Question for those in construction or engineering

[Sampdoria]

Do you feel that the construction or engineering companies you work for are utilizing CAD fully?

if no, then why do you feel this is so?

[michaeloureiro]

that´s a definite NO.

[LifeoRiley0]

Answer:

NO....

[Sampdoria]

i should have asked why do you feel this is so as well.

[michaeloureiro]

...and for some reason which i haven´t yet begun to fathom is that they (all of them) don´t even want to learn.....go figure!

[LifeoRiley0]

Some of the engineering drawings leave a lot to be desired when it comes to CAD.For instance the entire drawing on one layer. The construction companies don't want to deal with coordination a lot of times because it slows the job initially. Although a fully coordinated job tends to run a lot smoother with a lot of the design bugs being worked out in coordination. This results in far fewer field generated RFI's after the work has been started and material ordered.

[LifeoRiley0]

I have also found very few people that are knowledgeable in CAD and construction. With most general contractors, that I have dealt with, it is usually one or the other and a translator is usually needed.

[Sampdoria]

Some of the engineering drawings leave a lot to be desired when it comes to CAD.For instance the entire drawing on one layer. The construction companies don't want to deal with coordination a lot of times because it slows the job initially. Although a fully coordinated job tends to run a lot smoother with a lot of the design bugs being worked out in coordination. This results in far fewer field generated RFI's after the work has been started and material ordered.

But in the company you work with, do you have CAD Technicians? Surely they know that using one layer for an entire drawing is poor practice?

do you guys think that 3D design could be incorporated more on construction and engineering drawings?

[Sampdoria]

I have also found very few people that are knowledgeable in CAD and construction. With most general contractors, that I have dealt with, it is usually one or the other and a translator is usually needed.

In the engineering company i worked with we had too senior CAD technicians who had more knowledge on construction and civil engineering than some fo the engineers.

[uddfl]

In b4 poll

Answer: NO.

Reason: Too many to list. But one that really bothers me is how painful and time consuming coordination of documents is, because they use CAD as a drawing board in the computer. One change = many, many edits. But I think this is still a common problem accross companies that use AutoCAD.

[LifeoRiley0]

But in the company you work with, do you have CAD Technicians? Surely they know that using one layer for an entire drawing is poor practice?

do you guys think that 3D design could be incorporated more on construction and engineering drawings?

I am one of the CAD Techs. I meant we have received drawings from engineers with little or no CAD experience and the drawings were all on one layer.

YES. We do most of our drawings in 3D and ALL of our coordination in 3D. This means when we get a 2D drawing from the engineer or construction co we have to re-draw the entire project, in 3D, for coordination

[michaeloureiro]

I am one of the CAD Techs. I meant we have received drawings from engineers with little or no CAD experience and the drawings were all on one layer.

YES. We do most of our drawings in 3D and ALL of our coordination in 3D. This means when we get a 2D drawing from the engineer or construction co we have to re-draw the entire project, in 3D, for coordination


gees and i thought i had it bad.:?

[fuccaro]

There is no man on the Earth able to use AutoCAD at its full potential

[michaeloureiro]

There is no man on the Earth able to use AutoCAD at its full potential


true, but between not using layers, and using layouts and x-refs, there´s a BIG diference.

what boggles me the most is that cad is the standard, and not many people tend to care about making their life easier...

[LifeoRiley0]

gees and i thought i had it bad.:?


It's not bad.....It keeps me busy and out of the pubs!

In today's times that is a good thing!!:)

[Strix]

There is no man on the Earth able to use AutoCAD at its full potentialI'm glad you said that - being the expert and all that :wink:

funny how the jobs advertised as 'must be fully conversant with AutoCAD' are usually ones for minimum wage positions within small companies, where the one person who could shove the mouse round the desk got bored and is leaving next week - as they can't cope with the mess they've now made of the whole system :roll:... and now the boss is panicking!

[Bill Tillman]

The short answer to your question is no.

