Quality of Structural Drafting Work 6

[Atomic25]

If you have technical structural drafstmen working for/with you, what type of quality work are they putting out? aka, how much hand holding do you have to do to get a set of drawings out that are understandable and free of a dimensional nightmare? I'm trying to gauge whether or not I'm expecting too much.

I recently changed jobs and I'm shocked to find so many problems with the sets these guys are putting together. They require the engineers to basically babysit the draftsmen. Should I really have to go through the set and make sure dimensions are snapped to column grid lines? Spelling errors galore are corrected? Section cuts and detail markers easy to follow? I'm almost thinking of leaving this company because of the liability to my PE license. They just had a $30,000 claim (not on my license thank god) because they couldn't get an elementary steel dimension correct.

Any words of wisdom are welcome.

 

[WpgKarl]

I would say the big problem here is a lack of experience plain and simple. By that I mean that in the 1950's and 1960's architects and engineers worked in the same office, drawings were done by hand and there was succession planning - Senior guy training an intermediate guy, training a junior guy. Much like learning a trade like masonry, the trade of doing proper drawings has not been handed down very well.

When the recession hit hard in the early 1980's companies held onto their senior guys, and ditched the intermediate and junior guys. Now we have a huge gap between engineers like me with 10+ years of experience and say guys with 20 or 30 years experience - they are few and far between. (Thank goodness for this site!)

Now with Acad and computers there are a lot of drafting staff who can click buttons and change things faster than ever, but the drawings don't tell you anything. Some cut a million sections and blow-up details that have no useful info on them. Others don't even put on gridlines or any dimensions - the "art" of doing an "efficient" and high quality set of drawings is mostly lost.

In addition, a lot of time and money is wasted by rushing drawings out the door that are poorly done - if archs + engs spent time coordinating their dwgs before they went out the door projects would come in on budget and with less delays and confusion - now if we could just sell that idea to the owners, who probably think they are getting what they should.

 

[jike]

Atomic25: You are very perceptive to realize that the quality of work by others may affect your liability directly! Beware that decisions or actions by the architect, architectural drafters, the plumbing designers, building mechanical, etc. can also affect your liability.

I have worked with drafters of all different abilities over the years. The most enjoyable are the ones who are willing to take responsibility for their work as well as the ones who may be less experienced but continue to strive to know more and take on more. My least favorite are the ones who are proud beyond their ability, think they know everything, don't ask questions and just put in their time and expect you to catch all of their errors. Unfortunately, you will find both types of people in all professions. I have found similar problems with architects, engineers and contractors.

I try to adjust the way I work with the particular type of person that I am working with. I also try to keep an eye on the other disciplines so that they don't do something that directly affects me. This is hard to do until you learn what some of the pitfalls are. Just a few of the things from other disciplines that can directly affect your liability are: lack of scuppers or overflow drains, using controlled flow roof drains, improper masonry detailing, changes late in the game, changing drywall partitions to masonry partitions on supported floors, plumbing under or thru column footings, parallel plumbing lines too close to footings, arrangement of openings thru floors, improper dimensioning from architectural, structurally significant changes with no notification/communication, fire rating of walls and structures, change of structural material provided in the field with no consultation of engineer, etc.

I find that the lowest liability firms are the ones who do the same buildings over and over and conversely the highest liability firms are the ones who are constantly doing different buildings and pushing the envelope so to speak. Unfortunately, the most challenging work is the later and this is where the highest exposure normally is.

Best of luck in whatever you decide!

 

[Qshake]

I would offer one clarification to WHYUN's post on what you get if you don't train properly.

If you don't train drafters properly, you don't get a middle age drafter, you get a middle age TRACER. That is worse because they rely on real draftsmen or engineers to do their jobs.

Regards,
Qshake

Eng-Tips Forums:Real Solutions for Real Problems Really Quick.

 

[csd72]

Yes Qshake, and a tracer doesnt really add much to the process other than transfering an engineers sketches into a neater format.

csd

 

[whyun]

Regardless of whether an engineer is covered by the firm's insurance or not, engineer who put his seal on anything should have control over who is part of the design team working on his projects. This means selecting the drafters, engineers and project managers to execute "your" work. If the company does not provide this authority, it's time to move on.

If anything goes wrong with the project, whether it be drafting error, engineering error, omissions by anyone in your design team that you overlooked because of your neglegence (or lack of time due to your busy schedule or other excuses), only you will be professionally liable. Not the project engineer or drafters who worked for you.

That is why the salary/benefit package needs to be at least par with the amount of exposure to professional risk.

To address Galambo's question: If you have two years of experience and you are not stamping, one or two drafters should not be a reason to leave a firm. I'd deal with it. Every company you go to will have one or two guys you can't get along with. If ALL your drafters are against you, time to move on or evaluate yourself.

I like Qshake's reference to tracers. Modern day equivalent are CAD guys who have no idea what they are drawing on CAD.

 

[ewh]

This is an excellent thread that transfers well to the more "machine design" oriented and similar industries. A proficient CAD jockey is not always the same thing as a proficient drafter.

