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New CAD Standards for an old company


dawgdeelux

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Howdy,

 

Next week I will start at a new firm as principle designer/CAD manager. Most of the 6-8 CAD guys and gals are engineering students working and going to school.

 

In conversation with the owners and managers I have been tasked with 2 immediate goals.

 

1. Make a rapid transition from 2D to 3D - This means the first project I touch Monday morning will be approached from a "Modeling" point of view.

 

2. Implementation of CAD standards in a 15 year old company that has mostly a transient staff.

 

#1 is probably the easiest to implement - in my mind.

 

#2 is the one that presents a bit more challenge. Both management and me agree, we DO NOT want to spend countless hours dictating linetypes and colors to the drafting and design staff, we agree that the "Artistic" part of this business should be protected and fostered. (I come from a hand drafting back ground, many years ago, where artistic ability helped to make drawings easier to understand)

 

Thus my question.

 

Striking the balance between professional, consistent design and fab drawings while maintaining a level of individuality, internal flexibility and external usability.

 

All of this without alienating a staff of young EIT's and engineering students.

 

Being new to the CAD management part of this position, I would surely appreciate any recommendations.

 

M.R.

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Big subject right here. It will be a process that's for sure. I found that you are absolutely correct in allowing each designer the freedom of tools, commands, and procedures. However, I also agree that standards must be met to a certain degree and that will be your job in time to find your company's "sweet spot".

 

One thing I did with my last company, was create a company wide set of Tool Palettes, and loaded an Enterprise CUI menu. This worked out really well for two good reasons. First, the Tool Palettes were carefully crafted, tested, and used by me and only for me for a long while until I finally implemented. With Tool Palettes, certain blocks, commands, and tools were easily accessible with standards already built in (such as layer, color, linetype control, text styles, etc). The second part, regarding the Enterprise CUI, was the customizations I did with this allowed certain repeatable tools to be isolated into one set of menu and toolbar, and was un-editable (since it was an Enterprise CUI instead of the Main CUI). But, this was an addition to their interface, allowing the Main CUI to still be used and set up however they wanted. So they had the option to use one, the other, or both.

 

This, of course, is one small piece of advice for what can be an enormous undertaking of CAD Management. Hope this gives some intuitions for your upcoming endeavors. ;)

 

**EDIT**

Look into utilizing an ACADDOC.LSP file. You can search this forum for it, or visit http://www.cadpanacea.com/ for a good explanation of this setup, as well as more real world uses of CAD management scenarios.

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Both management and me agree, we DO NOT want to spend countless hours dictating linetypes and colors to the drafting and design staff

 

This is something you absolutely SHOULD be doing. CAD drafting is all about standards and it is a necessity for everyone to be on the same page. They can all still be creative and artistic but they need to do it within the confines of the company drafting standards. This is especially important when it comes to group projects where you may have 3 or 4 people working on the same project. If there are no standards for anyone to follow, (colors, linetypes, layers, plot styles, etc.), everyone will be doing their own thing and you will end up with a hodge-podge of printed sheets that don't relate and look like they came from several different offices.

 

And if you do have a transient staff as you have said, you need standards in place so if someone leaves it will be easy for someone else to jump in and take over the projects of the previous employee without having to spend a lot of time trying to figure out that persons system.

 

Standards are key to efficiency and productivity.

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I'm STILL in the process of doing exactly this. I'm the CAD Manager, but I'm also the second youngest person in the drafting department.

 

I haven't yet got the layer colors dictated, but it's being pushed. I've fully utilized acaddoc.lsp to check for dim/text styles and set to current, or create/recreate if necessary.

 

Long story short, I've used acaddoc.lsp to define most standards and delete non-standards. If the end user wants to be non-standard, it takes a LOT of effort. The draftsman wants to use what's easiest, fastest and most complete and efficient. Using acaddoc to redefine the standards every time the draftsman opens their drawings, makes it extremely difficult to be non-standard. This has helped a LOT in paving the way for setting more variables and processes into a standard manner.

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This topic is one of interest to me as well.

 

Adequate CAD standards are a must. Be thorough, be common-sensical, and do NOT be a CAD Nazi.

 

CAD Standards is an ongoing process that will continuously evolve, and it is your (the CAD Mgr's) responsibility to communicate this to management. They're typically accustom to spending the man-hours necessary to establish a process, and then it's done. This is rarely the case with CAD matters. Set short term and long term goals, learn the strengths and weaknesses of your existing CAD staff, and talk with them... and not from on high. Don't send out anonymous surveys, personally engage them face to face... You'll learn a lot more about how they like / dislike existing standards, and or the new ones you implementing.

 

Avoid unexpected, major changes. Make the CAD staff part of the process. Personal involvement allows them not only to better understand, but also provides you the forum necessary to compile the information you need while effectively demonstrating that you, and you alone hold the final decision card. But it is critical, as a CAD Mgr, to have the ongoing support of those whom you manage. Without winning them over, you're days are numbered.