The "WHY" part can vary from firm to firm and from project to project. But what I see is that once the drawing files are printed out on paper, that's all that most of the people who work with the drawing care to know about. That's not saying anything about their skill or intention. It's just that in a 2D drawing with black lines on white paper the finer points like layers, blocks, styles all get lost in what the drawing actually means to the builders. Mechanical parts may be different and I would think they are, but in commercial construction, you've got hundreds of sub-contractors all trying to get the building built as fast as possible. And the disciplines of how a CAD drawing was created mean nothing to these guys so there is a tendency for the detailers to just get it done. Not to mention that there are supervisors who know little or nothing about CAD and all they do is shout, "Hurry up. faster, better, cheaper....!" and detailers are often forced to take shortcuts to just get the drawings out the door.

When I finished college as a draftsman the instructors stressed that your lettering and linework were your calling card. The first week on a real job, I found out that speed counted for much more, sometimes even more than accuracy. The first drawings I saw my first supervisor send to the field looked like he drew them while sitting on the toilet bowl with a 6d nail. Still the parts got built and installed and today, no one will ever know the difference.

Sounds whacky, I'm sure, but you've got to believe that even back when they were building the pyramids, they were faced with the same kinds of issues. Someone needed to plan it out for someone who wanted it done "faster, better, cheaper...." The luxury of time comes only after the project is completed, not while it's being constructed.



For those interested in Biblical application of this, just read 1 Kings Chapter 6

2 - And the house which king Solomon built for the LORD, the length thereof was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits....
.
.
.
7 - And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building.



This clearly suggests that some architect drew up some plans and then some detailer made fabrication drawings of the stones so they could be cut and polished before they were delivered to the jobsite. I'll bet you that the detailer had some supervisor who was shouting "Hurry up, faster, better, cheaper..."

[skipsophrenic]

Definately not always used to it's best capacity - I have come accross some drawings where EVERYTHING was don on layer 0 and the lines for different details were all changed to the appropriate colour via their properties - I sometimes spend up to 2 hrs tidying up the format of the drawing before i can even get any work done on it.

[Strix]

Skips' post pretty much sums it up

there are too many people in construction who are 'double handling'

the amount of reworking that goes into some drawings as they pass from one pair of hands to another is nobody's business. The whole job could be done more efficiently/cost effectively if each party involved had a appreciation of what the drawing needed to convey to each party in the chain and what other functions it was going to perform down the line - but ultimately it's the client who's bearing the cost

mind you, don't forget that drawings are fraught with ownership rights, so there is some degree of what amounts to sabotage goes on - deliberately making life difficult for the next party to handle the drawings

Even when this doesn't happen, there are drawing practices which vary from company to company, mostly for very valid reasons (AutoCAD is well known for its variety of ways to skin a cat so to speak :wink: ) which just make life difficult for different companies to work on each others drawings

[Jay C]

At my firm we take advantage of all the different layers, xrefs and some other stuff, but we don't take advantage of MEP. We get all our version as Autocad MEP , yet we only draw in 2d.

[Viper04]

Our company has changed over the years due to me. I came in and the drawings were a bit&% to work with. Layers, blocks ect were different from project to project and we are a manufacturing company so a plate should be a plate. I came in a re-structured the entire Design Manual, new layers (standards for Pre-Cast Fabrication, Mechanical, Architectural, Strucutural & Steel Detailing) huge library of Dynamic Blocks, Dimensions styels ect.

This has taken me 5 years so far and still working on it. But it has made working/changing viewing other drafters in our office drawings from project they all "almost" look identical on Screen and Printed.

The process of getting clients drawings and completed re-drawing them does take us extra time. But due to the nature of our business when we are drawing on the same project for over one month with over 100+ 24"x36" pages it becomes easier to handle.

I'm trying to "force" clients to use our standards when drawing up some prelim drawings by sending them our SCRIPT files for layers and Dim styles, fonts ect. This has worked for the most part but some architectecs don't like Engineers telling them what to do.. :glare:

3D drawings are another story and they are harder to maintain especially on how stuff gets drawn in 3D. Some CAD techs don't understand that yea it may look ok printed but bring the CAD drawing into 3DS Max and it looks like garbage. But anyways thats anothe topic all by itself.

I say we use AutoCAD to 1/10th of its actuall potential and I think we are much higher than a mojority of companies we deal with.

My next step is to configire the AutoCAD Standards Tool check to get throught our library and fix anything thats out of wack. But thats next years project.


Just my 2 cents.

[Teeds]

you left architecture out of the mix ...