 

[Atomic25]

Jike: Point well taken, though for some reason it feels like I have a better defense against the errors/problems of other disciplines. You're right, once youre in this business for awhile you recognize the pitfalls before they occur. Whenever we get an internal structural error, though, it feels like I'm getting stabbed in the back. Probably because they're deep errors that you can easily miss unless you really stare at the drawing....which, typically you never have time to do for the entire set.

 

[haynewp]

I just do the work myself when I get stuck with a drafter where I have to go through the same markups over and over again and they give me an attitued. It keeps me from getting pissed off. However, what is worse to me right now is having asinine CAD standards. Such as, we are not allowed to draw in paper space! So you have to scale up and down all the details before working on them. And not being allowed to use AutoCAD's standard dimensions and leaders. That's right, we have our own custom made menu we must use with dimensions, text, and leaders and everything comes in exploded.. (CAD manager is a moron)

 

[archeng59]

I check the drawings for dimensional errors, typos, everything before the drawings are sealed and signed. My cad guy gets mad about some of the changes because he thinks it's nit-picky, but I always tell him the drawings are how our clients and the contractors judge our competency. If the drawings are full of errors and look like a 3rd grader put them together, we lose respect and clients. I've had to remind the cad guy who he works for a couple of times. It's my name on the door and the seal.

 

[BSE05]

How many structural engineers are doing their own CAD?

When I started some years ago, I spent alot of time drawing very percise and detailed sketches to give to drafters, some who put them under the milar and traced them. Now I can draw them in CAD-done. My experience has been such with young structural engineers or senior designers doing the CAD set up, schedules, typical details, etc.

I'm suprised to hear that there still are non-design type drafters out there!

 

[csd72]

SteelyLee,

I think too many engineers do their own cad as a result of the poor quality of the industries draftsmen.

Personally I disagree with the practic, but I have done it and I understand why some people do it.

I have 2 issues with it:

Firstly a skilled and well trained draftsman will draw up the details and save an engineer time that can be spent on engineering. I have worked with draftsmen where all you had to do was give them beam sizes and number of bolts and they could produce a set of drawings that just needed to be checked.

Secondly, drafting your own work means you are doing less engineering and it therefore flattens the learning curve. An engineer with 4 years experience that has spent half their time drafting really has only 2 years of engineering experience.

I liken the relationship to lawyers and legal secretaries. Lawyers dont type up their own contracts, they have legal secretaries to do that for them. The legal secretaries get paid well because they are skilled and knowledgable and save the lawyer time.

csd

 

[samdamon]

csd- I respectfully disagree, it may not be so clear cut. An engineer who uses cad to prepare details and plans will spend more time drawing than if he had handed off his manually sketched pencil versions to a draftsman, but then he will also spend less time with check plots and iterations of mark ups. It takes a lot of time to mark up the same thing three times. If you are working with someone who gets it right the first time, great, but many of us are not in that situation.

Also, if the project is unusual, say with weird geometry, non standard details, etc etc, there is even more incentive for the actual designer to have a hand in getting the design onto paper. Depends also on the aptitude of the engineer. Some people are cut out for cad, others just are not.

There probably will be more engineers doing cad as time goes on as the analysis and cad software become more and more integrated and automated. Business models will need to adjust to that somehow.

 

[csd72]

sandamon,

That is just a symptom of how low our expectations of drafting have gotten. A result of too long treating them like a commodity and not investing any time into training them.

One simple solution - employ permanent drafting staff and train them!

csd

 

[BigH]

Regarding the comments since 070801, isn't this what happened with secretaries too? We used to have a secretary for each 4 engineers or so - now we have one per floor! (maybe two if you are lucky).

 

[KENAT]

You have secretaries, lucky ****

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[whyun]

Getting back to the original post, ideally disciplining/training drafters should not be the responsibility of the engineer of record.

An office that is relatively decent size should have at least one lead drafter to set drafting standards/training programs and at least one CAD guru to establish office CAD standards/training programs. The rest of the drafters take their instructions together with engineers' input.

 

[archeng59]

I believe engineers should have a say in the drafting standards, especially since many of us are in responsible charge of what's shown on the drawings. I agree that there should be one lead person making sure the others work within those standards. In my case, the lead guy and the other guys are all one person. Blind leading the blind or something like that. Regardless, it falls to the engineers to check every drawing to make sure the information shown correctly.

 

[csd72]

BigH,

The lack of secretaries is probably a symptom of us being too cheap. A good secretary would probably earn more than the graduate engineers.

csd

 

[whyun]

archeng69: I agree with you. My comment was under the assumption that the company is very established, the lead drafter has many years with the company and knows exactly what the owner (engineer) wants.

In many small offices, one drafter may wear many hats. If he is blind, replace him with a Rambo.

 

[DRC1]

I disagree with the statement that drafting takes away from engineering. Drafting is not only enineering, it has always been the soul of engineering. Not that every engineer needs to draft everything, but he should be able to. And for a lot of projects, time spent drafting is well spent.