Are you the engineer and the drafter? 3

[upjengnr04]

For those of you who work as a one man team or for very small firms (in particular structural guys/gals), do you perform CAD drafting for your work or do you sub that out? Or maybe you don't use CAD at all?

Just curious as to your approach. I have previously worked for a large firm and had dedicated drafters for our projects. There were not many opportunities to learn CAD as it relates to project documents so there was a lot of "on your own" learning that had to be done if you wanted to learn.

Thanks.

 

[AELLC]

Lofting - that is correct. There were control points set up with some sort of surveying instrument. I only did that for a couple of weeks when I was on loan. At least it was easier on my eyes.

LOL - I just remembered all the nail polish to correct mistakes on that stuff. The modern CAAD jocks have no idea.

 

[kylesito]

beej67...I think you just described both structural and land development perfectly. I have done both and the workflow is the same in each discipline.

PE, SE
Eastern United States

"If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills its owner, then that builder shall be put to death!"
~Code of Hammurabi

 

[upjengnr04]

I did not expect such a big response to my question! Good to hear the different experiences and points of views.

Thanks!

 

[beej67]

beej67 - brilliant

Thanks.

But the truth is that there's only certain people who can do both drafting and design. The older engineers who can't type or do CAD are still holding on to the ghost of mylar drafting. (see above) And there's quite a few younger engineers who's collegiate programs unfortunately no longer teach or stress drafting principles at all, so they're largely useless as well. And larger firms since the 08 crash have decided they don't want to train any Millenials in how to do work, they just want to hire people who know what they're doing straight out of the box because they were so easy to find during the Great Recession.

So you've got this gap in talent now, where few people can fill the role that meets the best efficiency, and honestly the people who do fill that role well aren't properly compensated for their talents because they're being hired by Old Farts who don't understand the value of an engineer who can also draft.

In my (very humble and possibly wrong) opinion, the business of modern engineering is moving backwards in some ways.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[AELLC]

I am an old fart, but I did complete a sheet of structural details by CAAD. But it took me a week, and I hated it so much because it was a struggle to draw every lime.

 

[AELLC]

^^^line^^^

 

[JohnRBaker]

I'm an 'old fart' as well (am already drawing two previously fully-vested defined-benefit pensions which had a use-it-or-lose-it provision when I turned 65 a while back) but I was what you could call a CAD pioneer. One of those companies whose pensions I'm now collecting first invested in CAD/CAM back in 1977. And when I say CAD/CAM I mean exactly that, we used both CAD to design our manufactured parts and then used the integrated CAM software to generate the NC toolpathes which were then loaded into the NC machine tools and the parts were milled, drilled, turned, punched, burned, whatever the case might be. Note that these were parts for mechanical type products, in my case, capital machinery for the food and chemical processing industry.

Granted, not everyone has the opportunity nor even the desire to be a 'pioneer' (someone once described a 'pioneer' as "a guy lying face down in the dirt with arrows in his back" and there were times when it felt like that) but in my case it also provided a totally new career option for me. If you're lucky and you do get involved early-on with something that does take-off bigtime, as happened with CAD/CAE/CAM, at least in some industry segments, this can open some doors for you that were never even imagined when you were back in school looking ahead to what your longterm career prospects might be. So after using this new technology for three years, I was given the chance to join this new and growing industry, which I took and never looked back.

I guess the point that I was making is that for some of us, it's now hard to even imagine ourselves being in a situation where the question posed by the OP would even be relevant or with respect to the later thread where the debate about how this would be impacted by CAD can be read. Granted, there are differences, as has been previously pointed out, between how engineers work and what their roles are and how the interact with the tools available, such as CAD, depending on what industry segment you were trained for or where you happen to actually find yourself. Anyway, I hope that the view offered by the few 'mechanical' practitioners here have not confused anyone or that our opinions were seen as totally inappropriate.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[AELLC]

I respect the concept of CAD immensely.

However, when it is used to generate engineering calculations at the hands of a non-engineer, then I despise it.

 

[JohnRBaker]

I agree 100%. CAD is like many other so-called 'automation' tools in that is can amplify the abilities of the person using them. Therefore you need to ask yourself, "who do I wish to 'amplify' in my organization", the entry-level guy who does not yet know the in's and out's of your business, or the fully qualified engineer who can already solve the problem with pencil and paper but who I need to be able to get jobs done faster and more consistently? This was a classic problem back when CAD was first being introduced and many people thought that they could use it to gain another 'engineer' without wasting the time of someone who acould lready do the job.

