Beyond Inspection
A Chance Entering a New Engineering Environment
In 2024 and 2025, SUA undertook a position of Quality engineer, quickly turned into Project Quality Manager. The challenge was triple: First time deeply involved in the structure of a big, international company, first experience in railway industry and on-site position in a different location. On top of that, the final client of this project is located Northern Europe, a region known for having some of the highest functional and safety requirements in the industry. It broadened our experience while reshaping our view on what quality truly means.
Railway Quality: Low Volumes, High Safety, Long Life Systems
Unlike automotive industry, the volume of units manufactured in a project is very low, usually less than a hundred, and the safety levels is high due to mass transportation characteristics. Together with long life requirements, railway developments require a whole ecosystem of experienced and thoroughly audited sub-suppliers which produce high quality systems later assembled into the final product. Those articles must work together to form a smoothly functional unit, reducing risks by implementing strict controls in every step of the production and ensuring robustness in the whole ensemble.
The Strategic Role of Quality in Complex Engineering Projects
One of the consequences of the high standards in the industry is that the position of quality inspectors and managers become especially critical. The teams in charge must have an extense knowledge of industry specifications and agreed criteria for acceptance of the products. But that is only one side of the project; processes must be optimized to reduce the number and severity of issues introduced in the production and also have to be studied and followed periodically to ensure delivery times and reduced reworks. Over all that, the human factor and the organization are key as quality engineers often support engineering, production and management and have to balance speed with risk assessment.
Control Through Agility, Efficiency and Transparency
With all that in mind, the success of the project is never guaranteed only by increasing the number of inspections, developing more documentation or involving more personnel. The agility in the decision making and change implementation, the efficiency of corrections, the transparency in the communication and the early identification of potential issues not only ensure a steady, high-level quality, but show control over the project to all stakeholders, especially the final client. Focusing on the critical path while minimizing deviations from the established plan by anticipating risks and issues is the most effective way to proceed and the target SUA tried to achieve during the whole residency.
Project Maturity and Resource Allocation
However, as the project enters a maturity stage with higher overall quality and functional and better established control processes, less and less human resources are necessary. This reduction symbolizes the success of previous stages, when resources of methods, engineering and then quality can be reallocated to new projects while the present ones still run smoothly. With our main tasks completed and main targets achieved, our company starts to evolve again towards the assistance to present and new clients for their tooling, component and machinery business in China.
But now, we have all the experience of this period of time regarding project quality, development of documentation, supplier judgement and risk identification. While we keep engineering consulting as our foundational capability and apply the obtained experience to diverse projects, 2026 is the time shift our attention towards the growing trading side of the company.
From Engineering Consulting to a Broader Focus on Integral Solutions
Quality is always present in our day-by-day activities as a long-term goal, trying to deliver excellent products to our clients, being critical with information and processes and ensuring accurate deliveries according to customer requirements.
This project has opened doors and perspective for us, enhancing our experience and boosting our capability of making decisions in complex engineering environments. The daily application of all our knowledge and passion will result in better commercial relationships and new opportunities for challenging projects.
Luis García
Founder and Principal Engineer of SUA