 

All that being said, effectively implementing your new standards will be most effective, and supported, if you proved them the freedom to customize beyond your minimum standard... so long as they still meet all standards. Intrigue them, engage them, be consistent with them, and if nothing else motivate them... both they, and you will find this working relationship more rewarding, and *hopefully* more profitable.

 

... My $0.02 :)

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OK, so if you don't want to Standardize the 'Look' of the drawings (to maintain creativity) and you don't want to standardize the 'CAD' stuff (Layers and so on) so what exactly are you standardizing?

 

Let me ask this in another way. What tangible commercial business benefits would there be to having CAD standards in your company? I think that you need to focus your goals first.

 

Typical reasons for standards include:

 

Standardization of Output

i.e The printed drawings all looking the same.

The key benifit here is that it makes it a lot easier for the manufacturing shop to read your drawings if the Border, Title Block, Font, Dim styles, Lineweights e.t.c are consistent.

 

Standardization of Content

i.e The CAD Standards - ability for drafters to work on each others drawings, without having to do a lot of editing to get things 'How they Like it'.

The benefit here is that you can edit, reuse or copy and paste from each other's drawings without wasting time. You can also provide standard content for your Drafters to save them time.

Of course, this is a lot easier if you have standardized how the typical details should look ;)

 

Automation

I started off on the Drawing board and I love drawing by hand, but I have to admit, drawing on the computer is a LOT faster!

If you standardize your Fonts, layers, Linetypes, Plotstyles and so on, you are in a great position to build Tool pallettes or even program custom routines Via the ACADdoc.lsp to automate your processes.

 

I hope that this gets you thinking!

I recommend reading anything you can find by my favourite CAD Manager - Robert Green:

http://www.cad-manager.com/

http://www.cadalyst.com/listing/89/cad-manager-column

 

P.S. He also has great advice for Drawing offices moving to 3D!

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I recommend reading anything you can find by my favourite CAD Manager - Robert Green:

http://www.cad-manager.com/

http://www.cadalyst.com/listing/89/cad-manager-column

 

P.S. He also has great advice for Drawing offices moving to 3D!

 

I also find Mark Kiker to be informative:

 

http://www.caddmanager.com/CMB/

AUGI Articles by Mark Kiker

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The color, layer and font in a job has nothing to do with creativity or artistry. That's fluff. If you want your office to look professional, then the basic layers, linetypes, colors and fonts should be the same from one draftsman to the next. They should all use the same set of titleblocks, door tags, etc. and that should be consistant throughout the project. If you have a group working on the same project, they should get together at the very first and establish paper sizes, which titleblocks will be used, etc at the start of the process. There is nothing creative about using Arial one time, comic sans the next and something else the next time. If they want to be creative, channel that into desiging the house/mall/school/parking garage...whatever.

 

Now having said that, you can't possibly anticipate every situation that will arise. People will need to add layers, linetypes, all that stuff, but you need to make sure that the people in the office follow the established standards when possible. In other words, if the standard says that exterior walls are to be drawn on layer EXW and it is to be color 202, then that's where they should be. But then you'll get into a situation where you're doing an addition to an existing building. What then? There are many times when it might be desireable to turn off either the existing or addition and the easiest way to do that is with layers, of course. You'll need to establish when it is acceptable to step outside the standards and how to go about it.

 

Your naming conventions should make sense, and be intuitive. There's no reason to create cryptic layer names that no one can understand. Someone should be able to see the layer name and have at least an idea of what will be on that layer. EXT235HJ78 will not tell someone to put dimensions on that layer. Avoid the temptation to start everything with the company name too. If the name of the company is Bob Inc, having 50 layers in a drawing that start with Bob is silly. Bob-walls, Bob-foundation, Bob-text...that doesn't help anybody. Everyone already knows who they work for. That should also be avoided when setting up files and folders on hard drives. Makes it difficult to sort and search.

 

I very much echo what Renderman says about engaging the group in establishing the standards. If they participate in the creation, it won't feel so much like something is being rammed down thier throat by the "new guy". You will have to establish authority of course, but if you can make them a part of it, there will be a sense of ownership among them and they will adopt it much more quickly and will stick to it much better. Still, there will be times that you will have to make a decision on how it will be. If the group can't agree on some point after a reasonable debate, then choose, and stick to it.

 

Even with this process, there will be resistance. You may have some that refuse to do it. If you have problems with individuals, deal with those individuals and avoid making sweeping changes to the rules because of one person's stubbornness. There may be times that you will be forced into showing someone the door over this. If you play that card, and the person continues to do what ever it was that caused you to draw that line, then don't back down. Just make sure you have the backing of your bosses before you play that card. You'll know if you're headed into that sort of showdown after a few discussions with the person.

