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

A retirement home company

1. To put it nicely, this company is hiring mechanical engineers; to put it bluntly, it is merely looking for draftspeople. 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, and it was shipped as soon as one prototype was finished. On top of 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 to design the external 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 development. After 15 machines had already entered mass production, they 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 relevant departments before making a decision. Instead, the PM says nothing until shipment, and the vice president/PM then shifts the blame by claiming that he had said it long ago and that everyone else simply failed to listen. As a result, outside vendors and internal R&D staff often have to clean up his messes.

4. The company has no concept of a sample approval document. The Procurement Department often switches from Supplier A to Supplier B without notifying anyone, and the issue is not discovered until a problem occurs during mass production. Even more absurdly, mechanical R&D is held responsible whenever something goes wrong. Basically, everything from the production line on the 8th floor to PQC on the 5th floor 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 makes decisions based on emotion. When R&D needs to modify a mold, it asks Procurement whether inventory should be stocked. Procurement always says there is enough, but when the mold actually needs to be modified, they say inventory is insufficient and ask when the work can be completed. They then relentlessly pressure R&D, which is utterly exasperating. Procurement has also never properly stocked inventory, so whenever materials run short, there is a long waiting period. A Production Control Department was finally established to counterbalance Procurement, but within a few days the Procurement Manager went over to become its manager. In other words, she still controls everything, so the same problems continue to occur.

5. As with the incident mentioned above that occurred on June 13, 2025: previously, Supplier A’s lens was used to consume existing inventory. Since the inventory of the A lens has now run out and its MOQ is too high, Procurement issued an ECR to replace it with the 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 is not aware of employees’ salaries, because the CEO keeps all salary matters tightly under his control. Even a request for mechanical samples costing less than NT$100 must be approved by the CEO. Even when a department manager wants to raise an employee’s salary, it must go through the CEO. As far as I know, the R&D manager’s request regarding salary increases 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 listing a non-major document-control employee as a mechanical engineer or turning test interns into test engineers. The purpose is to attract people who want to be called “engineers” to work there. Such strange practices are extremely unfair to genuine engineers. The skill levels of people given the company’s “engineer” title vary widely, which will cause truly graduating engineers to have their abilities questioned by companies across the industry.

8. The company’s MIS department is extremely disorganized. Whenever there is a computer problem, they simply tell you to restart it. If they cannot solve it, they handle it by reinstalling the operating system. 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 asked us, ostensibly, to list the current computer specifications, but in reality the CEO simply does not want to upgrade the engineers’ hardware, and nothing has happened since. For software, the company currently uses SolidWorks 2016. The CEO does not want to purchase a perpetual license, believing that renting is cheaper, but apparently 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 more advanced version, making it impossible to exchange drawing files within the same company. Even the systems and part numbers follow different standards, making it seem as though the two operations are not part of the same company at all. The Serbia side also occasionally asks us to change to its coding principles, causing the two sides to argue constantly, after which the matter is ultimately left unresolved.