CAD to India 1

[kwb74]

I am more or less getting started and generally I do small jobs here and there that don't conflict with my day job. Usually I do the design and build.

I did one job that has lead to another opportunity.... problem is that as a more or less one man show (wife is also an engineer and can help out) this could be more than I can handle in the timeframe they need the work. This one I wouldn't do the build on and my deliverable would be a set of shop drawings.

Has anyone had good luck with working with some of the offshore CAD services to do detailing work? The price point is tempting even if they take 2x longer than I expect and what they give me is only 1/2 way there for what I would give to client.

Thanks in advance.

 

[MikeHalloran]

I can't imagine it being an effective use of your time, even at a price point of zero.

I have no direct experience with offshore remote collaboration; onshore was bad enough.

I was part of a geographically dispersed team of half a dozen engineers, each working from home within the USA, producing a set of drawings for a small assembly line to be built in the US, then disassembled and moved to Mexico.

The project leader spent most of his time on the phone, trying to keep everyone on the same page about what the line was going to produce, what the fixtures had to do and how they interacted with the product, who was going to draw what part, how each part interfaced with the other parts, and a thousand other strictly nontechnical issues.

I spent way too much time translating drawing files between formats. I was using AutoCAD. Everyone else was using a precursor to whatever Nemetscheck's product is called now. I bought a copy of the PC version, which was crap. Everyone else claimed it worked great on their Macs, but I couldn't get the older version they were using for my PC, despite representations by the scumbag dealer, and many 'improvements' had been made, so version 6 and version 7 really didn't interoperate. I think we ended up mostly exchanging DXF files.

At least we all spoke more or less the same language.





Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[ajack1]

I have personal experience of dealing with sub contract design in India and it has been pretty mixed. There are some very good people out there and their charge out rates is very attractive, at least on the face of it. There are also some pretty “dodgy” companies out there and that are not always very honest and the business ethics are very different to those in the western world.

The only companies I know that make it work successfully basically act as agents and oversee the projects and correct any errors themselves. This is a business model that can work but expect to spend a lot of time and money visiting companies to see they are what they say they are and doing design reviews either in India or via some kind of web link. If you just think you can send all your “problems” to some company the other side of the world and do nothing but rake in the money you will almost certainly be very disappointed.

Personally I would look at trying to build up working relationships with other small one man companies that are mutually beneficial to both in terms of levelling out work flow and in helping with the size of project and even areas of expertise you can offer.

If you find the local companies are too busy to be interested then now is possibly a good time to take the jump and make this your day job, assuming that is your ultimate goal.

 

[IRstuff]

Hypothetically, it should be doable. However, almost no one that I've ever worked for has the discipline to develop sufficiently detailed specs BEFORE starting a design. In variably, Systems Engineering is told that they're wasting time and money, and the design has to start NOW. Invariably, there are tons of "I forgots" and missed, misapplied, mis-specified, or misassumed requirements. These are what lead to lead engineers tearing out their hair, and missed deadlines.

TTFN
faq731-376

 

[JedClampett]

Accounting companies are using Indian accountants as a labor force. My brother's company, a large accounting firm, is doing this now. But you have to travel, keep an eye on things, basically open a branch there and keep it staffed.
I'm not sure as a one man office you're equipped to handle the communications and time difference, even if you've factored in the extra time involved. But some people are doing this successfully, so there must be a way.

 

[tygerdawg]

Nope, nope, and double nope again.

This strategy, unless highly organized & supervised, is just a repeat of the 80's strategy to move everything to Mexico "to take advantage of the lower labor costs." A failed strategy because the bean counters failed to account for the logistics cost of doing this. A more recent example was "have our Canadian Guys do the design, we'll do the build here." Even when the US vs Canada dollar cost was favorable, it didn't work because of logistics.

I had the experience of doing this with India with all the corporate infrastructure in place: paid non-VOIP hardline phone service, video conferencing, file upload/download/transfer facility, direct email addresses of supervisors, corporate "go use those guys" commands aimed at both parties by the Martini-drinkers at 30,000 feet.

Despite all the best intentions and high-quality infrastructure, talent, good-will, and desire on both ends to make it work, it was a roaring train wreck. It simply took too much effort to keep it all on track because it was so easy to get distracted on "other priorities". We could have done the task locally at (ultimately, after all cost penalties due to the inefficiencies) at the same price for a lot less pain.

TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Virtuoso Robotics Engineering

http://www.bluetechnik.com

 

[ilovechickens]

I would say you are a sucker for punishment if you want to do this. Have been there and done that. It is very stressful to do this and managing it is more than a full time job, and then you are very likely to reach your deadline and have nothing to deliver.

Also do not underestimate the extra work required to package up and send work back and forward either.