The answer to your first question is an unqualified no. Nobody wants the answer to be no, but it is because ...

speed
quality
price

pick any two.

I have completed 10 story buildings in just a few weeks when pushed. I can do it because I grew up on the boards and have been drafting for over 40 years. I also learned from the best, the back office draftsmen and women that worked for one of the premier engineering firms in the region. Before I even start drafting, the entire building is designed in my head in 3d.

Now that I am a self employed architect I have found the following to be true. Clients are generally dumb as a box of rocks about construction and long ago screwed the process down economically to a point that everyone involved in the process has had to toss quality out the window to even break even, never mind make money.

Back to architecture ... drafting is not part of the architectural profession. I may get flamed for saying so, but it is true. No one learns drafting (except rudimentary level skill) in architectural school and they do not learn drafting in the profession. Everyone is an "architect" or dreaming of being one. They are drawing because they have been told to do so, not because they care about the detail on their screen. They are already dreaming of the swoopy detail on the roof, the wall, the site plan ... name the latest doo dah that is the detail de jour.

There is only a handful of people in architecture that realize that more than one line weight is important.
There is only a handful of people in the field that believe drawings mean anything except as a defense exhibit, if sued.

If I sound bitter, it is likely because I am. Fear of risk has lead many in the architectural profession to abdicate control, in the name of reducing risk, to other members of the design/construction team. If they understood the relationship between risk (actually lack thereof) and quality, they might rethink their position.

Normally, it is the general contractors that have stepped up and filled the control void. That being said, I don’t know of any that here in the Metromess are even scratching the surface of CAD, or any other means of electronic documentation/communication for that matter. Many use cell phones, but even text messaging and remote email are slow in coming to the mix.

Dang, I sound cranky and I guess I am. I love the construction profession and it has been the only job I have had, except for a few short stints elsewhere because of school, since I turned 14, which was a long ago.

[uddfl]

you left architecture out of the mix ...

The answer to your first question is an unqualified no. Nobody wants the answer to be no, but it is because ...

speed
quality
price

pick any two.

Now that I am a self employed architect I have found the following to be true. Clients are generally dumb as a box of rocks about construction and long ago screwed the process down economically to a point that everyone involved in the process has had to toss quality out the window to even break even, never mind make money.

Back to architecture ... drafting is not part of the architectural profession. I may get flamed for saying so, but it is true. No one learns drafting (except rudimentary level skill) in architectural school and they do not learn drafting in the profession. Everyone is an "architect" or dreaming of being one. They are drawing because they have been told to do so, not because they care about the detail on their screen. They are already dreaming of the swoopy detail on the roof, the wall, the site plan ... name the latest doo dah that is the detail de jour.

There is only a handful of people in architecture that realize that more than one line weight is important.
There is only a handful of people in the field that believe drawings mean anything except as a defense exhibit, if sued.

If I sound bitter, it is likely because I am. Fear of risk has lead many in the architectural profession to abdicate control, in the name of reducing risk, to other members of the design/construction team. If they understood the relationship between risk (actually lack thereof) and quality, they might rethink their position.

Normally, it is the general contractors that have stepped up and filled the control void. That being said, I don’t know of any that here in the Metromess are even scratching the surface of CAD, or any other means of electronic documentation/communication for that matter. Many use cell phones, but even text messaging and remote email are slow in coming to the mix.Quoted For Truth.

You, Sir, should post more often.

Architecture is a profession which has commited a slow but steady suicide. Designers who disregard construction methods, builders who disregard drawings, and drawings that disregard accuracy, all of the above occurring most often due to goals such as 'get the job out the door ASAP' and 'avoid pissing off the client' -- self-destruction methods created from within our profession.

[LifeoRiley0]

Quoted For Truth.

You, Sir, should post more often.

Architecture is a profession which has commited a slow but steady suicide. Designers who disregard construction methods, builders who disregard drawings, and drawings that disregard accuracy, all of the above occurring most often due to goals such as 'get the job out the door ASAP' and 'avoid pissing off the client' -- self-destruction methods created from within our profession.

