ABSTRACT
Chapter 7 describes manufacturing engineers at the German (GA1), French (FA1), and American (AA1) automotive firms. Differences in the fullness of the roles of manufacturing engineers, the role sharing between manufacturing engineers and technicians, and the use of outsourcing firms between the German, French, American, and the three Japanese automotive firms (J, JA1, JA2) are revealed. The causes of these differences (i.e., embedded social norms/values and views of job segregation/specialization) are examined. The chapter also clarifies that the Japanese, German, French, and American firms share some common characteristics in the human resource management practices of manufacturing engineers: their academic backgrounds, dealing with a low level of student interest in manufacturing engineering jobs, the skill development mainly by on-the-job training and supplementarily by off-the-job training, and job transfers to divisions that are similar or otherwise related to incumbent working divisions. However, the Japanese firms utilize some particular human resource management practices that are not found in their overseas counterparts: the execution of easy production tasks as trainees for a few months just after getting jobs, and little use of a job-bid system.
