Workplace reviews and discussion: 鴻發國際科技股份有限公司

A company that lets you coast until retirement

1. To put it nicely, this company says it is hiring a mechanical engineer; to put it bluntly, it is only looking for a draftsman. The company does not need you to think about anything—just follow the PM’s instructions and complete the work by the deadline.

2. The company’s machines do not require validation. At this company, I developed a new model and completed the 2D/3D drawings in only nine days; as soon as one prototype was finished, it was shipped. Not only that, the head of the PM department is also the company’s vice president. He does not know how to manage projects but likes to micromanage. During development, for example, the hardware department did not know about changes to the coin module, and the software department did not begin rushing to design the machine’s external UI until just before shipment. There is an obvious lack of cross-functional communication. To make matters worse, the bonus for completing a new project under a tight deadline is only NT$3,000.

3. Machine specifications should be confirmed during the development stage. After 15 machines had already entered mass production, they said the IPC needed to be replaced because the price was cheaper. I can accept the explanation that it was cheaper, provided that the PM communicates with every department before making a decision. Instead, the PM says nothing until shipment is imminent, and the PM vice president then shifts the blame by saying that he told everyone long ago and that we simply were not listening. As a result, outside vendors and internal R&D staff often have to clean up his messes.

4. The company has no concept of an approved-sample document. The purchasing department often switches from Supplier A to Supplier B without notifying anyone. The issue is not discovered until a problem occurs during mass production, and, even more absurdly, the mechanical R&D team is held responsible whenever something goes wrong. Basically, the production line on the eighth floor through PQC on the fifth floor is all managed by the purchasing manager. When the purchasing manager calls to ask about something, she acts as if you owe her NT$2.58 million and conducts business based on her emotions. When R&D needs to modify a mold and asks purchasing whether inventory should be stocked, purchasing always says there is enough. Then, when the mold is actually modified, they say inventory is insufficient and ask when the modification can be completed, after which they relentlessly hound R&D. It is utterly bewildering. Purchasing also never maintains inventory levels properly, so material shortages result in long waiting periods. Just when the production control department began to counterbalance the purchasing department, the purchasing manager became the manager of production control after only a few days. In other words, she still controls it, so the same problems described above continue to occur.

5. As with the incident on June 13, 2025, mentioned above: previously, a design using Lens A was adopted to consume existing inventory. Since the inventory of Lens A has now run out and its MOQ is too high, purchasing initiated an ECR to replace it with Lens B. The R&D manager disagreed, but purchasing directly issued the material to the production line and instructed the mechanical engineer to change the BOM.

6. The company’s HR department has no authority and does not know employees’ salaries, because the CEO keeps salary matters firmly under his control. Even a request for a mechanical sample costing less than NT$100 must be approved by the CEO. Even when a department manager wants to adjust an employee’s salary, it still has to pass through the CEO. As far as I know, when the R&D manager raised the issue of salary adjustments, it was rejected!

7.  Because the company’s HR department cannot find mechanical engineers or test interns, it often comes up with bizarre ideas, such as having a non-related-major document-control employee nominally serve as a mechanical engineer, or proposing that test interns be called test engineers. The purpose is to attract people who want to be “engineers” to work here. Such strange ideas are extremely unfair to genuine engineers. People given the company’s “engineer” title have widely varying levels of ability, which will cause companies across the industry to question the capabilities of genuinely graduating engineers!

8. The company’s MIS department is extremely dysfunctional. Whenever there is a computer problem, they tell you to restart it. If they cannot solve it, they simply reimage the computer. Desktop computers are labeled by MIS with “Internet access prohibited.” Everyone knows why internet access is prohibited. In addition, the desktop specifications are antiquated. A department manager may say, for appearances’ sake, that we should list the current computer specifications, but in reality the CEO simply does not want to help engineers upgrade their hardware, and nothing has happened for a long time. The software currently in use is SolidWorks 2016. The CEO does not want to purchase the software outright, believing that renting it is cheaper, but apparently does not realize that the software update issue remains unresolved to this day.

9. As mentioned above, the version in use is 2016. Strangely, the Serbia region uses a more advanced version, which means that drawing files exchanged within the same company cannot be circulated. Even the systems and part-numbering rules follow different standards, making it seem as though the two sides are not operating as the same company at all. The Serbia side also periodically requires us to change to its coding principles, leading to endless arguments between the two sides, which ultimately go nowhere.