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

A company that exists to collect a salary

1. To put it nicely, this company is hiring a mechanical engineer; to put it bluntly, it is merely 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. This company’s machines do not require validation. At your company, I spent only nine days developing a new model and completing the 2D/3D drawings, and it was shipped as soon as one prototype was finished. 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 was unaware of changes to the coin module, while the software department did not rush to design the external UI until just before the machine was shipped. There is an obvious lack of cross-functional communication. Most importantly, after rushing to complete a new project, the bonus was only NT$3,000.

3. Machine specifications should be confirmed during the development stage. After 15 machines had already entered mass production, they suddenly said the IPC needed to be replaced because the alternative was cheaper. I can accept the explanation that it was cheaper, provided that the PM communicates with all departments before making a decision. Instead, the PM says nothing until shipment, and then the vice president in charge of PM shifts the blame by saying that he had mentioned it long ago and that everyone else simply was not listening. As a result, outside vendors and internal R&D frequently have to clean up his messes.

4. The company has no concept of a sample approval document. The procurement department often switches from Vendor A to Vendor B without notifying anyone. The issue is only discovered when problems arise during mass production. Even more absurdly, the mechanical R&D team is held responsible whenever something goes wrong. Basically, everything from the eighth-floor production line to the fifth-floor PQC is managed by the procurement manager. When the procurement 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 procurement whether inventory should be prepared, procurement always says there is enough. When the mold actually needs to be modified, they then say inventory is insufficient and ask when the modification can be completed, before relentlessly pressuring R&D, which is astonishing. Procurement has also never properly prepared inventory, so whenever materials run short there is a long waiting period. A production-control department finally began to counterbalance procurement, but within a few days the procurement manager went over to become the production-control manager. In other words, she was still in control, so the same problems described above continue to occur.

5. Regarding the same matter mentioned above, on June 13, 2025, the company used a design with Lens A to consume existing inventory. Since the inventory of Lens A has now run out and its MOQ is too high, procurement issued an ECR to replace it with Lens B. The R&D manager disagreed, but procurement directly issued the materials to the production line and ordered the mechanical engineer to revise the BOM.

6. The HR department has no real authority and does not know employees’ salaries, because the CEO keeps salary matters tightly under his control. Even an application for mechanical samples costing less than NT$100 must be approved by the CEO. Even when a department manager wants to give an employee a raise, it must pass through the CEO. As far as I know, when the R&D manager tried to discuss salary increases, the request was rejected.

7. Because the company’s HR department cannot find mechanical engineers or testing interns, it often comes up with bizarre ideas, such as giving a non-related-major document-control employee the title of mechanical engineer or turning a testing intern into a test engineer. The purpose is to attract people who want to be called “engineers” to work here. These strange ideas are extremely unfair to genuine engineers. People carrying the company’s “engineer” title have widely varying ability levels, which will cause graduating engineers who genuinely qualify for the profession to be questioned by companies across the industry.

8. The company’s MIS department is extremely incompetent. Whenever there is a computer problem, they simply tell you to restart the computer. If they cannot solve it, they directly reformat and reinstall 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. The department manager politely asks us to list the current computer specifications, but in reality the CEO simply does not want to upgrade the engineers’ hardware, and nothing has happened for a long time. On the software side, the company currently uses SolidWorks 2016. The CEO does not want to purchase the software outright, believing that renting it is cheaper, but the software update issue remains unresolved to this day.

9. As mentioned above, the version in use is 2016. Strangely, the software used in the Serbian region is a more advanced version, making drawing files exchanged within the same company incompatible. Even the systems and part numbers follow different standards, making it seem completely unlike the same company is operating them. The Serbian side also periodically asks us to change to its coding principles, causing the two sides to argue constantly, after which the matter is ultimately left unresolved.