I realize they are primarily doctors of engineering, but why does MB/DAG make such a big thing out of placing doctors in high level management positions? Do other German companies do it? Do American and Asian companies have so many doctors in high level management, board membership, etc.? Does it exclude a lot of well qualified people from management and decision making positions because they don't have the title?
I do understand that it tends to emphasize engineering, but there are a lot of excellent engineers who do not have PhD's.
Just curious.

 

As I understand it, Dr is a title that is afforded to many advanced degrees, not necessarily the PhD level that we use, nor is it limited to engineering.
40 year old info, so things may have changed since then.

 

That is a European thing - you have to remember until recently they did not have the Bachelor/Master system from the U.S. You go straight from high school (Gymnasium) to University and then you get your degree. It is very prestigious to get your Dr. Title afterwards. If you want to be successful you work on your doctoral thesis and get your Dr. Title. So prestigious that some people even buy them....In fact, even if you are a Medical Doctor you cannot call yourself Doctor in front of you name unless you have the title.

 

Don't more letters before/after one's name mean they're better at their job? Bahahahahahahahahah. Sorry, spent too much time around Universities.

B.S. = Bull s---
M.S. = More s----
PhD = Piled High and Deep in S----

At least that's what my grad school advisor told me the letter stood for.

 

Had a university prof (Ph.D.) tell me it stood for Piled Higher and Deeper. Guess you had to consider the MS and BS as to what was higher and deeper.
Regardless, does MB/DAG have too many specialized "doctors" and not enough practical, more real world people in senior positions?

 

Don't know what you mean by the "European thing"? Every country has their own school system. I don't know the German one but I think it is quite good.


Almost everyone on a high position having a Dr. title in German company may be something that is not really a Doctor degree but I'm not sure.


It is very true though, that in Germany in most companies, especially in companies that manufacture something, the biggest boss comes thru the ranks (not necessarily in the same company) and you can be sure he knows the business he is running. This is the key for success, i.e. keep the bean counters with their MBAs away from the most important position where sometimes the bean counting does not bring the best decision making.


The boss running the show needs to understand every step of the business he guides and this is how German companies in general work. And it works well too. It is the country at the moment keeping the whole Europe up. As a good example their car industry never was in big trouble like almost everywhere outside far east makers.

 

I have a PhD in Chemistry (Bio-Organic) and work in Pharmaceutical R&D. Pretty much a working degree in a scientific discipline such as chem, physics, bio. (I didn't get this degree to teach) I'm American and don't use the Dr. title, but my foreign colleagues working overseas do frequently.

Also generalizing, Engineers have traditionally been BS and MS working in the field or industry (a PE - Professional Engineering title is a big deal) while Engineering PhD are Academic (This may be changing or different outside the USA and please Engineers chime in).

Take a look at the TV show Big Bang Theory: the physicist (Sheldon, Raj, Leonard) have PhD, as do the Biologist (Amy, Bernadette) while the Engineer Howard has a Masters.

I expect the division heads of any major company to have appropriate higher education in their field (PhD, MD, JD, MBA) along with a strong record of achievement.

 

El Cid: You do bring up an interesting point -- The difference between the theoretical thinkers and the practical thinkers. German cars traditionally have been thought of as over-engineered. I always thought this was due to German culture, but maybe it's due to the hierarchy and advanced degrees held by those in leadership positions.

Flip through the service manual for a Japanese car vs. German car and the differences are staggering, in particular the amount of thought put into things. I remember reading through some of the WIS docs on the W212 when I was looking for info on ECO Start/Stop. Just the amount of detail and thought put into the car's normal battery management (ignoring the Eco Start/Stop parts) is amazing. IIRC it took up about 6 printed pages. For the shop manuals for an Infiniti, the same section was about a paragraph, as the car didn't care about battery status other than to light the idiot light on the dash and a low-voltage cutout for the seat heaters.

As to if more advanced-degree'd people build a better car, that's debatable and depends on your definition of better. Certainly, the advanced degree'd people bring us Distronic Plus and other neat pieces of tech. BUT, in terms of reliability, the more complex a car is, the more opportunities for failure. These same people also dream up systems like Sensotronic.

I guess I'm pessimistic from cleaning up the messes left by PhDs and others, so degrees don't impress me much. I'll take someone with field experience over education just about every day. Many of my jobs over the years involved re-engineering devices and systems to be more usable and more reliable. Often this meant simplifying the setup and removing unnecessary parts. Often I see newer technologies implemented when the old tried & true would be more reliable and may even cost less. I'll also admit to having built a few Rube-Goldberg solutions myself over the years.

When it comes to a Mercedes, I strongly believe it's allowing the engineers to design things without focusing on practicality or cost is what makes it a Mercedes and gives these cars the soul and quirkiness that we've come to love. Otherwise we'd go buy Lexus, Honda, or some other boring, soul-less car.

 

Personally I'm not sure over-enginneering is such a good thing. Check out the thread on DIY changing cabin filter. For decades American and Asian cars have included it in owners' manuals as a DIY project. Takes one or no tools and accomplished in 10 minutes.
Some of the biggest failures in automobile industry historically have been those companies that were created and run by engineers.
Engineers are needed and I value what they have done to make cars better and safer, but seems sometimes the technology could be more practical. Or maybe more developed and proven before placed into cars being sold.
No company is going to be successful without marketing, financial, personnel and other professionals. The purpose of a company is not to build cars, but to sell cars.
As with any profession, also tend to run into people that think "I created it, therefore it is perfect." Or "I'm the doctor, so I know what is best."

 

There's an old saying in industry: "Sometimes to get the product out the door, you have to shoot the engineer."

Regards,
Don

 

El Cid: Repairability is a whole other discussion. It's an issue I used to deal with daily and it was immediately apparent who designed their equipment to be worked on & who designed it to be replaced. For the latter, I usually replaced it with a competitor's more-repairable piece when it failed.

To me the biggest automotive repairability gripe I hit was on the Chrysler cloud cars, where accessing the battery required jacking up the car, removing the driver's side tire, removing the air cleaner, and a bunch of other parts. Not too dissimilar from the 2.5 hrs it takes to replace a headlight bulb on my M45.

dfordham: Amen. Same goes for architects, mechanical engineers, etc.