If you do want to do this you must stay on top of the work at all times and keep things running to a very tight schedule and be 110% clear about the quality of work you expect back. (and then have a system in place to manage what to do when you do not get it).

 

[StoneCold]

You might want to try this site. They might be more what you are interested in. Just as a trial.
Another thing that I have done is called Acad schools. Thier instructors are often looking to do projects between classes on a per hr basis.
They were faster than me and I learned some things along the way.

Regards
StoneCold

 

[MiketheEngineer]

We have had a lot of our product made in both China and India. Took some real work to get the quality right - but once we did - it worked pretty well and their cost was exactly 50% of what we had been paying in the US.

Now these people want TV's, microwaves, phones, houses, toilets, etc. (you think) and the price has creeped up to about 75%. With the time and cost of shipping - it is not even that good. We are slowly bringing some items back to the USA!!

Remember Japan after WWII = everything was CHEAP. Now they enjoy a standard of living at least as good as ours and their prices reflect it!!

You get what you pay for..... and I didn't make that up!!!

 

[brandonbw]

I have been getting emails pretty frequently from offshoring companies, mainly from India. I take a look at their samples and so far haven't seen anything that I like. An old company I worked for was about to take on a huge worlkload and started looking at the Philippines. The owners were less than impressed with what they saw as well. I would be hesitant to outsource. Have you tried looking on Craigslist?

B+W Engineering and Design
Los Angeles Civil Engineer and Structural Engineer

http://bwengr.com

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http://bwstructuralengineer.com

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http://bwcivilengineer.com

 

[GregLocock]

I was in a directly similar situation a few years back and thought i'd give it a go. What I needed was for a spaceframe made of various sizes of tubes and square sections to be drawn up in 3d, between defined intersection points, and then presented as 3 views. Weld details etc were not required. That is to say, about 4 hours rather dull work with no engineering content at all (which is why I didn't want to do it myself).

So I put everything together in a package, including an example, and contacted a variety of on-line CAD guys in India (can't remember how).

Time estimates varied from ten hours to 40 hours. Costs were all far less than 4 times my hourly rate.

But not a single one could or would do the small sample piece I sent out without me giving specific instructions including how to use their software.

So I did it myself.

Having said that my entire day job consists of working with engineers, managers and CAD guys all around the world, so it CAN be done. Whether that really is cost effective I don't know.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

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[NTME76249]

Every thing our company has outsourced has been useless that i can see. But it is even more useless when upper management sees a worthless drawing and thinks it is faster to fix it than redraw it the right way. I would avoid it if you can. If you have to though you need to have a detailed plan of how you want it and in what format. you don't pay unless they produce it the right way. I'm not sure it will go over to well but it is the best way to go in my opinion.

Michael McMillan

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/michael-mcmillan/53/375/52b

http://cadtechie.blogspot.com/

 

[looslib]

At a former company, we tried sending some deigns to India to have them finished, drawings created, etc. The company even had an India office with employees, handled like an outsource, but our own people. The work was quoated for about 2x the estimate of hours for us to do the job in the USA, but the hourly rate made the package about 1/2 the cost. We were using the same CAD software and we had developed custom routines to add attributes to the CAD files. The custom code was sent to Indi with instructions of how to install it and use it. When the files came back, they had not bothered to use the custom software so we had to redo all the drawing format data with the attribute driven data. That put a stop to sending packages to India for a while. Since the engineers in India were company employees, management decided to bring them to the US for a six-month working period to learn how we wanted things done and then they would go baack and hopefully do it right. We did have better success after that with sending work to India.


"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli

 

[behindpropellers]

At a former company, we tried sending some deigns to India to have them finished, drawings created, etc. The company even had an India office with employees, handled like an outsource, but our own people. The work was quoated for about 2x the estimate of hours for us to do the job in the USA, but the hourly rate made the package about 1/2 the cost. We were using the same CAD software and we had developed custom routines to add attributes to the CAD files. The custom code was sent to Indi with instructions of how to install it and use it. When the files came back, they had not bothered to use the custom software so we had to redo all the drawing format data with the attribute driven data. That put a stop to sending packages to India for a while. Since the engineers in India were company employees, management decided to bring them to the US for a six-month working period to learn how we wanted things done and then they would go baack and hopefully do it right. We did have better success after that with sending work to India.

Genius. And we wonder why we fall behind!

 

[JedClampett]

looslib, what did your company define as better success? Did you meet the goal of 1/2 the cost? Just curious.
Sometimes the management types are resistant to admit failure, so they redefine success.

 

[brandonbw]

Looslib: Sounds like in the long run that should save your company money. Was that the end result?

I don't want to just say no to outsourcing and am still curious about doing this to give me more time finding new clients.

B+W Engineering and Design
Los Angeles Civil Engineer and Structural Engineer

http://bwengr.com

|

http://bwstructuralengineer.com

|

http://bwcivilengineer.com