I'm starting work with a Paper Mill Industry soon. It involves maintenance of machines and other machineries. I'm well aware it involves some hands on jobs, where conditions is not as comfortable and clean as the RnD/Tooling/Manufacturing scopes. I'm wondering if i were to plan to switch, how tough is it to switch to RnD, say about in 2years time from the maintenance scope? Indeed the RnD has better job prospects and opportunities in job hopping.

This post has been edited by kucingfight: May 22 2006, 03:33 AM

well, from my friend's experience, if you work long enough to know the machines inside out, you can even start your own maintenance company. R&D involves getting to know things before it is available, need a bit of imagination etc. if you have those, i don't see why you won't get a job in R&D

Personally, I think it's not easy to jump from Maintenance to R&D. If you want to make this shift within the same company, perhaps it would be better for you to try to job rotate to Process/Engrg then later to R&D.

I don't think you can shift from Maintainence to R&D. Instead, you can shift from R&D to Maintainence. If you are unsure about your future interests, why not taking up R&D at first then see how far you can go ?

It's all down to your goal of your life actually. It's doesn't means that if you got creativity, then you MUST go for R&D. But to be involved in R&D, i Believe you do a lot of creativity and imagination.

Hey, I was wondering what is your interest? Is it to be in the R&D or to be in the harsh environment of the maintenance division. If you are in the maintenance, the skills you will gain willl be the technical skills be it repairing/ maintaining mechanical, CNC or any automated machines. As the skills you acquire is more to hands-on, it doesn't help much in switching you to the R&D department. But then, I think its great if you can talk to your hiring manager and enquire about this. It shows you are interested in contributing to the company.