You guys do it to yourselves.:shock:
Architects need to tell clients NO more often! As in NO we can't give you a 6 story building with any room for mechanical and a 70' height restriction!:cry:
That's all right...the subs will bail you out in the end:)

[uddfl]

You guys do it to yourselves.:shock:
Architects need to tell clients NO more often! As in NO we can't give you a 6 story building with any room for mechanical and a 70' height restriction!:cry:
That's all right...the subs will bail you out in the end:):idea: Exactly what I was trying to convey.

[Teeds]

Quoted For Truth.

You, Sir, should post more often.

Architecture is a profession which has commited a slow but steady suicide. Designers who disregard construction methods, builders who disregard drawings, and drawings that disregard accuracy, all of the above occurring most often due to goals such as 'get the job out the door ASAP' and 'avoid pissing off the client' -- self-destruction methods created from within our profession.

Thanks! Where is the blushing smilie?

I love the profession and hate what it has become in the last 25~30 years.

I learned more about architecture while working in the construction field than I ever learned in the office. I got 6 months of credit for 8 years in construction towards architectural registration.

I did not get registered early enough (1986) to be grandfathered by NCARB. Kids that still have snotty noses have NCARB after their name and I do not because I do not have enough "education". The answer by NCARB was to go back to school. At this point in my career, I would eat most of the profs in the school that is most accessible to me because they are the same people that were there when I graduated. They know less now then they did then, primarily because I have been in the profession for 40 years since graduation and they are still teaching. Nothing heightens education of a person like competition within the marketplace.

A partner in a major firm came in very excited one morning. He had just seen his first pier poured ... OMG, this is a man that was in his late 50s and claimed to know architecture! I have taken the layout tapes myself and relocated piers myself within two hours of receiving the change in configuration from the owner. I called the super and stopped him from drilling until I arrived. He was amazed that I knew what I was doing.

Architecture is slowly being paralyzed by the adversity to risk so prevalent within the profession.

Everyone makes mistakes, it is part of life. The measure of an architect, engineer, construction manager, anyone actually, is how they manage their response once they are faced with the realization that they have made a mistake. I have managed risk by embracing it. I smother it with action, with attention. In my world the term avoidance does not exist.

Many people that I know in construction say that I am the best architect that they have ever worked with. I don't say that to flatter myself. I have worked hard to make sure that I understand how water leaks into buildings, how tall walls can be without causing problems and how far steel, wood and concrete can span before it "looks" wrong, never mind the fact that the engineers say it will stand. Some of the largest mistakes of the profession are related more to the aesthetics of a building than they are the engineering.

The confusing mish-mash that often passes for architecture these days makes me want to puke. Styles are casually blended together until the sight of a Colonial Tuscan Ranch is not even jarring to many and more mind boggling in that many will seek out the “designer”!

I will close with an often quoted line of mine ...

For most people, taste is related to what they had for breakfast!

[Teeds]

You guys do it to yourselves.:shock:
Architects need to tell clients NO more often! As in NO we can't give you a 6 story building with any room for mechanical and a 70' height restriction!:cry:
That's all right...the subs will bail you out in the end:)

I've said no. It has cost me a lot of money ... a lot. I walked away from a $1M architectural fee because the client thought the design architect was telling him the truth and I wasn't. The architect that replaced us almost went bankrupt trying to finish the project.

On another project, I sat in a meeting with a group represented an "unnamed firm" wanting 4 story office building ready to move into in 6 months ... yup 6 months. My boss, the construction manager, et al were afraid to say the truth when they asked me if it could be done.

I said that yes we could do it. I said it would take 4 months for design and that would leave 2 months for construction. The look on my bosses face was priceless and the CM almost fainted.

Then I asked the broker and his "buddy" ... likely the client ... if anyone had thought to tell the client that the task was not possible? There was only silence in the room when I left.

Finally I left corporate architecture, took a cut in pay and regained my smile.

I would say no more often, but there is alway some moron in the profession willing to say yes. There is very little work out there at the moment as most know, so I don't say no, if at all possible.

BTW ... I have fired a number of clients. That is the most important task I can ever undertake.

[Sickguy]

Do you feel that the construction or engineering companies you work for are utilizing CAD fully?

if no, then why do you feel this is so?no. i have been in the concrete industry for about 7 years now, and if i didnt just go ahead and start doing things in 3D or giving the drawings my own personal look and feel, then most companies are content with crap as long as its functional. engineers and construction guys are not generally visual guys. work for an architect and you will be dealing with some picky people.

