I aim to be an engineer
who does far more
than just draw designs
on a computer.
- Sales Engineering Dept.
- Joined in 2019
Please tell us about your current job responsibilities. As the person in charge of ordered machines, I handle everything from meetings to design.
There are about 20 members in the Sales Engineering Department, and each team of 3–5 people has its own roles.
The Section 4 team I belong to mainly designs projects for which we have already received orders from customers.
In my first and second year at the company, I mostly supported senior colleagues and designed only some parts within a single machine. From around my third year, I began taking responsibility for an entire machine on my own.
Most recently, I have been involved in the design of a small dryer used by pharmaceutical manufacturers, and in addition to design work, I also take part in meetings at customer sites together with the sales staff.
What do you find rewarding about this job? My ideas are recognized and take shape as actual products.
I listen to the specifications requested by the customer and design a product that meets those needs.
Once the customer approves the design, the process moves on to manufacturing, delivery, and test operation.
In the case of dryers and mills, we don’t usually design from absolute scratch; many share the same basic structure, and we mostly add configurations tailored to each customer’s conditions and site environment.
When a customer accepts a proposal I’ve made and I then see the completed machine actually running, I feel a great sense of achievement.
The greatest appeal of working at our company is being able to take responsibility for an idea from the image in my head all the way through to its realization as a physical product.
What has been the most difficult thing since joining the company? The sense of achievement far outweighs the difficulties. I have also acquired knowledge of electricity, which was originally outside my specialty.
Because we create different machines each time, there is always a certain amount of difficulty, but when a machine is successfully completed, I’m so happy that I forget all the struggle it took to get there.
If I had to name a particular challenge, it would be acquiring knowledge related to control rather than the design itself.
We ask partner companies to do the control-system design, but it is our job to tell them what kind of circuit we want.
So we need at least basic knowledge to create flowcharts and understand electrical drawings.
These were not originally my field, so I had to learn them after joining the company.
What would you like to take on in the future, and what are your future goals? I want to broaden the scope of my work and take on the challenge of earning qualifications.
When I first thought about design work, I imagined sitting in front of a computer in the office all day, but in reality there are many opportunities to visit customers for meetings and test runs.
On site, I see installation staff briskly giving instructions and working with tools in hand.
Watching them, I began to think that if I could acquire knowledge of manufacturing and installation, I could do an even better job.
Going forward, I hope to expand the range of my work so that I can also be active in the field, and I plan to pursue qualifications such as Electrician, Construction Management Engineer, and licenses related to mechanical equipment installation work.