In fact this happened where I worked when we got our first CAD system. It was to be shared by three departments, one of which was the manufacturing group and since they had already been using a language-based CAM system they knew exactly what to do and they already had people who understood this albeit newer technology so their choice as who to train was a no-brainer. However, the other two department, Chemical Machinery and Food Engineering, this was all new stuff to them. In the case of Chemical Machinery the two people they were to send to that first series of classes was their chief mathematician who had been developing FORTRAN-based analysis programs and second, one of their young draftsmen. In the case of Food Engineering, where I worked, my boss was totally befuddled by what this technology could even do (he had been left out of the decision to purchase the system, but was still expected to pick-up 1/3 the cost) so he decides that he would send two of his mid-level graduate engineers, one electrical and one mechanical (me), both of whom had had close to 10 years experience. The boss figured that between the two of us we could at least be able to see where this system could be used to do the most good since we understand pretty much all our products and procedures. Well it was a fortuitous choice since a year later we were so far ahead of where the chemical guys were with them simply making drawings and trying to use a system that was not yet where it needed to be for real-world analysis (remember we were running 3 seats of software on a 16-bit CPU with 128K of memory). While we looked at all of our different jobs and identified those that could utilize the software as is and then took the programming tools provided and customized the rest of the system to do what we needed for our specialized tasks.

That was why, after seeing what we were able to accomplish is just a few short years, I took that opportunity to move to the CAD vendor since I could see where the potential was for this technology in the future.

Yes, like any tool, when put the hands of a 'craftsman', it's amazing what can be done with it. But put it in the hands of someone who does not know what's what, it can be at best, a waste of money, and at worse, a disaster in the making.

The manufacturing industry learned that one the hard way as well when NC (Numerically Controlled) machinetools started to be installed in machine shops. Companies assumed that they would no longer need trained tool & die makers that they could hire anyone off the street and teach them to simply load the punched-tape into the machine and hit the 'Start' button and sit back and watch the machine do all the work. It took years to undo that mistake, but not before it all but destroyed the master/journeyman/apprentice system in this and other countries.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[AELLC]

I was looking at the issue from the viewpoint of a structural engineer - what we do can easily kill one ore more people when mistake is made.

I find it outrageous when companies use non-engineers (meaning totally non-degreed people) to draw up a CAAD plan that translates into engineering calc. One small stupid mistake could cause the engineering software to totally do a GIGO operation.

This opinion also applies to the prefab truss design industry, which I think is a joke.

 

[IRstuff]

Well, that trend is everywhere; just ask a doctor what they think of nurse practitioners.

TTFN
faq731-376

Need help writing a question or understanding a reply? forum1529

 

[SNORGY]

I do not do my own CADD. It is a skill set that I never developed.
I do, however, agree that engineers who CAN do their own CADD drawings are better engineers than those who cannot (assuming they can do them correctly, that is).
I would at least like to do my own PFD / P&IDs rather than face the constant recycle of "hand mark-up, submit, backdraft, review, correct, resubmit" that drives the "drafting man-hours" to, typically, three times the "engineering man hours" that is plaguing and killing the credibility of those, like myself, who work in EPC. What is a client supposed to think when they spend $60 K for ten relatively straightforward P&IDs that average two errors per drawing? I'd be mad, too.
Somewhere, there has to be a right balance between minimizing the role of the "designer" (CADD person) to the point where you say, "Copy exactly what you see. If you see Mickey Mouse, draw Mickey Mouse, not Donald Duck." and where the designer says, "I have no idea why you drew a valve there, so I took it out because I don't think you need it.".
The only option to me for the past 30 years has been to make sure that my hand mark-ups going to the designer are such that, if they were merely copied or even photocopied, the design would be correctly communicated and technically correct, i.e., leave nothing to interpretation by the person at the CADD station. But that's old school thinking.
Part of the problem is that a lot of us older folks graduated from university before computers were available, so we were computer-illiterate, let alone CADD illiterate, when we entered the workforce and were expected to "produce".
Gone are the days when "the guy at the drafting board" could actually lay something out once, revise it once, and have the engineer stamp and issue it. The proliferation of CADD and CADD-based designers since 1983 has actually increased net INEFFICIENCY by an amount measured in orders of magnitude, rather than mere percentage. Computers have replaced talent and experience: - poorly. Meanwhile, software developers have inflated the costs of their design software such as to put it out of reach of smaller businesses, thereby perpetuating the "good tools are only for the wealthy" mentality.
Not sure what the answer is, but if it's to have engineers doing their own drawings, it starts with making CADD part of the core curriculum in universities, not just trade schools.