[Ritch7]

no, too many reasons to list really it must differ but everything comes into it. price, time, trained personel, practicability etc

eg if a company used cad for the fullest then they would have every single person with a licence and have an office filled with cad operators lol

[Sickguy]

no, too many reasons to list really it must differ but everything comes into it. price, time, trained personel, practicability etc

eg if a company used cad for the fullest then they would have every single person with a licence and have an office filled with cad operators lolin my experience, very few architects and engineers know how to use ACAD very well. most of them just believe there is a "draw building" command, or something. they view the computer as a magic machine that miraculously produces the drawings they need. they dont seem to think much more goes into the actuall process than just a few clicks.
i started out as a low man on the totum pole, but as a draftsman through different companies over the years, i have realized that we sort of carry the keys to the castle.

this place would not know what to do if i just up and left one day, because i know everything on the buildings, even more than the architect in some cases.

[Coosbaylumber]

I sort of like waht Teeds mentioned, for back a few years ago, I was working as a P.M. for a civil engineering business in the bay area of Northern California. We only had eight persons there (on and off) the whole day long, but the boss landed a proposal for a large contract. We were to then survey, engineer and issue contract bid items to the various firms, all before Oct. 1st.

As a part of the engineering, (we did not do all of it) we were expected to coordinate the activities of two Mechanical engineers (small ten person firms), two architects (biggie 100 plus person firms), a landscape architect (small five person firm), and one electrical engineer (small ten person firm). Plus the standard individuals from the active developer who was paying the bills, a new construction supervisor, a project supervisor and one project coordinator (who promptly went on vacation for five months leaving me with the new post). I got hired at 8PM one Friday night and worked past midnight that very same day as the firm was quite well behind on schedule on a number of bids.

For next three days (about 12 hours each), I coordinated the office computers to talk to one another, plot out the same type and looking drawing, and then to each of the engineers above, for they all wanted to produce same looking drawings as we were doing. A line color 87 on one computer came out as 1/8" wide and on another was spotted gray and thin. Found out it was like beating your head against the wall, for the Landscaper was more accustomed to working in the dirt, and he telephoned very 45 minutes (day or night) with a "How to" question on Acad.

The architects did not beleive in Acad, used theirown home designed system, and thus when we received their DXF work via Internet, had to go through some lengthy conversion, and often was missing some linked file. (Oh, you don't have that one?) Took longer getting to "see" their work than in using it. Many of the firms were not on same wavelength, as I often shipped them a copy of the site boundary, building and tree psoitions often (did they move?). Of which I think they did not understand CAD.

We worked on the XREF system, and it was very helpfull in all this, but often got a call from a Super at one of the firms, saying they had not even downloaded the work of three days ago, yet can I change...

Our problem was not so much in the conversion of their work but the internet used to be quite unreliable at the time. Once done I would send out TWO runners. One via an auto, and a second via BART as never knew if there was a crash on the freeway to slow delivery down. I dialed and dialed, and often like 90 minutes later got through, so I could ship out an update to the sub-contractors. They in turn would either USPS mail me or send a runner my direction with a disk on their emergency update to the plans.

Most annoying situation was in the telephone calls that came in with "Your CAD is No good"

"Wadda you mean No Good?"


Wm.

[Bill Tillman]

Wow, this post has really evolved over it's life. And as someone who has been in construction as a drafter, hands-on laborer in the field, architect, project manager, superintendent...and now in my 50's, most of you reiterate what I've come to know especially about the commercial construction industry...


It's not always the best idea that gets the nod from the decision makers.
The push for speed has long since superceeded the push towards quality and accuracy. But remember if you don't have the time to do it right, how are you going to find the time to do it over...(Enter the labor unions).... Shhhh, did he really say that!
Most decision makers don't really have their facts straight when they make their decision.I know it's an easy thing to say, "Just say No", but there will always be those times when you're thinking of how to keep a roof over your children's head and food on their table which will make the need to say "yes" to an impossible request somehow the only thing you could do. And each of us will face this at one point or another along your career path. It's troublesome that the decision makers seem to just keep asking people down the line until they get the answer they want and then call everyone else a fool. I think we all know this routine well. But like I said in my first post to this thread...they had the same thing going on back when the pyramids were built.

