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The differences between manufacturing consultants and senior manufacturing engineers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 2-4 years to become a manufacturing consultant, becoming a senior manufacturing engineer takes usually requires 1-2 years. Additionally, a senior manufacturing engineer has an average salary of $93,853, which is higher than the $86,698 average annual salary of a manufacturing consultant.
The top three skills for a manufacturing consultant include business process, enterprise resource planning and gap analysis. The most important skills for a senior manufacturing engineer are lean manufacturing, continuous improvement, and sigma.
| Manufacturing Consultant | Senior Manufacturing Engineer | |
| Yearly salary | $86,698 | $93,853 |
| Hourly rate | $41.68 | $45.12 |
| Growth rate | 10% | 10% |
| Number of jobs | 40,993 | 97,154 |
| Job satisfaction | 5 | 4 |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 68% | Bachelor's Degree, 73% |
| Average age | 42 | 43 |
| Years of experience | 4 | 2 |
Manufacturing Consultants play an essential role in a company through their outside expertise and experience. They provide solutions and implement actions during the product development process and establish the infrastructure needed for manufacturing. Their duties typically include creating specifications for various components and assembly steps, determining production benchmarks, and optimizing manufacturing efficiency, reliability, and throughput. They are also responsible for providing support in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) development and training and formulating lean manufacturing methods.
A Senior Manufacturing Engineer works in a company's production operations and is responsible for developing and improving manufacturing processes. They analyze and propose solutions to engineering problems.
Manufacturing consultants and senior manufacturing engineers have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Manufacturing Consultant | Senior Manufacturing Engineer | |
| Average salary | $86,698 | $93,853 |
| Salary range | Between $55,000 And $135,000 | Between $71,000 And $123,000 |
| Highest paying City | San Francisco, CA | San Francisco, CA |
| Highest paying state | California | California |
| Best paying company | Intel | |
| Best paying industry | Technology | Automotive |
There are a few differences between a manufacturing consultant and a senior manufacturing engineer in terms of educational background:
| Manufacturing Consultant | Senior Manufacturing Engineer | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 68% | Bachelor's Degree, 73% |
| Most common major | Business | Mechanical Engineering |
| Most common college | New York University | Northwestern University |
Here are the differences between manufacturing consultants' and senior manufacturing engineers' demographics:
| Manufacturing Consultant | Senior Manufacturing Engineer | |
| Average age | 42 | 43 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 89.1% Female, 10.9% | Male, 92.6% Female, 7.4% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 4.8% Unknown, 4.0% Hispanic or Latino, 11.7% Asian, 11.6% White, 67.8% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2% | Black or African American, 4.2% Unknown, 4.7% Hispanic or Latino, 10.6% Asian, 17.1% White, 63.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3% |
| LGBT Percentage | 4% | 5% |