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

Retirement home company

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 expect you to think—just follow the PM’s instructions and complete the work by the deadline.

2. The 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; 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 interfere. During development, for example, the hardware department was unaware of changes to the coin module, while the software department did not rush the external-display UI design until immediately 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 development. After 15 machines had already entered mass production, they said the IPC needed to be replaced because the price was cheaper. I could accept the explanation that it was cheaper, provided that the PM communicated with every department before making the decision. Instead, the PM only brought it up again when the machine was about to be shipped. The PM vice president would also shift the blame, saying that he had mentioned it long ago and that everyone else simply had not listened. As a result, outside vendors and the internal R&D team often have to clean up after him.

4. The company has no concept of an approved sample or specification sign-off. The procurement department often switches from Supplier A to Supplier B without notifying anyone, and this is only discovered when a problem occurs during mass production. Even more absurdly, the mechanical R&D team is held responsible whenever something goes wrong. Basically, the procurement manager controls everything from the eighth-floor production line to the fifth-floor PQC. When the procurement manager calls to ask about something, she acts as if you owe her NT$2.58 million and relies on her emotions to get things done. 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 there is insufficient inventory and ask when the modification can be completed, before relentlessly pressuring R&D, which is astonishing. Procurement has also never maintained sufficient inventory, so material shortages result in long waiting periods. Just when the production-control department began to counterbalance procurement, the procurement manager transferred over to become its manager a few days later. In other words, she still controls it, so the problems described above continue to occur.

5. As with the incident mentioned above that occurred on June 13, 2025: previously, a design using Lens A was adopted to clear inventory. Now that the inventory of Lens A has run out, and because Lens A’s MOQ is too high, procurement issued an ECR to replace it with Lens B. The R&D manager disagreed, but procurement directly issued the material to the production line and instructed the mechanical engineer to modify the BOM.

6. The company’s HR department has no authority and does not know employees’ salaries, because the CEO keeps tight control over all salary matters. Even an application for mechanical samples costing 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, it 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 having non-majors from the document-control department nominally serve as mechanical engineers, or proposing that testing interns become test engineers. The purpose is to attract people who want to be called “engineers” to work here. Such strange ideas are extremely unfair to genuine engineers. The skill levels of people given the company’s “engineer” title vary widely, which will cause genuinely qualified engineering graduates to have their abilities questioned by companies across the industry.

8. The company’s MIS department is a mess. Whenever there is a computer problem, they tell you to restart the computer. If they cannot solve it, they simply reinstall the operating system. Desktop computers are labeled “Internet access prohibited” by MIS. Everyone knows why internet access is prohibited. In addition, the desktop computer specifications are antiquated. The department manager politely asked us to list the specifications of our current computers, but in reality the CEO simply does not want to help engineers upgrade their hardware, and nothing has happened. The software currently in use is SolidWorks 2016. The CEO does not want to purchase a perpetual license, believing that renting 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 software used in the Serbia region is a higher version, which means that drawing files exchanged within the same company cannot be shared. Even the system and part-numbering conventions are different, making it seem completely unlike the same company is operating. The Serbia side also occasionally asks us to change to its coding conventions, resulting in constant arguments between the two sides, which ultimately go nowhere.