Do engineers actually use Inventor?

As a designer getting more experience with Inventor; I have to ask...do engineers actually do their own CAD work? The reason I ask is that there is a lot to Inventor, and I have 30+ years experience using AutoCAD and various other CAD programs.

Almost every engineer I've worked with whined about doing their own CAD (primarily AutoCAD) work, or found every excuse under the sun to avoid it, or got laid off or retired because they refused to learn CAD. Thinking back I can only recall a couple of architects who didn't make a fuss about learning and using CAD.

Short answer- Yes.

Last place I worked we did stuff for a large nuclear site.

The guys doing lifting beams, steel fabrications, piping, plant layouts, electricals, etc. used Autocad.

The guys doing structural used Autocad and Revit.

The guys doing component parts and assemblies for ROV's and other bespoke machinery used Inventor.

I think the days of seperate designers and CAD monkeys have gone now.

You do it all yourself just like you do your own typing and the typing pool no longer exists.

I often wonder about people and their stubbornness to learn new things,

I’ve always felt the more I can learn the better, I guess I’m just weird.

“learn a new program, na that’s ok I already have a pencil”

We use both Inventor and AutoCAD as well. We design custom industrial equipment of all different sizes and designs. Initial layout work is done in ACAD since it is quicker to revise. Once the customer signs off on the design we fully model the equipment in Inventor. There's a lot of library parts and previously designed sub-assemblies but there is still plenty of custom work required on each machine. While we have multiple engineers in our department we pretty much each do our own work from concept to completion. Depending on work flow someone else might generate some of the drawings or finish modeling if one of us is extra busy.

Many years ago I worked in several consulting engineers offices in NE England and there all of the engineers did all of their own CAD design work. We also had technicians but they were trained in and had studied the specific subject and were not CADdies. Everything worked superbly well and although some of the engineers were not so much 'computer minded' everybody saw it as a tool an engineer used, such as a calculator. Later here in Germany I found that nearly all engineers/architects do not do any CAD work at all, but have dedicated CADdies who are not trained in the subject but just have draughting experience and draw up the hand done sketches from the engineer. I find the job takes longer to complete and is more prone to errors because the person drawing up the job is not qualified in the subject. The engineers here feel that it is below their station to use CAD of any description. Perhaps we should take away their paper and pencils and tell them that the ancient Greeks just drew it in the sand.

Thanks everyone for replying.

I've quoted Tyke's reply as his experience is essentially the same as mine.

When I got into the business I was a CAD Operator (aka draftsman, CADie) who didn't know squat; but as my experience grew I went from CAD operator to Designer, along with CAD programmer and occasional manager.

The engineers griped that the draftsman didn't understand the discipline, and I can understand their frustration as I saw that happen first hand with my less motivated coworkers. Eventually the company did away with draftsmen, and just had engineers and designers. The company encouraged the engineers to learn CAD with the eventual goal of minimizing the number of designers on staff. That didn't work so well as many of the engineers had the same attitude that Tyke describes. I can understand their point of view as humans are hierarchal by nature. It's sort of like asking a brain surgeon to work walk-in clinic duty dispensing aspirin and penicillin.

From my experience the best situation consisted of skilled designers working closely with engineers to get the job done. The more ambitious designers wanted to learn engineering, and the more open minded engineers wanted to learn CAD. And in a perfect world, a skilled designer who was a CAD super-user would have the often thankless task of managing the CAD system as they understood what the engineers and designers needed and wanted from their systems. Unfortunately a lot of companies skimp on CAD management because the 'Brass' to this day still doesn't understand the concept that it takes more than pressing a button to poop out a design and its accompanying drawings.

To me a good CAD manager(s) makes the system(s) work well for the particular company, and in a lot of ways I equate the value of a skilled CAD manager to a company spending the money to have good C.E. (Central Engineering) file clerks to keep track of drawings, vendor tear sheets, submittals, and all the other paperwork required to keep a complex project on track. I found that good C.E. clerks were worth their weight in gold in spite of their jobs being boring (my opinion) and less than glamorous.

Many years ago I worked in several consulting engineers offices in NE England and there all of the engineers did all of their own CAD design work. We also had technicians but they were trained in and had studied the specific subject and were not CADdies. Everything worked superbly well and although some of the engineers were not so much 'computer minded' everybody saw it as a tool an engineer used, such as a calculator. Later here in Germany I found that nearly all engineers/architects do not do any CAD work at all, but have dedicated CADdies who are not trained in the subject but just have draughting experience and draw up the hand done sketches from the engineer. I find the job takes longer to complete and is more prone to errors because the person drawing up the job is not qualified in the subject. The engineers here feel that it is below their station to use CAD of any description. Perhaps we should take away their paper and pencils and tell them that the ancient Greeks just drew it in the sand.

