Increasing / Analysing CAD SPEED

[ruchiarch]

Hey there !

 

I am CAD manger in architects firm...

 

I have been given a task that a person (draftsman) is slow

I have to make him quick with his working speed.

 

I have checked his all speed and commands... he knows all of them...

but still what should I do.. he is still slow... is dere any baises or way to check him on his drafting speed....

 

PLSSSS HELP !! Its urgent !!

 

 

Ruchi Tandon

 

[ReMark]

He knows all his commands so what makes him slower? Poor work habits? Too much "thinking" about what he needs to do rather than actually doing it? Maybe you should sit off to one side and just watch the way he works. Is he making use of command aliases or custom Lisp routines? Some people are just more methodical than others. It's not a hardware issue is it? Does his computer match the specs of the other computers being used?

[ruchiarch]

Ummmm yeah !!

 

Well .... yes he knowss all d commands...which are bascially required for a good drafting...

 

System config is good too... and dere are no hardware issue....

 

He doesnt know anything about LISP n all....

but stilll.... he is slow.

 

I was thinking of giving him a plan to draft... and sit back with him to see wat all methos he use to draft... but will it help ??????

[ReMark]

Until you pinpoint what makes him slower in comparison to others you have no clue how to help him achieve better performance. How much experience as a CAD tech does he have? Does he have a solid understanding of architecture or was he hired primarily because he knew AutoCAD?

[ReMark]

One reason he could be slower is that instead of reusing portions of previous drawings he draws everything like it was for the very first time. Some of the speed of CAD comes from the use of blocks and the ability to copy from one drawing previously drawn details to use in another. Does your firm have a library of commonly used symbols and blocks? Is he taking advantage of it if you do?

[ruchiarch]

hummm yes .... correct ... i must have a watch whether he is using the blocks and standards....

[ReMark]

You did not answer a couple of my questions. See my second post.

 

Additionally, how long has he been with the company? Is training offered to all employees regardless of level of experience? Has he had any individualized training?

[Coosbaylumber]

He knows all his commands so what makes him slower? Poor work habits? Too much "thinking" about what he needs to do rather than actually doing it? Maybe you should sit off to one side and just watch the way he works. Is he making use of command aliases or custom Lisp routines? Some people are just more methodical than others. It's not a hardware issue is it? Does his computer match the specs of the other computers being used?

 

 

My one thought is the "Error Ratio" of the employee. We all make mistakes once in a while.

 

Is he analyzing the project too hard, asking questions, and trying to minimise any errors?

 

Or is he going forth, doing as requested, and then backing up to correct some defect?

 

Takes longer to un-do someones wrong work than to charge on ahead on your own. Maybe he is trying too hard to be near perfect.

 

 

Wm.

[Ryder76]

My one thought is the "Error Ratio" of the employee. We all make mistakes once in a while.

 

Is he analyzing the project too hard, asking questions, and trying to minimise any errors?

 

Or is he going forth, doing as requested, and then backing up to correct some defect?

 

Takes longer to un-do someones wrong work than to charge on ahead on your own. Maybe he is trying too hard to be near perfect.

 

I think you may have it here. The last place I worked we had a very experienced drafter, but he was VERY slow. I watched him one day and realized he was taking too much time verifying and making sure of his every move. Now in his defense - his work rarely had mistakes, but even after he had checked and taken all that time there were still a very few. He was dependable, but slow. Not all companies can tolerate that I know, but he was valued there.

[Coosbaylumber]

Way back in the late 1970's or early 1980's I worked for a civil engineering firm who did City Plan Checking on a consultant basis. Had a registered Civil Engineer come in the office one time, with originals under the arm, and DEMAMD that his phase three plans be approved, as they had already been checked via looking over the earlier phases.

 

"Bring in some blueprints, a check for.... and will then place in pile to begin looking at". He went out sort of mad.

 

At City Council meeting next week he was there, and had originals with him. He demanded a city signature and right then too.

 

Simple ask by Mayor was: are these ready?

 

No.

Had never seen the stuff before.

 

Mayor then told the engineer to either submitt per established policy, or get out of town, turn the project over to another firm, and get ready for a complaint via the Board.

 

The RE, never sent in Phase Three, as claimed via newspaper we ran him out of business, and developer too.

 

He resubmitted a set of plans for a whole new project four years later on.

Oh, that biz back when. Well I wasn't being paid by the developer and I tried to.... so I could get a better situation on the client and....

 

 

Wm.

[BIGAL]

Yeah I have 7 staff copententcy varies from 1 week to 2 weeks to do similar jobs Ok you will say get rid of 2 week guy when you compare the drawings the quick guy answer is his drawings are very simplified and some times missing detail that he expects the construction forman will make up for. The other guy will go so far overboard some times with detail I have to keep an eye on him to stop this and often have to direct him to keep on track. But the quick guy can add the extra detail when required and still be time better.