 

[AELLC]

IR,

Ask me what I think of 90% of Doctors, and it will be unprintable. Whole different dynamic than about Engineers.

 

[AELLC]

"I do, however, agree that engineers who CAN do their own CADD drawings are better engineers than those who cannot (assuming they can do them correctly, that is)".

I agree to disagree with the above statement. Again, different situations, different types of engineereing, diff strokes for diff folks.

 

[SNORGY]

[N+1] > N where N > 0 and N = Number Of Skills Possessed By An Engineer

[N+1] = N = 0 <-- MBA Contradiction

 

[IRstuff]

"Gone are the days when "the guy at the drafting board" could actually lay something out once, revise it once, and have the engineer stamp and issue it. The proliferation of CADD and CADD-based designers since 1983 has actually increased net INEFFICIENCY by an amount measured in orders of magnitude, rather than mere percentage. Computers have replaced talent and experience: - poorly. Meanwhile, software developers have inflated the costs of their design software such as to put it out of reach of smaller businesses, thereby perpetuating the "good tools are only for the wealthy" mentality.
Not sure what the answer is, but if it's to have engineers doing their own drawings, it starts with making CADD part of the core curriculum in universities, not just trade schools."

I don't think it's that cut and dried. Designs are substantially more complicated; timelines are substantially more compressed; customers are substantially more complicated; environments are substantially more complicated. The proliferation of CAD has resulted in the ability to do things like FEA and CFD, which could not have been easily done to a paper drawing. What one sees as inefficient "churn" is a result of finding out things that would have never been found until a product was fielded and things started to fail. Coupled with inefficient problem reporting, errors would not necessarily rise to the level of visibility to anyone but a singular customer. The 1974 Camaro Z28 was difficult to maintain, with spark plugs pointing down, and the last spark plug on the driver side almost inaccessible with a socket wrench. This is something that would be painfully obvious in a CAD system, assuming the designer actually got time to look for things like that. Aerodynamically, the Z28 would have had an entire coterie of clay models run through a wind tunnel before its design would have been signed off.

There are many buildings and planes that could not have been designed using drafting board era practices. The F18 E/F is aerodynamically unstable with only its mission computer preventing total disaster; this is something that could not have been contemplated with a drafting board design. Taipei 101 and its tuned mass damper system could not have been designed nor contemplated in a drafting board environment.

TTFN
faq731-376

Need help writing a question or understanding a reply? forum1529

 

[AELLC]

"Meanwhile, software developers have inflated the costs of their design software such as to put it out of reach of smaller businesses, thereby perpetuating the "good tools are only for the wealthy" mentality."

That one is easy, one word.

Excel.

 

[CELinOttawa]

@SNORGY: Love your math!

 

[drawoh]

There is an important issue with CAD, particularly for mechanical design. Back in the day, drafting was a mechanical skill. You had to do good line work. You had to be neat, and you needed really good lettering. It was logical that the drafter was a skilled tradesman who did not necessarily have engineering skills.

Modern 3D[&nbsp;]CAD is a design tool. If someone cannot be trusted to make design decisions, they have no business sitting in front of it. I suspect that most 3D[&nbsp;]CAD problems come from non-design qualified people trying to operate it.

In architectural and structural design, the process may be different.

--
JHG

 

[AELLC]

OK, I have new theory to promote.

There is one situation, such as site engineering or designing an electro-mechanical device of much complexity, where there is a clear advantage that the engineer is do the drafting - he/she is making decisions that involve fitting components together, while preserving the function in a way that only an Engineer can comprehend. Easy enough to comprehend. Especially when the drafting is unable to produce drawings correctly the first time, and requires a lot of "re-works" - that endless cycle of re-check, back-check, that drives us starkers.

Then there is the structural engineering situation - I am postulating that, if I do 20 hrs of drafting and 20 hrs of engineering each week, I will be much less an Engineer in years to come than if I was doing 40 hrs of engineering/wk.