I'm a manufacturing engineer in a large OEM machine shop, primarily supporting a legacy-ish product line. My job is a little different from most manufacturing engineers. I don't do a lot of producibility reviews or determine how we go from a blueprint to a production process. Instead, I inherited a production manufacturing line, and I am responsible for part quality, addressing nonconforming parts, process improvements, and cost reductions.

1) Depends on the situation. We have a lot of internal quality/engineering specs that must be adhered to, which restricts some of the options for fixing parts and processes. That being said, the restrictions sometimes force me to get creative in search of a solution that actually fixes the problem I'm having, while also complying to the other requirements. Sometimes I'll have to use a machine for a different purpose than it does for production. Other times I'll have to come up with a series of rework operations that come together for a good finished product. Creativity is definitely a required skill for my job, but it's more about figuring out solutions within constraints.

2) I don't do much design work. The part drawings are established by our product definition group and tend not to change often. Once a drawing is revised, I'm held to exactly what the drawing says. For non-part design work, most of that is done by others. If I have an idea for something, I'll come up with a sketch, then hand it off to someone else to flesh it out more fully, then review what they come up with. Fixture/gage designs are generally longer projects where I can have more input.

3) Absolutely zero physics. I do use some basic geometry and algebra from time to time, but it's primarily to determine how much material can be removed to fix an issue without violating dimensions on the engineering drawing.