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

A company that just coasts along

1. To put it nicely, this company says it 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 does not require machine validation. At your company, I spent only nine days developing a new machine model, completing the 2D/3D drawings, 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 insists on micromanaging. 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-departmental communication. Most importantly, after rushing to complete a new project, the bonus is 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 is cheaper, provided that the PM communicates with all relevant departments before making a decision. Instead, the PM only brings it up when the machine is about to ship. The PM vice president also shifts the blame, claiming 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 approved-sample documentation. The procurement department often switches from Supplier A to Supplier B without notifying anyone. This is not discovered until a serious problem occurs during mass production. Even more absurdly, the mechanical R&D team is held responsible whenever something goes wrong. Basically, everything from the production line on the eighth floor to PQC on the fifth floor is managed by the procurement manager. When the procurement manager calls to ask about something, she acts as though you owe her NT$2.58 million and operates entirely through emotion. 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. It is baffling. Procurement also never maintains adequate inventory, so material shortages result in long waiting periods. The company finally had a production-control department that could counterbalance procurement, but after only a few days, the procurement manager transferred there to become the department manager. In other words, she still controls everything, so the same problems continue to occur.

5. Regarding the same incident mentioned above, which occurred on June 13, 2025: Previously, a design using Lens A was adopted to consume existing inventory. Now that Lens A is out of stock and its MOQ is too high, procurement issued an ECR to replace it with Lens B. The R&D manager did not agree, but procurement directly issued the material to the production line and demanded that the mechanical engineer 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 a request 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 adjustments, the request was rejected outright.

7. Because the company’s HR department cannot find mechanical engineers or part-time testing assistants, it often comes up with bizarre ideas, such as listing non-major document-control staff as mechanical engineers or turning part-time testing assistants into test engineers. The purpose is to attract people who want to be called “engineers” to work there. These strange ideas are extremely unfair to real engineers. People who carry the company’s “engineer” title have widely varying skill levels, which will cause genuinely 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 tell you to restart the computer. If they cannot solve it, they simply reimage the computer. Desktop computers are labeled “Internet access prohibited” by MIS; everyone knows why. In addition, the desktop specifications are antiques. The department manager politely asks us to list the specifications of our current computers, but in reality, the CEO has no intention of upgrading 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 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 Serbia region uses a more advanced software version, which means that drawing files exchanged within the same company cannot be shared properly. Even the systems and part numbers follow different standards, making it seem as though two completely different companies are operating. The Serbia side also occasionally demands that we switch to its coding principles, leading to constant arguments between the two sides. In the end, nothing is resolved.