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I am a female graduate with a master’s degree from a 211 university, and I have been working for 6 years. Right after graduating, I joined a decent environmental engineering company; it has since been acquired by a central state-owned enterprise. During my first year there, I was mainly doing miscellaneous tasks, working on processes and pipelines, but I got exposure to PDMS 3D software and became fairly proficient in using it. A year later, I changed jobs and went to a Fortune 500 multinational company to work in design; there I was also involved in process work and piping tasks. My role in process-related tasks mainly involved drawing PID diagrams and specifying some simple conditions, with little involvement in actual calculations ; The pipes go a bit deeper; foreign companies are quite thorough when it comes to piping design requirements. I have also worked with many design software tools such as SmartPlantPID, PDS, AutoPlant3D, etc., but PDMS is the one I use most proficiently. A year and a half later, I faced the challenge of getting married in a different city; after much consideration, I resigned from my job and went to a branch of a provincial hospital (in my husband’s city), which is where I work today. Since the design office is relatively small, CAD is used for piping design, and there is a shortage of personnel skilled in 3D piping design. Together with another new colleague, I worked to develop 3D piping design capabilities in the branch office. Later, because a project owner specified the use of PDMS software for design, I had to learn PDMS database management on my own. Currently, I am able to create and maintain databases independently for four projects, and everything is going fairly well. I have been working at this unit for 3 and a half years now, focusing on piping work and database management. As we all know, piping work is quite complicated, and it’s considered a low-status task; moreover, there is always pressure to complete the related drawings quickly. Everyone from higher-ups down considers piping work to be something simple, yet it’s a job that requires effort with little recognition. For a small project, working in one workshop can take 4 or 5 months; for larger projects, it takes almost a year, with no time for rest in between. The company doesn’t pay much attention to databases either; we had to build them from scratch, creating all the components and settings one by one, which took a lot of time. The managers kept pressing us, thinking that such tasks could be completed quickly. I feel like I’ve reached a bottleneck – my position in the piping department isn’t high, the work is exhausting, and the compensation is average. I want to work in process engineering, but the company doesn’t have any process packages; there’s little need for calculations, and at most one can work in the field of process system engineering. However, in the two years after I graduated I was still involved in process work; it’s been about 4 years since I’ve worked in that field again. I’m worried that my skills might have declined, but I think process engineering is a higher-level field – the work isn’t as time-sensitive as pipeline work, and it’s not as exhausting either; at least the status associated with it is higher. I was wondering if any of you experts have any good suggestions? Please help me find a clear path!
It’s clear you’re already quite skilled in piping work; it would be better for you to take on roles as a verifier and auditor, allowing the designers to handle the details. As for processes and pipelines, it goes without saying that processes should be chosen; working on pipelines is extremely frustrating. However, processes carry greater responsibility – if the requirements aren’t clearly defined or properly specified, modifications will be necessary, and it’s easy for other departments downstream to cause problems
To be honest, it’s fine to delve deep into and become proficient in any field; the key is to rely on oneself and to choose the type of work that one prefers, then work hard at it. Once one has acquired the necessary skills, they can go anywhere.
To demonstrate one’s value, gold buried in the soil will never shine.
It’s best to fabricate the pipes along with the process equipment!
In small design institutes, aren’t the process design and piping work done together?