 

Anyway I often watch my staff and think why did you do it that way it takes longer, unfortunately staff pick up good and bad habits when doing pure drafting lines arcs trimming filleting etc it may only be seconds but its amazing how much that adds up. Have a good hard look at how they are really drawing. Pick a test project say pure line work no design thinking and check how long it took to do but you must have a benchmark to compare to.

 

One problem you have is people do not like to be told how to do things to shave those seconds. Even down to press the space bar to repeat commands or as a "enter" press. At our staff meetings the question of how can we improve something using lisp etc gets the seat fidgets ask the next guy dont care.

 

The only answer to this for us is the projects are chosen for a deigner/drafter are now based on time not necessarily his worldwide experience and design compentency.

 

In closing a guy will draw up what you want perfect in a test but does he travel at 70% of the speed limit in reallity. There was an autocad test at one of the big trade shows and the times were like 15min v's the winner 2mins 15sec.

[Coosbaylumber]

Al...

 

I used to do civil engineering grading plans via Autocad. Had quite the opposite going on. After a short meeting one where to go next, within fifteen minutes one of the partners was in my office asking if I was done already.

 

Done?

 

It will take me two days for all of these revisons. There really are a lot you know.

 

 

Then Junior in another area, would find an old plumbing cabinet installation from some booklet, and claim how bad it was. The drawing was Old, but the dimensions were accurate. He would then fiddle around for a few hours with scale factors trying to make a distorted representation, just so it could be added to one plan sheet, up in the corner. Took him longer to make the detail drawing than it did to construct the real one.

 

Partners did not care about him using up time, but when I had to alter acres at a time, well, that was different. What are we paying you for then. I thought you guys were fast.

 

Wm.

[Dipali]

I think you may have it here. The last place I worked we had a very experienced drafter, but he was VERY slow. I watched him one day and realized he was taking too much time verifying and making sure of his every move. Now in his defense - his work rarely had mistakes, but even after he had checked and taken all that time there were still a very few. He was dependable, but slow. Not all companies can tolerate that I know, but he was valued there.

 

well, I have one of this kind, but I knew her this treand before I hired her as she had worked under me in my last job. Sometimes it annoys me when i have to work extra with her or extend deadlines(usually i try to set deadlines keepping it in mind) but I can rely on her for accuracy & so I value her.

I alos have the exact apposite type drafter. who is too fast(one of my senior staff says that he will break the keyboard one day with his speed) but we have to repetativley tell him to recheck is work for the mistakes which are not supposed to be there......He is slowly learning to avoid mistakes.

[ruchiarch]

WOW ! Nice Experiences.... very knowlegable !!

[ReMark]

Managing a staff with different levels of skills is a challenge. I think that, as it seems you have done, one must match the "job" with the personnel to get the best fit. Not an easy task when the pressures and time lines of the job demand your full attention. If you value this man's work you'll find a way to utilize him to the best of his ability.

[bonehead411]

I think that, as it seems you have done, one must match the "job" with the personnel to get the best fit.

 

Here here!

 

Years of running the shopfloor taught me exactly that. You have to accept that not all people can do all things the same.

Study those in your charge, discover their strengths and weaknesses, and utilise this knowledge within your day to day planning. Personally, I'd rather have someone a little slower, but with the accuracy and precision, everytime.

[Ryder76]

Personally, I'd rather have someone a little slower, but with the accuracy and precision, everytime.

 

I agree. Accuracy is always better than speed. The only qualifier for that would be in the case of a fast drafter correcting the mistakes faster than the slow drafter does it one time.

 

As a slight thread drift about checking work...

 

I used to highlight the redlines as I went, but I noticed that I still made more mistakes than I thought I should. Now when I do redlines I wait and do the highlighting after I print. I check each drawing one on one with the redline and find the mistakes (if any) that way. I found that my speed increased because I knew that checking that way caught any mistakes much better than the other way. It left me less stressed about accuracy. I found that I could out draft the guys checking the old way - even the ones that "seemed" to be faster than me. MHO FWIW

[Coosbaylumber]

Ryder...

 

In one way I can think of the plight of the FAST person being appropriate. For that person is asking: Is this route OK or not? If not, then lets not go into that way a minute more. I used to keep a backup file of yesterday or the morning, jsut incase the way I was going was all wrong, then I could near instantly go back a couple hours, and try it another way. Not ahving to remember anything.

 

Howver, if the way I was proceeding WAS OK, then I kept going, and the job was 80% done by end of day, and the slow person then took over and finished off one detail at a time. I was already on to another phase, trying to make some money for the company, mistakes or wrong direction included. Ever bill out time for a OOPS or we went the wrong way here?

 

Is easier to eat the two hours worth ofw work than to add one more and get back to where was some time ago, and then proceed to add one more hour on a different tact. That's four hours.

 

Wm.

[ReMark]

Speed for the sake of speed accomplishes nothing. More often than not it leads to more mistakes thus requiring more time to correct.

[Ryder76]

Speed for the sake of speed accomplishes nothing. More often than not it leads to more mistakes thus requiring more time to correct.

 

I agree - for me it is more about the stress reduction rather than the speed.