So is the Structural Designer dead? 1

[WARose]

Lately I've been going to a lot of interviews.....and one key thing I keep hearing is: I can't expect much in the way of drafting help. I talked to a group the other day (on the phone) and asked them point-blank: do you have anyone that can take a set of GAs and equipment drawings and (with some input from me) give me a framing/foundation layout? After a lot of throat clearing.....the answer was "no".

Has anyone else noticed this? I worked with a lot of designers early on in my career (at the large EPC outfits)....now, it seems like there is no one left. Furthermore, a lot of companies don't seem to be grooming people for that role. At best, they'll try to turn a engineer into that role.

 

[bones206]

I started working as an engineer in 2008 and been with a few different large EPC firms in many different offices and project sites. I've never seen anyone who was a dedicated structural designer. What I have seen is the CAD work outsourced overseas for big jobs or just being done by the structural engineers in house who have the ability to do so. In every interview I've ever had for a structural engineer position, there has been an emphasis on CAD/BIM skills and an expectation that I would be producing my own drawings.

Seems to be plenty of electrical and mechanical designers around though!

 

[dik]

With the exception of one of my clients, I've been designing and drafting my work for the last, maybe 4 decades. With that one, I've often provided my own details... It's faster for me to draw something up than it is to sketch it, review the drawing, modify it, and review the mods.

Dik

 

[Bhotar3]

I have been in the petrochemical industry since 2013. I just started with my 3rd company, and they have all had structural designers.

They are alive and well.

Now that I am beginning to pick up side jobs, I am getting myself caught up with the latest versions of CAD.

 

[3DDave]

In general I'd say that they are disappearing, but not gone. Since it used to be that most places had drafters and that is no longer the case, I'd conclude the same is true of any other intermediate. Same happened to secretaries - no more just asking for a letter to be drawn up "like the one to Smithers." My personal experience is that the time 'saved' by having drafters is often lost by having to check garbage work. Note that I say "often." There have been a few cases where skilled, diligent, careful, and otherwise qualified people were in those positions and they were both amazing time savers, they were an invaluable asset to the development team.

(Anecdote: on one high-paced project there was a drafter who would regularly meet the team's request to make a substantial change with "Like this?" and point out the change already incorporated. It turned out he would stay late and look over the vellums the engineers were working their problems out on and got a firm idea of which engineers were reliable in making changes. By the time the engineers had their ideas worked out, he'd gotten the level 3 documentation to match.)

(Other anecdote, one more typical: in the sustain phase, with small changes to be incorporated and no rush, a different drafter stopped some engineers because the CAD system wasn't working right. So a quick investigation and it turned out that in moving the software from proprietary hardware to a less custom workstation the keyboard layout had changed. So where the asterisk had moved one key over. In. His. Notes. the drafter had indicated the asterisk was shift-7. But when he pressed shift-7 an asterisk did not appear. We pointed out it was now shift-8 and he erased the "7" from his notebook and filled it in with "8" and continued on as if nothing had ever been a problem.)

In any case there are some places that consider the creation of drawings to be so far below ENGINEERING that they will always have intermediate levels and some places paid for CAD so they could get rid of those costs and suppose the engineers will be competent at it because the software does all the work.

I suspect it is more expensive to get good intermediate level workers than it is to get engineers to make passable drawings.

(Last anecdote: in the starting age of word processors there was a secretary that became known for horrible work. A handwritten memo submitted to her would come back with typos. So the printout would get marked up, sent for correction, and a new version would arrive, with different typos. It seems she never saved them; just would do them over from scratch each time. As for the spell checker, she apparently just added any word the software complained about to the dictionary. I didn't realize how bad it was until one day there was a substitute. I dropped off a page with her and headed back to my desk. I hadn't taken more than a few dozen steps when my phone was ringing and I rushed to my cube. It was the secretary. I was at first very concerned, until she asked if she should make and distribute copies, having already typed it up. The regular secretary had a turn time of about 2 hours. Oh, how happy I was to just type my own when the engineers finally got computers, but I did miss the temporary secretary very much until then.

