A. O. Smith reviews

There is a disconnect between manufacturing, engineering and CAD design. Manufacturing basically tells engineering how they are supposed to design, and what a drawing is supposed to look like. They don't want to look at a fully detailed drawing. They say that it would only confuse manufacturing, or the shop floor. Any ideas of improving the methods here are quickly shot down. There's no room for someone who thinks outside of their box to move up. When there's a problem on the line the engineers don't really have a detailed set of drawings to work from. So they usually have to go back to a series of 3D models in order to fix a drawing. They FORCE you to take certification tests in Solidworks. They have made it a REQUIREMENT that we take one certification test a year. The CAD Supervisor is exempt from taking these tests. They also FORCE you to write up 2 improvement suggestions a year. These improvement requests have to be accepted before you get any credit for them. You can't just put one in and get credit, they have to like what you submit.

Sometimes it takes too long to make decisions and compensation philosophy is a bit outdated.