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

A company for retirement

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 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 designs, and it was shipped as soon as one prototype was finished. Moreover, 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 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, provided that the PM communicates with every relevant department before making a decision. Instead, the PM does not communicate with anyone and only brings it up when the shipment is about to go out. The PM vice president also shirks responsibility by saying that he mentioned it long ago and that everyone else simply was 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 a sample approval document. The purchasing department often switches from Vendor A to Vendor B without notifying anyone. This is only discovered when a serious problem occurs during mass production. Even more absurdly, mechanical R&D is held responsible whenever something goes wrong. Basically, the purchasing manager controls everything from the production line on the 8th floor to PQC on the 5th floor. When the purchasing manager calls to ask about something, she acts as if you owe her NT$2.58 million; she works based on emotion. When R&D needs to modify a mold and asks purchasing whether inventory should be prepared, purchasing always says there is enough. When the mold actually needs to be modified, purchasing then says inventory is insufficient and asks when the modification can be completed, before relentlessly pressuring R&D. It is unbelievable. Purchasing has also never properly prepared inventory, so shortages result in long waiting periods. Eventually, the production control department began to counterbalance the purchasing department, but within a few days the purchasing manager went to become the manager of production control. In other words, she still controls it, so the 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 inventory. Now that the inventory of Lens A has run out, and because Lens A has a high MOQ, purchasing issued an ECR to replace it with Lens B. The R&D manager disagreed, but purchasing directly issued the material to the production line and required the mechanical engineer to modify 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 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, the request 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-major document-control employee listed as a mechanical engineer, or turning a test intern into a test engineer. The purpose is to attract people who want to be called “engineers” to work here. Such strange ideas are extremely unfair to genuine engineers. People bearing the company's “engineer” title have widely varying ability levels, which will cause truly qualified graduating engineers to have their abilities questioned by companies across the industry!

8. The company's MIS department is a complete mess. Whenever there is a computer problem, they tell you to restart the computer. If they cannot solve it, they simply 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 computer specifications are antiquated. The department manager put it nicely by asking us to 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. 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 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 more advanced version, which means that drawing files exchanged within the same company cannot be circulated. Even the systems and part numbers follow different standards, making it look nothing like the same company is operating. The Serbia side also occasionally asks us to change to its coding principles, causing the two sides to argue constantly, after which the matter ultimately goes nowhere.