydraulics companies can help locate engineering students for hire as well as train future engineers while advancing the hydraulics industry. Workforce development programs have been a key objective for the NFPA for more than 10 years, recognizing that companies have had a hard time finding engineering talent in the U.S. among younger generations. The NFPA introduces fluid power, hydraulics, and pneumatics as an area of study and potential career opportunity to middle school and high school students through programs like its “Fluid Power Challenge” and its partnership with Project Lead the Way. The NFPA also brings fluid power into course offerings, lab exercises, and content of existing engineering curricula at universities and technical schools and at the post graduate level. The “Fluid Power Scholars Program” offered by CCEFP is an opportunity for student engineers at the bachelor level or beyond to go to “fluid power boot camp.” This crash course in fluid power at the Milwaukee School of Engineering is followed by summer internships at sponsoring companies interested in recruiting young engineers.
Debbie Sniderman
www.offhighway-online.org
HydraulicsFeature
Engineers participating in Eaton’s F(x) & IEC 611313 Certification course designed to teach skills to create, download, and test hands-on programs with real hardware for designers and creators of electrohydraulic systems.
nents, and determine how they will work on the customer’s vehicle. “We even get involved in their product development process and share our best practices, giving them different perspectives,” said Maiers. Entry-level hydraulics engineers typically begin their careers as component engineers involved in designing variations of existing products. “Over time they progress to hands-on experience with customers, developing new solutions for their machines,” said Maiers. From there they can advance into positions of more responsibility in charge of controls or systems.
Global hiring and knowledge sharing
Ken Rasmussen, Director of Engineering for Power and Motion Controls at Eaton’s headquarters in Eden Prairie, MN, describes other ways that hydraulics companies are keeping up with the changes in engineering workforce development and hiring. “One big trend in the industry driving what we do as engineers is marrying hydraulics with the smarts of electronics—using software, electronic hardware, and signal processing to create optimized hydraulics systems,” he said. “Lots of R&D work in the business is now about how to create hybrid systems with software and controls. Because of this, we are seeing more spread in the type of engineers that are hired and retained globally.” According to Rasmussen, the ideal engineer in the electrohydraulics industry now is a mechatronics engineer, who lives in the middle between the mechanical, electrical, and software world, and is able to handle all three. These are also sometimes called systems engineers or systems architects. “Not only do you see a change in the type of engineers hired, but also in the demographic of those that are now part of your team,” he said, noting that substantial growth in the hydraulics world is found in Asia-Pacific, but not U.S. or Europe. Hiring and training engineers in India and China are a big part of Rasmussen’s job right now. “Eaton has more than 150 engineers employed in India and is trying to get the same capability in China. Infrastructure is driving the growth in those countries. Where the company grows, you have to support that market,” he said. Worldwide, Eaton takes a multi-layered approach to recruiting hydraulics engineers. One approach is its “Engineering Technology Leadership Program,” which recruits new graduate engineers via a corporate partnership with universities. Engineers in the program work for two years, one year each at two different businesses within Eaton before they are placed permanently. The program creates a pool of high-quality and high-caliber engineers available to the company for direct hire as future engineering leaders. Upon graduating from the ETLP, engineers are recruited internally and can consider openings in critical positions. The program has expanded from the U.S. and is now also in Europe and Asia-Pacific. Not enough schools have a hydraulics focus or curriculum to provide the needed hydraulics engineering graduates, so another approach Eaton uses is hiring mechanical engineers and teaching them the technology. www.offhighway-online.org
“All of the people that I hired last year were connected to me and my online network,” said MICO Electrohydraulics Group Director, Manfred Maiers, who heads the company’s new plant in Shakopee, MN.
For recruiting experienced engineers, Eden’s internal recruiting function brings engineers in with a variety of methods. Rasmussen said, “The hydraulic engineering world is not that large. People are connected through social networks like LinkedIn and big [online job] boards, and those channels are used often to bring people in.” Eden has a full range of training facilities for customers and internal engineers, and also uses centers of excellence (COE). Experts in technologies such as CFD, FEA, magnetic analysis, or electronics and software groups are part of COEs that attract talent up to a critical mass and train each other so the work that goes through them meets the customers’ needs. Engineers assigned to new projects can consult Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) located worldwide that have deep knowledge and act as mentors, but they can also go beyond SMEs to a “Knowledge Database” to see what’s been done in the past. This expertise resource contains references about technologies that have been developed over the past five years, such as processes, recipes, and design handbooks. As problems are solved, solutions are stored in it so they are searchable and readily available. Recognizing that engineers move from company to company, the database helps Eaton be careful about not losing work done, and it helps new hires come up to speed faster and provides higher quality results. Many things go into retaining engineers at Eaton, and Rasmussen lists almost every aspect of working as important: the variety of work available, challenging projects, whether everyone the engineer works with has a development plan toward career goals, making sure you have good enough pay and benefits that they’re not the primary issue, and the latest and greatest tools and lab space. Rasmussen mentions that quality is very important, but they are careful that engineers can work with the right balance between getting the job done on time, on budget, and with a high-quality result. The push to simultaneously meet a timeline and budget can cause conflict, and can hinder or help a person about how they feel about staying with the company. SOHE
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