 

With all of that, I would encourage you to remember this: You can lead people farther than you can drive them. Be the manager you have always wanted to work for.

Edited by Jack_O'neill
why can't i find the typos before i hit the button?
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These suggestions are great, some are easier than others toimplement, but great insight just the same.

After day one I came to a realization, not a single CAD userdrafter, designer or engineer have any idea what "Standardization"means. "We have a title block..." and "...it printsjust fine..." were common responses in casual conversation.

 

Basically I'm starting from scratch ie.

 

one layer one line type one color

 

Dimensions in paper space only

 

File names start with the project number

 

Don't leave drawings on your C: drive

 

etc.

 

Now as recommended, I'll strive to "Be the manager you havealways wanted to work for."

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Those sounds like a good starting point.

 

I wouldn't enforce layer names, everyone has their own way of doing that. So long as it is sensible, it is fine in my opinion. Likewise with drafters changing the standards where necessary. so long as they know the standards and follow them for the most part they can change it as needed/requested to suit the particular job they are working on.

 

It will be easier to get new staff to adopt the standards (provided they are taught them early) than to get the older staff to.

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Start Here

 

I went through the same process about a year ago. The link above is what I came up with. Your biggest battle is going to be getting everyone to fall in line with it. My advice, and I think this was posted earlier, is to include the CAD department in the decision making process so they feel as though they've contributed to the standard. This will make them much more willing to follow it.

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Another thing, and hopefully this is already understood, don't bring up the CAD Standards you had somewhere else.

 

Your employer hired you because they felt you were capable of doing the job, so focus on the doing, and try not to remind them that they're not as good as where you came from (presuming you had a good standard prior). Take from your prior experience what you can (obviously) that is advantageous for their needs, and the culture you're now in, but leave it at that... they don't *need* to know anything more.

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Those sounds like a good starting point.

 

I wouldn't enforce layer names, everyone has their own way of doing that. So long as it is sensible, it is fine in my opinion. Likewise with drafters changing the standards where necessary. so long as they know the standards and follow them for the most part they can change it as needed/requested to suit the particular job they are working on.

 

 

That's great unless you have software downline in another department that's looking for information on specific layers. You can't write software to anticipate every variation a group of people might come up with. Falling back on my own line of work, lets say you have a material takeoff department that has a lisp or vba that extracts cut lengths for a curtainwall product from the drawings. If Bob draws it on a layer called cwall, and Joe draws it on cw, and Bill draws it on layer zero, and Rick draws it on whatever layer he happens to be on, your takeoff team will spend more than half thier time "fixing" all that, where if these guys had drawn the curtainwall on the layer that the standard called for, it would not be necessary to waste the time fixing the layers. What's worse, if "curtainwall" layer's color is say blue, for instance, and one of these guys has made his own layer for it and it just happens to be blue, that sets the take off guy up to fail. He might overlook the need to fix that elevation because he saw it drawn in a blue layer and it led him to believe that elevation was on the right layer when it really wasn't, so that elevation gets missed in the takeoff. Yes, he should double check and all that, but we all know how it is in a rush. We almost always had a second person checking takeoffs, but it always got counted as an error, and you had to go back and not only add the missing material, but re-run the optimization report and all that. Long story short, it was a big hullabaloo that would have been avoided if the drafter had just drawn it on the right layer to start with.

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While you are correct, everyone's scope & scale is different... so the downstream issues (internally, or externally) may not be an issue for others. Regardless of that being a best practice, or not.

 

Take this with a grain of salt, as this is just my experience... but standards, much like policy, are not "happy fun rules everyone likes." They're the law, now be professional and comply. If there's a major flaw with the standard, then that can be corrected through the proper steps (identify, report, evaluate options, corrective action).

 

Simple as that (in my little world). LoL

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As someone who has actually had to implement standards in a similar situation I would recommend a standards manuel that will define everything from layers line types and colors to drawing set ups and what ever else needs to be covered. If you don't, they will run amuck on you and you will have no standards.

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As someone who has actually had to implement standards in a similar situation I would recommend a standards manuel that will define everything from layers line types and colors to drawing set ups and what ever else needs to be covered. If you don't, they will run amuck on you and you will have no standards.

 

If you [create a CAD standard manual], they will [adhere to your standard]. :lol: LoL

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If you [create a CAD standard manual], they will [adhere to your standard]. :lol: LoL

 

 

lol, yes, i have more gooder englishes sometimes ...

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Dawgdeelux, are you beginning to grasp the magnitude of the task before you? Even this group of highly trained, highly experienced people can't agree on how or even if this should be done. Good luck...you're gonna need it. :lol:

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While you are correct, everyone's scope & scale is different... so the downstream issues (internally, or externally) may not be an issue for others. Regardless of that being a best practice, or not.

 

^ this. It works fine for us anyway.

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