Thoughts on engineers using CAD?

[Organic]

Was just wondering what everyone's opinions were of engineers drafting their own plans or drafting changes to plans once the bulk of them have been drafted?

[ReMark]

I encourage our engineers to use AutoCAD LT to do their preliminary sketches then pass them along to me with the engineering change notice. I take all responsibility for finished drawings and any revisions. Engineers weren't hired for their drafting/CAD capabilities in the first place and I see it as a waste of the company's money paying a highly compensated chemical engineer to do CAD work.

[digger]

Back in the good old days, a multi-national chemical company I worked for, started their engineers on the board.
The tradition should be continued.

[Jack_O'neill]

I go along with Remark on this. If you have degreed engineers on staff, they should be doing engineering, not drafting. Unless someone does it all the time, it's hard to remember the standards and practices for drafting (each company is different) let alone remember how the drafting software works. Give me a sketch and a good description of what you want and I'll go draw it for you. It will take less time to do that than it will to fix all the stuff that gets done incorrectly by someone who's only vaguely familiar with how its supposed to be. When it comes to revisions, you can have 15 rev levels in the titleblock, with 15 different sets of initials, but when it all goes wrong, they look at the "drawn by" box and hunt that person up to find out what the problem is. Sure saves a lot of time if only one or 2 people have worked on it and makes it easier to figure out what happened and why.

[ReMark]

I know of at least one company where it was a requirement that all engineers do their own drawings. Since they all had their own style and no one bothered to oversee who was doing what and how, it got so out of control that the practice was halted and they hired a CAD manager.

[Jack_O'neill]

Back in the good old days, a multi-national chemical company I worked for, started their engineers on the board.
The tradition should be continued.

While I agree with the sentiment, drawing on the boards has passed out of practicality. Why spend a day drawing something by hand that can be drawn in an hour at a cad station? What needs to happen, as I've said many times, is for the trade schools and colleges and anyone else that teaches cad to actually teach the drafting portion. It's one thing to know now to use the software, and quite another to know how to create useable drawings i.e. where and how to place dimensions, which way the views should face, etc. Many of the new people I have dealt with can create wonderful 3d models and so forth but don't have a clue as to how to communicate the intent. What I think is happening, is that as the software itself becomes ever more powerful (and therefore complicated), the training concentrates on that aspect with just a cursory mention of the drafting skills. Most companies have thier own ways of doing things anyway, and since you'll have to learn that when you get a job, why teach a generic version? My answer to that is simple...just as we all had to learn to write in much the same way, drafting is a skill best learned by absorbing a basic method, which will serve as a foundation on which to expand. We all learned to print before moving to longhand, no different with this.

[Tankman]

Back in the good old days, a multi-national chemical company I worked for, started their engineers on the board.
The tradition should be continued.

Did the same, then the "detailers" cleaned 'em up. Detailers often worked from sketches.

After AutoCAD, engineers need only provide sketches and yada, yada, yada.

[BIGAL]

Were probably a little different in that we are doing road designs and to hand the project over to some one else to finish would actually slow us down. We do though have the advantage of running sophisticated add on software so, plot longs plot coss sections is highly customised and comes out right every time at the press of one button.

If our engineers had to explain to some one else say what cross sections they dont want plotted would take longer than them ticking the boxes on the dont plot summary screen.

Civil design roads drainage & sewerage is now very highly automated compared to say piping a new pump station where the engineer works out the intricate detials but a skilled draftsman/woman works out all the intricate bends and how every thing is actually going to join together.

Having worked in the structural side also the engineer should be designing and some one else doing the drafting.

In summing up some "thoughts on Engineers using cad " really depends on the individual circumstances rather than a simple answer.

[Tyke]

I couldn't agree more with BIGAL.

In summing up some "thoughts on Engineers using cad " really depends on the individual circumstances rather than a simple answer.

Road and sewer design often requires looking at the results on screen and making a very educated decision, "Do I increase the pipe size or change the gradient?", "Should this vertical curve be a bit longer, or should it be moved a bit?", "If I lift the sub-grade level can I reduce haul routes"?". A lot of decisions are based on experience and a gut feeling, then it is tested before being accepted, such decisions can't be left to a drafter and an engineer can't sit behind them doing remote control!

It's horses for courses, you can't have a global rule for everyone.

[Organic]

Yes, I should have been more clearer, I was referring to the civil industry in particular as alluded to above with regards to road, drainage and sewage design etc.