Question for those in construction or engineering

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?

that´s a definite NO.

Answer:

NO....

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

...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!

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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...

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!!

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

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 ... and now the boss is panicking!

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....

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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..."

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.

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

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.