Well, there are a sparse handful of managers who actually do know the equipment. The problem I see here is that the "finish line" is so close and this project is so over schedule and over buget that we've got a lot of corporate oversight by a bunch of bozos. These bozos in question are actually pretty smart, within their own realm of expertise. There are masters of regulatory requirements and procedures. They just don't know how most of the equipment works. Almost anybody can read up, study and memorize how is supposed to work; but there's no replacement for seeing is in action after tearing it down and rebuilding it. The best ones though; they'll hear the problem. Ask for input (starting with the junior guy in the room, there's a reason for that), and make a decision (if I agree with it is irrelevent it's not my neck on the block).
One or two guys have asked us for input and run with it, getting on their phones to either get parts for us or engineering support or whatever we need. I'll do whatever I can for a good manager. They are hard to come by.
I was definitely one of the "office engineers", a PhD *gasp* (though not a manager, so I couldn't do too much damage
). I think that is why I left industry to teach, because strangely enough it was so damned hard to get out of the office and actually get into plants and see the nuts and bolts. I'm now blessed to work at a maritime academy with a lot of great old chief engineers and plant engineers and a great old steam ship to romp around in. Our last cruise I was allowed to do assessments in the engine room which meant a lot to me (meant getting out of the damned classroom, for one).
There are definitely some PhD/manager types that don't know what to do without their laptop computer and an Internet connection, and I hate to be lumped in with that crowd just because of having a PhD. There are also some wrench swingers that can be really hard to work with too. But if you work in a place where everyone can put their pride on the shelf and riff off each other, each teaching the other what they know, that's a pretty awesome place to be.
If you have someone with brains who gets the math and physics and thermodynamics and knows what to do with the hardware, stand back and get that person a cup of coffee. To me that's the classic definition of an engineer. That's what I dream of seeing in our students, and we do put out some students that have this happy mix.