How many engineers does it take to...

[quasarrgames]

..design a car? or a plane? or a rocket ship?

I know you were probably expecting a joke here.

But seriously, to any engineers out there, what's it really like creativity wise? Could you ever hope to draw the first concepts of a fighter jet, and then in a decade see it really fly? Does each engineer work on a small component of a big project, or do many engineers work on a big part together? Or a combination of the Two? or something else entirely?

CURIOSITY IS MY DRUG

[magnemoe]

Good question, for cars its mostly qualitative upgrades even if en entire new model series, still an lot of work goes into keeping the production cost down.

Another important issue is project timeline, if its long you can use fewer with the same man-hours used.

Know from the oil business its a lot of enginering going on even for smaller projects, no experience outside it.

[peadar1987]

In my experience, relatively little creativity, mostly just applying your knowledge in a systematic way, as part of a small team (which is itself part of a larger team). If you wanted to see your dream turn into reality, you have to put in a slog doing not-so-interesting stuff first.

That was in the nuclear industry, however, which is famously conservative. Other industries are more willing to take risks, and might allow individuals more freedom to innovate and be creative.

[Mazon Del]

It really depends on what you are doing and how long you want to take. I mean, if you are a startup with just you and another person, you can take forever but still build something with a crazy amount of engineering thought put into it. Or it could only take a couple of days. You could be on teams of hundreds and produce something like the Shuttle, or just have found a way to make a slightly better wheel.

[Bill Phil]

It's usually a whole bunch of engineers. Systems and there "V", Mechanical, Structural, etc.

[StrandedonEarth]

*disclaimer* Layman's opinion here.

Things like a car or aircraft would use engineers from different specialties: powerplant, aerodynamics, ergonomics, etc. Each specialty would usually have a team, even if only to doublecheck each other's work. A single engineer could do the work for a relatively small gadget (I'm thinking major appliance or smaller) or small civil/structural project. And as Mazon said, it also depends how quickly you want it done

[Rune]

Yeah... as someone with engineering training, I can tell you it depends on a lot of stuff. It is theoretically possible for a single engineer to design pretty much anything (and end-of-uni projects are usually just that), but in real life the amount of engineers required is more a factor of the budget for the project. In big projects like airliners or cars, meant to be mass-produced, a single engineer might conceive the general outline, but then it's a veritable army that takes care of the details, with teams dedicated to each subsystem (i.e: the engine pylons on an airliner, a friend on mine worked on the A380 ones actually), and then another separate group to actually figure out how to fabricate the parts, then maybe another one to handle integration with the rest of the thing. It can take a lot of people to actually get a screw designed, if someone is willing to pay for it...

And of course, the more man-hours you sink into a project, the more you can bill the client.

Rune. It's a huge difference between, say, the engineering team behind the CST-100, and the one for XCOR's Lynx.

[Bill Phil]

Well....

With modern technology, it isn't unreasonable for a single engineer to design the completed project. The information required to design it could be stored in a large library on a hard drive, accessible very rapidly. This in conjunction with a very advanced CAD program could allow for it to be a one man job, only taking a month counting design analysis with others.

Granted, it's not a very practical thing now, but in a few decades... You'll only need a degree in Systems to design an airliner.

The aesthetic, on the other hand...

[baggers]

Today, engineers don't design car, planes, or rocket ships: theses things already exists.

They design and optimize parts of theses things.

A the time pass, the parts became smaller and more complex, from the "original design", born decades or centuries ago.

That "original design" can have been done by only one man. Before that idea prosper, and became more complex.

Edited October 31, 2015 by baggers

[LN400]

Just a few thoughts. For system designs, from 0 to and army of engineers (if by engineer we mean someone trained as an engineer). IIRC, this gaming gadget, a joystick with inbuilt games was conceived and designed by a single engineer. A large company bought the design and put their own engineers to work on the mass production/market side of things. The Apollo program saw thousands of engineers working in teams for each detail. Individuals had a general idea, then the teams got down to work out the how to-s. I read about the new launch vehiecle, more than a dozen teams just to work on getting to the next milestone in the design. For production design, one can expect a huge army of engineers working for all those contractors. As been said, how many comes down to several things: Budget/time line, complexity, how much needs to be either invented or reinvented, safety concerns (how critical is it to get everything right the first time?), traditions (it can vary between countries or businesses in a given country) and a host of other things I haven't thought of right now.

[linkxsc]

Well it depends. Are you planning on freshly desogning each and every component of what youre making.

Or are you going to desigb a machine around already produced parts. Like a standard engine, transmission, drivetrain and such.

Remember. Engineering takes many forms. And you dont always have to reinvent the wheel.

[magnemoe]

Well it depends. Are you planning on freshly desogning each and every component of what youre making.

Or are you going to desigb a machine around already produced parts. Like a standard engine, transmission, drivetrain and such.

Remember. Engineering takes many forms. And you dont always have to reinvent the wheel.

Depend on the complexity of the task, designing an oil platform takes hundreds of enginers even if all technology is known, and all technology would be known at that point.

Reason is the complexity and the numbers of parts and sub systems having to work together.

Then to cram this into an platform while making sure it can be maintained.

For something mass produced like an car lots of work goes into finding how it can be produced cheaply while lasting long.

Saving 10 minutes while producing the car saves a lot of money.

[NuclearNut]

So, what kind of car? What kind of plane? How much time?

It all depends upon how long, what kind, and a myriad of other factors on how many are needed. You might need but one engineer to design and build a simple electric clock from basic components, but you might need a small army to design all the equipment to make said components. As others have said before, it depends.

[fredinno]

TL;DR THe answer to OP's post: It depends.

[PB666]

Fix an ammonia leak three times on the ISS?

http://news.discovery.com/space/spacewalkers-safe-after-toxic-ammonia-leak-encounter-151106.htm

[Knightfire]

a turkish company (tusas) designing the tf-x fighter jet and some other projects at the moment employs about 10.000 engineers. and they say more will be added to the company. lets assume half of them are working on other projects then the jet itself. this would mean about 5.000 are working on the jet. and the main engine of the jet is excluded. the engine will come more likely from rolls royce. and this company on the other hand will allocate about 500-1000 engineers to the jet or its engine. those also contributed tor the eurofighter jet project...  so all in all we can say that many many are working together to build something like that. a little ant colony is nothing in comparison. and those are only the engineers. there 2 times more who work in other jobs around the project. for instance interpreter. lawyers. marketting team. IT team. and even the cleaning and service guys. their job is also important for caffee etc.