Also a joke. One time a secretary, one of the good ones, was walking past and as she got just by me, I casually mentioned to the person I was talking to that I could type "180 words per minute." I could practically hear the secretary stumble to a stop as if struck. I then turned and said, "As soon as I get used to the 9 key I will be able to type 190 as well." I got "the GLARE" but I think she thought it was funny anyway.)

 

[dik]

I suspect it is more expensive to get good intermediate level workers than it is to get engineers to make passable drawings.

That likely sums it up... and I think there is a perceived savings that may or may not exist... I'm faster than some CAD operators, but, there are a couple I've met that would knock your socks off... they are that good. Easily twice as fast, but they have over a decade of experience.

Dik

 

[bones206]

My boss is sometimes frustrated that I'm not as efficient with drawing production as he would like me to be. My counterpoint is that we have projects in Microstation, Autocad or Revit, depending on who the client is. I probably spend 1%, 10%, and 20% of my total working hours in a year using each of those programs, respectively. It's hard to be proficient in any one thing when you aren't doing it on a daily basis. Having said that, I'll take the challenge of variety over the monotony of doing the same thing every day. And I'll admit I enjoy having that total control over my drawings.

 

[CANPRO]

I spent many years as a consultant and I did almost 100% of my own drafting. I preferred that because most of my projects were small to medium "one-off" type projects, so it made sense for me to do my own drafting. The design and drawing would often progress together - I could correct the design on the spot of issues were noted during drafting.

I now work for a steel fabricator. We have a full-time team of detailers. Maybe not in the exact same category as the structural designers in this conversation, but similar. These guys are sharp. They know what works and what doesn't, and could probably get 90% of the connections detailed without speaking a word to an engineer.

 

[WARose]

That likely sums it up... and I think there is a perceived savings that may or may not exist... I'm faster than some CAD operators, but, there are a couple I've met that would knock your socks off... they are that good. Easily twice as fast, but they have over a decade of experience.

I can promise you there aren't a lot of savings. Once engineers become registered, they typically pass designers in salary......and you are talking (with a good one) someone that can outproduce you 3:1 because that's all he does.

I came into this business in about the early/mid 90's, and engineers were actively discouraged from doing any drafting at some companies I was at for this reason......the thinking shifted at some point.

 

[BridgeSmith]

In my position at the DOT, I do primarily structural design. I do some hand sketches for the detailers and often check the details, but I don't any of the actual drafting/detailing. I sometimes do quantity calcs, cost estimates, reports and special provisions, also, but most of my time is spent in structural design, with some layout work (retaining walls, for instance, are more layout than design).

 

[canwesteng]

I do the modeling sometimes, sometimes the designers do. Haven't touched a 2D drawing though. Depends on your clients and what they expect for quality, but I'm not sure how you can be proficient enough at both engineering and CAD to execute larger projects.

 

[CCox]

for the heavy industrial work I do, I have found only one person. We hired him and he left for a better paying job working as a contract designer for a nuclear power plant. It is even hard to find someone that understands typical commercial buildings.

For industrial work, I end up doing my own detailing because of the nuances. For the more typical commercial projects, I have a drafter for that.

I would be screwed if I was never taught Autocad.

 

[jayrod12]

At our firm, there are designers and drafters. I'm not sure how any of you would find the time to draft and design. I barely have enough time to design the projects I work on.

 

[SocklessJ]

Currently at an EPC firm with designers.

It seems like one big advantage is drawing consistency. I’m on a multi-office project where it seems like the designers from different offices are always on the phone trying to figure out how to consistently show things. I heard a fabricator we work with mention that they liked working with us due to the completeness of our drawings. It’s also a lot faster. In theory if we had no designers, we’d have more engineers? Or longer schedules? My guess is just crummy drawings and more late nights.

To me the disadvantage is that engineering is an iterative process. I helps to try something one way, and if it doesn’t look right, tear it up try again. I can do that on some scrap paper, but it helps to see the other equipment, piping, etc.

I’d really like to learn CAD but I’m not sure when I’d have time. I worry that this could make me less marketable, especially outside of the industrial world. A solution might be to create a layer in our 3D model that I can mess around in. Once I’ve got something I like, our designer could copy it into their model, and get the drawings looking good.

