Creativity

Engineering is a field of innovation. Mechanical engineers develop new equipment and products used by customers to optimize production or improve their work processes. Creativity is an essential part of developing or improving devices so they are of good quality, meet space or weight limitations and achieve the cost objectives of customers. Much of the development process involves brainstorming new ideas and testing them through trial and error.

Problem-Solving

Mechanical engineers are, above all else, problem solvers. They use math skills and analytical abilities to spot problems and resolve them. This is important in the development process so you can ensure that the devices you create do what clients need them to do. It is also important when you are called on to repair problems with existing devices. For example, you might have to recalibrate testing equipment, fine-tune specifications or adjust materials used in production to get the desired results.

Communication

Though engineering is often viewed in purely technical terms, you must also have strong communication skills to meet the needs of clients and other stakeholders. In an engineering firm, you must listen effectively to managers to understand their directions and carry them out properly. You must also articulate the progress of a project and provide accurate information on any issues that crop up. If you work independently, or interact with clients, you need to understand client requirements, ask appropriate questions, and provide updates as you work toward development and production goals. In a supervisory position you might also lead a team that helps with research and design, so you must be able to communicate the goals of the project.

Design is the creation of a plan or convention for the construction of an object, system or measurable human interaction (as in architectural blueprints, engineering drawings, business processes, circuit diagrams, and sewing patterns). Design has different connotations in different fields (see design disciplines below). In some cases, the direct construction of an object (as in pottery, engineering, management, coding, and graphic design) is also considered to be design.

Designing often necessitates considering the aesthetic, functional, economic and sociopolitical dimensions of both the design object and design process. It may involve considerable research, thought, modeling, interactive adjustment, and re-design. Meanwhile, diverse kinds of objects may be designed, including clothing, graphical user interfaces, skyscrapers, corporate identities, business processes, and even methods of designing.

Thus "design" may be a substantive referring to a categorical abstraction of a created thing or things (the design of something), or a verb for the process of creation, as is made clear by grammatical context.