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

A company for retirees

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 require you to think about anything—just follow the PM’s instructions and complete the work on time.

2. The company’s machines do not require validation. At your company, I developed a new machine model and completed the 2D/3D drawings in only nine days; as soon as one prototype was completed, 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 interfere. During development, for example, the hardware department was unaware of changes to the coin module, and the software department did not rush the design of the external display UI until just before the machine was shipped. This clearly shows a 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 said the IPC needed to be replaced because it was cheaper. I can accept the explanation that it was cheaper, on the condition that the PM communicate with all relevant departments before making a decision. However, the PM makes decisions without consulting anyone and only brings them up when the product is about to ship. The PM vice president even shifts the blame by saying that he mentioned it long ago and that everyone else simply was not listening. As a result, outside suppliers and internal R&D frequently have to clean up after him.

4. The company has no concept of an approved sample or change notification document. The procurement department often switches from Supplier A to Supplier B without notifying anyone. This is only discovered when a serious problem occurs during mass production. Even more absurdly, the mechanical R&D team is held responsible whenever something goes wrong. Basically, the procurement manager oversees everything from the eighth-floor production line to the fifth-floor PQC. When the procurement manager calls to ask about something, she acts as though 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 stocked, procurement always says there is enough. When the mold actually needs to be modified, they then say there is insufficient inventory and ask when the modification can be completed, before relentlessly pressuring R&D, which is astonishing. Procurement also never maintains sufficient inventory, so shortages lead to long periods of downtime. A production control department finally emerged to counterbalance procurement, but within a few days the procurement manager went over to become its manager. In other words, she still controls it, so the problems described above continue to occur.

5. As with the incident on 2025/6/13 mentioned above, an A lens was previously used for the design in order to consume existing inventory. Because the inventory of the A lens has now run out and its MOQ is too high, procurement initiated an ECR to replace it with a B lens. The R&D manager disagreed, but procurement directly issued the materials to the production line and instructed the mechanical engineer to change the BOM.

6. The company’s HR department has no real authority and does not know employees’ salaries, because the CEO tightly controls all salary matters. Even a mechanical sample request for less than NT$100 must be approved by the CEO. Even when a department manager wants to adjust an employee’s salary, it must go through the CEO. As far as I know, when the R&D manager raised the issue of salary adjustments, 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 non-mechanical majors with document-control titles the nominal title of mechanical engineer, or turning testing interns into test engineers. 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 with the company’s “engineer” title have widely varying skill levels, which will cause companies across the industry to question the capabilities of engineers who are actually about to graduate.

8. The company’s MIS department is extremely disorganized. Whenever there is a computer problem, they tell you to restart the computer. 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 at an antique level. The department manager pleasantly asked us to list the specifications of our current computers, but in reality, the CEO simply does not want to upgrade the engineers’ hardware, and nothing has happened for a long time. As for software, the company currently uses SolidWorks 2016. The CEO does not want to purchase the software outright, believing that renting it is cheaper, but apparently has not realized that the software upgrade 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, causing drawing files exchanged within the same company to be incompatible. Even the system and part-numbering conventions follow different standards. It operates nothing like a single company. The Serbian side also occasionally asks us to change to its coding principles, leading to constant arguments between the two sides, which ultimately go nowhere.