 

[Jerehmy]

I rarely do my own drafting. Only if its crunch time or I have a complicated detail. If I had to do my own drafting my billables would drop significantly. I can sketch something up in 20-30 minutes that takes 2 hours to draft. As long as (my hourly pay - drafters hourly pay)*(time saved) > (my hourly pay)*(my time spent sketching), it makes sense to have a drafter. 9/10 times thats the case. Especially for inspections when I have to sketch up all the floor plans and necessary details anyways!

 

[RickyTickyTavi]

In my old firm, the engineers were the drafters. A few years later I moved to a new, larger company. With several full-time drafters. (BIM operators is their title now). An.d... I must say... I dont ever want to draft again in my career.

I'm behind the times now anyway. Seems like everyone is using Revit now. I'm still stuck on AutoCAD.

 

[JedClampett]

Our company has CAD and engineers. Many of our CAD guys and gals are designers and very skilled at their specialty. But they do all the CAD. Engineers don't even have the software installed on their machines. There's many, many reasons for this, but having a separate CAD group allows standards enforced. The drawings look the same from office to office, more or less. Engineers will do what they think the design should look like and screw the CAD standards.
So a couple months ago we interviewed an engineer for a senior engineer position. At his place the engineers do their own CAD. We explained that we do it different. He kind of paused and said he could work faster if he did his own CAD, blah, blah, but he might see it our way. When we talked about salary, he told us what he was getting paid. It was about 20% less than our comparable salary (he's in the same industry). Basically, he was getting paid somewhere between a CAD designer and an engineer (actually closer to a CAD designer). Later he hesitated again about the change in workflow, so we asked him to get back to us after he thought about it. He never did.
So he's giving up 20% of his pay to do is own CAD. He just couldn't give it up. He'd be a problem for us, so I'm kind of glad we didn't have to decide.

 

[RFreund]

Interesting timing of this conversation. I work at a fairly small company and we have a couple drafters. I'm trying to convert them to structural designers. However, I'm struggling to a certain degree. I'm not exactly sure where to start or how to help. They seem to get the concept of starting a foundation plan, but they seem to struggle to navigate plans if they are trying to draw sections. Another area is struggling to know which typical details to bring in. They are very precise and excellent at drafting, but this almost seems to fluster them if they don't have 'exact sizes' to start with. In any case I'm trying to bring back the designer. It's super easy to mark things up these days on tablets/surface. Honestly if I had to print a hard copy and scan it back in, I'd probably draw it up in CAD myself.

EIT

http://www.HowToEngineer.com

 

[dhengr]

RFreund:
That seems like an honorable and constructive endeavor on your part, and for the office. Get them each a set or two of good plans, with good std. details and design conditions, maybe a few special or unusual conditions and details too. Maybe some of your own designs so you know why things were done the way they were. Have them review and study these plans and start a list of questions and issues they might see or have about how and why things are done like this. Get together with them a couple times a week for an hour or so, maybe a bag lunch, plus an hour, maybe a late hour or so, with pizza and beer, or some such, at times. You do expect some of their free time, for their own betterment. At first, due it with both of them since they will learn from each other’s questions, in one teaching/answering on your part. You can ask them questions too if things get a little slow…, why do you suppose they did this, why is this detail set up this way? It’s called mentoring and can be enjoyable when you see them progressing. Quickly, make them have some well thought out ideas or reasons for their approach to a problem, or for their solutions and ideas. They’ve kinda never had to think for themselves, or really think of what a set of plans, sections and details need to show to get it built. You’ve always given them a sketch or redlined things for them, so they just drew them up, to scale. Ask them what a given section or detail needs to show under these conditions. Where, why and when do you show a new section? This could be fun, if you can find the time.

 

[RFreund]

@DH:
Thanks for the input. That's a pretty solid plan. I time commitment for sure, but I think it will be worth it. I forgot the early days when I used to sit down with the boss and review why I did something right/wrong. When you have to explain yourself I think it forces you to learn faster. Rather than having someone just markup what you did wrong. We do a fair amount of shop drawings where things are repetitive enough and if they can get it started, it makes it easy to markup.

EIT

http://www.HowToEngineer.com