Expanding our firm.... 13

[pldpe]

Do smaller engineering firms expect the engineers to do their own drafting? I was taught to do my own design/drafting, but my partner wants to hire a CAD operator and have us funnel our drafting to them so we can focus on design. We don't use high horse-power tools like Revit, 2-D AutoCAD is all we need. We are currently a three man firm. Opinions please.

 

[Sparweb]

This all might depend a lot on the nature, discipline, and size, of the projects.

One metric for that is the ratio of drawings you release to an outside customer to drawings released internally within the company.
The value of draftsmanship has been directly proportional to the rate of drawings released to outside customers, IME.
I have worked at a company that released almost 100% of its drawings externally, another 50/50 internal/external, and a third whose drawings were used 100% internally.
The drafting emphasis changed drastically with the change of "customer".

No one believes the theory except the one who developed it. Everyone believes the experiment except the one who ran it.
STF

 

[CWB1]

JAE, I concur. Simply wanted to add a data point and mention that our use of draftsmen isn't limited to simply creating the print. An experienced draftsmen can often be a sanity check for junior engineers and handle many of the same tasks.

 

[StrucDesignPE]

I work in a very small firm that handles a wide range of projects form small residential up to multi-story commercial/office.

We are all engineers and we all do our own drafting. Some are better than others. We just recently started transitioning over to Revit from using only Autocad, but the transition has brought us more work. I think the main benefit of the engineer doing both the design and the drafting is that you become intimately familiar with how the details go together. This helps with not producing "unbuildable" drawings or drawings that work fine on paper. The understanding that generating your own drawings creates IMHO leads to higher quality drawings. As a side note, we have always done our own drafting and therefore, we are very proficient. Maybe not as a proficient as an experienced drafter, but I think the pros outweight the cons.

 

[JAE]

StrucDesignEIT just touched on a good point - the recent surge in BIM designs for buildings has significantly changed how designs are created "on paper".

Autocad is generally a bunch of dumb lines where you can tag some data.
Revit is a database that happens to be able to draw, or model in 3D, its subjects.

In using Revit, the interface between the design, the calculations, the representation of the building, the materials, etc. all come into play very early in the design process.
This is not very adaptable for simple drafting personnel. The "drawings" develop as the design develops. There are interfaces between the Revit model and the analysis software.
None of this works with a drafting person - at least not very well.

Once the mode is completed, I suppose a drafter could then start putting together plans, sections and details, but the engineer is so familiar with it by then that it would be foolish to then turn the model over to a drafter with no understanding of the deaign, the data, and the model.

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[ldeem]

I am a solo operator (structural - mostly heavy industrial) and pretty much every project is unique. I have tried several times to work with drafters but usually find it takes almost as much time for me to explain what to do and then run through several rounds of corrections. The biggest issue may be my end because I design/draft/and engineer at the same time.

Most recently I have found a very experienced and knowledgeable drafter. I have done a few small projects where I start the drawing and then have him finish out by adding sections, detail views and clean up the presentation. While he has kept his end of the work on my side I often make small changes to beam sizes or connection details as I see how the final design is coming together.

I have had more success with doing larger projects in Tekla. I build the 3D model and do the GA's so my client can get bids. I then share the model with some outside detailers and they clean up the model and do the fabrication drawings (E, Assembly and single part). Tekla's model sharing allows me to monitor their progress and make changes as needed.

 

[BUGGAR]

I learned Revit and would love to use BIM on a project but the complexity (and costs) involved in coordinating with the other trades, product version incompatibility, learning curve, subscription evils, etc., I subconsult my BIM work, when required, to others who specialize in it. BIM is supposed to benefit the owner and why shouldn't it be a separate service that "lives" on after the engineering is complete? This is what the BIM salesmen say.

 

[skeletron]

I like having a drafter "clean" up my design drawings and do the reality check on them.

 

[moltenmetal]

It's a division of labour thing. If you're doing computer-aided design, having the engineer do the work is essential. If you're preparing 2D drawings, a drafter can do the work for less money for your client.

As to whether or not you can afford to have a drafter in a 3 person office- I'd imagine that a sub would be a far better option for you at that size because unless that drafter can do other work, they're going to be twiddling their thumbs a lot.