Programs like Inventor are now full-fledged engineering softwares.

Go into an assembly and the Design tab.

Go into the Design Accelerators and the Calculations tabs.

Go into Environments>Stress Analysis (FEA).

Go into Environments>Dynamic Simulation.

I believe engineers use Inventor. Just as engineers use AutoCAD and Revit. But their main focus is not to be strong in the designing part, but the engineering part, so I think the engineer/designer combo is still relevant.

In my experience, engineers use CAD applications to gather necessary information. I know of a couple of full blown engineers that also do their own designing but only because they took their own initiative instead of dumping it on the shoulders of the CAD department.

JD, I agree with you on this; but there are still a lot of aspects of Inventor, et al that engineers (ones I've worked with) consider grunt CAD work that's beneath them.

I've used AutoCAD since R9 and I saw R1.x demo'ed before R2.x became a viable tool. I've worked on projects ranging from power plants, petro-chem plants, chip plants, etc with AutoCAD; but now with Revit and Inventor I cringe at having to use AutoCAD for this type of physical work. I've relegated AutoCAD to schematics whenever possible. AutoCAD still excels at grunt drafting tasks though.

Programs like Inventor are now full-fledged engineering softwares.

Go into an assembly and the Design tab.

Go into the Design Accelerators and the Calculations tabs.

Go into Environments>Stress Analysis (FEA).

Go into Environments>Dynamic Simulation.

TZ; you and I think alike in that department. Just as the medical profession has generalists and specialists; I feel engineering has room for engineers and designers working together drawing upon the expertise of each other's special skill sets.

Many years ago I had the privilege of working with a plumbing engineer whose hand drawn markups were perfect drawings to begin with. As good as I am with AutoCAD; I told him he should be doing his own CAD work since he didn't mind creating gorgeous drawings, although I was happy that he helped keep me employed. I lost track of him after I left the company, and I wonder if he learned AutoCAD. Heck, he could be retired by now as he is older than I am.

I believe engineers use Inventor. Just as engineers use AutoCAD and Revit. But their main focus is not to be strong in the designing part, but the engineering part, so I think the engineer/designer combo is still relevant.

 

In my experience, engineers use CAD applications to gather necessary information. I know of a couple of full blown engineers that also do their own designing but only because they took their own initiative instead of dumping it on the shoulders of the CAD department.

Working in Engineering using Autocad and Inventor is what we do, starting with Autocad to get the raw and dirty basic design down in cad then moving to Inventor using all the accelerators and FEA to prove the design. I'm hands on in the design from concept sketch to 2d Autocad, 3d model/simulation then onto 2d documentation. As an Engineer CAD is not beneath me or my team it's the foundations for sure and the backbone of the design.

Working in Engineering using Autocad and Inventor is what we do, starting with Autocad to get the raw and dirty basic design down in cad then moving to Inventor using all the accelerators and FEA to prove the design. I'm hands on in the design from concept sketch to 2d Autocad, 3d model/simulation then onto 2d documentation. As an Engineer CAD is not beneath me or my team it's the foundations for sure and the backbone of the design.

I'd say you and your team are the exception to the rule. I think a lot of it is also generational. Most of the engineers I worked with that balked at learning CAD are my generation (50's) or older. Some of the younger engineers I used to work with were more open to the idea; but they were not jumping on the bandwagon so to speak.

I work for an aerospace machining company and before I started they were using 2d CAD for all the drawings. I was trained in high school on R13 for architecture and have taught myself many programs over the years -Inventor, SolidWorks, Form-Z, along with design programs like Corel, Photoshop & Adobe Suite, Quark, etc. With excellent drafting and designing skills but limited engineering knowledge, I worked with the engineer to implement Inventor into our daily use. Now we can test and assemble parts in much greater detail, set forces, bend features, and really find out if parts are going to work or not. Our manufacturing process has been streamlined and errors are caught much sooner. Without this things are very difficult to conceptualize and communicate to the machinists. I took some time off recently and people realized what I actually do around here and it was a bit of an eye opener not having these skills around.

Well put mjncad: "From my experience the best situation consisted of skilled designers working closely with engineers to get the job done. The more ambitious designers wanted to learn engineering, and the more open minded engineers wanted to learn CAD. And in a perfect world, a skilled designer who was a CAD super-user would have the often thankless task of managing the CAD system as they understood what the engineers and designers needed and wanted from their systems. Unfortunately a lot of companies skimp on CAD management because the 'Brass' to this day still doesn't understand the concept that it takes more than pressing a button to poop out a design and its accompanying drawings."

And as always Lazer and JD say smart things.

Thanks kpyoung333.