[Teeds]

Good points, Bill.

It appears we took the same path to adulthood. For all practical purposes the only career I have ever had is construction.

As a peon/grunt/drafter for a large engineering firm, I ...
Ran the prints, when ammonia was king and paper cuts burned,
made coffee when asked,
traced endless design layouts onto linen with ink, learning the "art" of drafting at the feet of true masters of the art,
did design layouts that others traced for me,
and generally did ANYTHING asked of me to learn the profession.


As a laborer/carpenter/super for a general contractor, I ...
laid out buildings and built batter boards,
dug the ditches, built the forms, tied the steel and poured the concrete,
framed and sheathed the buildings,
hung the sheetrock, taped and bedded, painted, hung ceiling grid,
hung doors, morticed hardware, trimmed,
and generally did ANYTHING asked of me to learn the profession.


As the estimator for a general contractor, I ...
bid half finished sets of plans that had been issued "for construction",
made sure that the supers were not procuring more than I estimated they needed,
covered the costs, if I made a mistake in estimating, by hiding costs inside of change orders,
learned which subs were going to be hard to deal with and added money to all their bids,
learned which Architects were going to be a PITA to work with and added money to all bids that I submitted to them,
and generally did ANYTHING asked of me to learn the profession.


As the project manager for a general contractor, I ...
have agreed to build what the owner and architect "envisioned" although half the time they didn’t even know what the drawings showed the design to be,
priced endless changes to projects,
agreed to impossible schedules that everyone "knew" could not be met, all in the name of "getting the job",
argued endlessly with the owner of the firm for additional manpower,
argued endlessly with the supers as to why they had SO many people on the job
prodded (cussed?) Subcontractors to get them to man a job, even though we were running late and we had delayed them countless times already,
and generally did ANYTHING asked of me to learn the profession.


As a custom mill shop owner, I ...
turned dreams into reality for clients that had absolute trust in my judgement,
argued with construction estimators over project costs,
cussed architects because they thought they knew how to build cabinets better than I did,
cussed general contractors because of job delays that often forced me to not take on other work,
drew shop drawings that we all knew no one looked at,
tried to always hire the best employees I could,
tried to always make a profit, so I could get paid as well,
cleaned up the shop after everyone left and then took home sets of drawings so I could bid work,
and generally did ANYTHING asked of me to learn the profession.


As an Architect in the corporate architectural world, I ...
have designed and detailed buildings for people that generally only care about the bottom line ... how soon and how cheap,
have argued with design architects about details that will not work, cannot be detailed, cannot be bid and/or built,
listened while designers and owners talked ad nauseam about getting just the right shade of color on precast architectural concrete, never mind that the precast contractor had endlessly tweaked the mix to the point that all the panels looked the same,
have told workmen that I do not design things that cannot be built and if they cannot build something I have drawn, I will,
learned CAD at my own expense, many years before it was adopted by my firm except for "very complex" projects,
worked endless hours of unpaid overtime to manage my own projects and stay ahead of the people in my studio,
and generally did ANYTHING asked of me to learn the profession.


Then I realized that I would never be a partner at the firm I was with and resigned ... that was 10 years ago ...

Now, as a self employed architect that focuses on historic restoration, downtown revitalization, and economic development, I ...
spend my days trying to convince clients that I am not a "bank" and that they should pay me,
have taken a huge cut in pay, but gained my smile back as a result of being able to control my own direction and growth,
have the freedom to work with people that want my help, some of which even pay me ... LOL,
when I am managing projects, I try and keep the owners from getting too far into the pockets of the people that actually do the work in the field,
and generally still do ANYTHING asked of me to learn more about the profession.


Additionally, self employment has allowed me the freedom to be more whole. I am the President of the Texas Motorized Trails Coalition and I am working diligently to increase OHV opportunities here in Texas.

As a member of the human race, I always try and remain humble and remember that there are many here on earth far smarter than I. Additionally, I seek them out.

Most importantly, I thank God for the opportunity to be of service to humanity and hopefully make some money doing so!

At 58 (today! whoo hooo), I look forward to many more years of learning what makes things tick and what I enjoy. :D