Increasing / Analysing CAD SPEED

[EMS_0525]

There was an old designer at my previous job that manually drew everything, EVERYTHING, including dimensions. He would draw trim lines on all the text, all the dim lines, arrow heads... everything. He used autocad like it was a pencil and paper still... and if you tried to show him a tool that would save him time he wouldnt want to see it. I even tried just showing him that you can trim right to text instead of drawing trim lines around it... And his response to not using the dimension tools was that if it was 10' the dim would read 10'-1/8" and i said thats because the actual distance wasnt really 10' than!!!!! AHHH.... but he got paid good money we called him a construction encyclopedia. He knew everything about building and designing things. One engineer said every job he worked on the company lost money on because how long it took him do to things....

[ruchiarch]

Otherwise company may not hire !!

[Coosbaylumber]

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

 

 

I sort of disagree here on this, or where it is aimed right now. For I was a PM at a small sized firm a few years ago, and ran into this situation a few times. Initially I was hired to be an Urban Planner (for as often as one partner advertised in local newspapers, I was the ONLY applicant to come along and respond to their needs), but at that firm we had a nice selection of characters available ranging from a very slow methodical few to some who ran around acting authoritative with a very Liberal mind and used a pencil to sketch or emphasise their ideas.

 

We had one client, Albertson's supermarkets that wanted to construct a Pharmacy on a corner lot. The problem was that whoever drew up the initial plan did not know of certain "rules" as for lot size and coverage, or for how cut slopes were to fit. For that initial drawing to meet current "standards" per the Uniform Building Code, it would result in a building of 20 feet depth and 300 feet long. Not condusive to Pharmacy customers. Per a quicky meeting one morning with the developer, we did not want to loose a $200,000 job due to "US" making a mistake back when (the original designers of the plan were terminated days after completion) but in the next few minutes we had to salvage what was shown (thus keeping the client). The client's representative wanted answers right then and there, which is why the meeting. Or, there goes a nice sized contract out the door.

 

In to the meeting room that morning, we yelled for a couple of employees to join us. The Liberal thought guys had five proposals of new grading sketched up within five minutes, whereas the two "Slow but steady ones wanted two days to two weeks of thought before comitting themselves. The client was visably agitated at hearing this, for it protracted into a 2-3 month delay as to getting building. He could not afford such a delay as proposed by the Steady ones that morning as construction funding was important. The Liberal guys had some sort of ideas that needed polishing up, but in one way or another each sketch would work. The client chose sketch number two, and we went forward on that basis. Minutes later, the steady ones while walking away from the meeting room were still commenting how it was "all wrong" due to....

 

But the Liberal ideas saved us the contract, and we went ahead on the basis of their very flakey interpretation.

 

No, I disagree with above. A firm needs a few Liberal thinking employees on board. I can remember that days later the steady guys were assigned to make the plans and iron out the water department requirements. I was not the PM at the time, but a week later caught one of them making BS to the secretary up front. (Why isn't he working on the detail drawings then?) He was awaiting for a certain person over at the Water Department to return from vacation so that a meeting could be scheduled up and approval or denial of a certain concept being considered. An admirable quality, but a waste of time and budgeted money, for he could easily be working on one of the other phases.

 

The Slow and steady guys may be the affordable ones of a firm, but if it had not been for the few Liberals shooting off the hip as they did, we would have lost the whole contract. These guys moreover argued with themselves as to some concept, instead of with the client or the City staff.

 

Then after some unforeseen delay and no more contract, who do you keep once the round of layoffs begin. The Slow and steady types or the Liberal thinking ones? Slow and steady is not how projects get done for I would rather have a contract on a Bad Design then none at all. The object is to get that client to come back again, not go someplace else.

 

 

Wm.

[Cad64]

I hear what you're saying Coosbay, but remember, if someone would have taken the time to draft the plans correctly to begin with, you wouldn't have been in that situation. It's my guess that someone just rushed through them instead of taking the slow and steady approach. :wink:

 

And by slow and steady, I don't mean taking 2 weeks to come up with some ideas. That's just ridiculous. If I told my boss it would take me 2 weeks to come up with some concepts he'd probably tell me to go pack up my stuff. But he also wouldn't expect me to come up with 5 concepts in 5 minutes either. And if I did, he would probably just throw them out and tell me to go think about it a little more carefully.

 

As ReMark stated, going too fast leads to mistakes and can end up costing you more in the long run. Ever heard the expression "Measure twice, cut once"? But on the flip side, going too slow is also costly and can lead to lost clients. There is a middle area that everyone should strive for.

 

Just my opinion.

[JohnM]

One owner of a company I worked for would say: “We never had the time to do it right the first time, but always had the time to do it right the second time.”

If a person is fast but costing money down the line that is worse than a slow person getting it right the first time.

Being a outsource draftsman I have to be fast and right to make money.

Suggestions:

I have 2 profiles that I use 1- for 2D 1- for 3D. the 2D had 2 rows of toolbars across the top and the 3D has 3 rows. None on the sides. Everything is hot keyed programmed through the acad.pgp file. Also most of the toolbars are custom.

If a person is a button pusher they will be a lot slower than a hot key person.

Some people are just slow and will never get any faster.

Some people just don’t want to be faster just to collect a check.

If you job is only to use AutoCAD and after 3-4 years you don’t know AutoCAD inside out(not programming) you should be fired. Q: would you get on a plain whit a pilot that didn’t know his aircraft front to back inside out?

I would watch the person then sit down with them and ask them how do they think they could improve on their job. If they don’t know you should. After a while I would look at the cost factor vrs others in the same position. And if they are more costly replace them.

Business is business do what you have to do to make money that is all that counts.