CAD work
CAD work
(OP)
Do most of the engineers on this board do their own CAD work? The company I currently work for is small, and thus we are quite busy and I am stuck doing all of my own CAD drawing work (new building design, not manufacturing). Is this typical? They are very against hiring CAD technicians, which I think is a much more cost efficient way of producing documents. It is quite boring to spend 30-40% of my time drawing in CAD as opposed to working on the overall engineering of the project. Past companies I've worked for all had CAD techs and designers so the engineers never did their own CAD. We have all PE engineers doing their own CAD drawings.





RE: CAD work
RE: CAD work
If engineers did their own CAD work, it can save time going back and fourth with mark-ups.
In structural engineering firms, engineers doing CAD is not the norm. Almost all companies I know of have staff of CAD drafters. The difference is in the engineer-to-drafter ratio.
RE: CAD work
Of course, now we're down to one engineer ...
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RE: CAD work
I am an engineer. I know how to CAD. I do draft on some jobs. CADDING/drafting should not be "beneath" an engineer to do.
I also have a lot more "cred" with the drafters because they have seen me draft.
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RE: CAD work
That said we also did pm, quotes, SOW, trials, manufacturing liason......
I'm inclined to agree with Whyun in his logic. Big problemm is a lot pure engineers I've come across can't turn out a decent drawing even if they can use CAD while some drafters don't have quite the level of skill/knowledge to take very rough schemes/sketches and transform them into workable designs.
Horses for courses I guess.
RE: CAD work
As far as "If engineers did their own CAD work, it can save time going back and fourth with mark-ups" I guess this would be true because there is no one else to check them for mistakes but fellow engineers who make the same ones themselves.
I fully appreciate working with engineers who have the knowledge and experience of creating good drawings, but they are becoming more rare every day. They simply don't have the time to get PROPER drafting experience. They are forced to get the drawing out the door and the part made, drawing mistakes be damned.
RE: CAD work
I look at it the same way a female engineer would if she was ask to do all the typing.
RE: CAD work
It all depends on the scenario and I've been in different ends of the spectrum.
I hate having to draw things up from scrath by hand. I hate writing by hand. I like doing everything on the computer using spreadsheets etc... Often I find it easier to begin concepts by CAD and letting the drafters run with the finish work. Other times, it might be easier to print out a similar design from the past and mark it up for the drafters to fix.
It all depends on the scenario, but that is a dilimma we have to think about as engineers.
Ed
www.engineerboards.com
RE: CAD work
The same applies to writing letters, making the coffee, arranging appointments, booking flights, booking the conference rooms and ensuring they are clean, in fact just about everything.
The other option is you have an army of employees running around after you and probably another manager to oversee all these extra employees, hardly cost efficient either. Wearing many hats seems to be the norm these days.
RE: CAD work
1. One place where engineers were not allowed or expected to CADD, because they were paid to be engineers, not CADD techs;
2. One place where engineers were expected to do any CADD necessary;
3. One place where engineers were nominally not required to do CADD, but everyone understood that the markup process needed short-circuiting in a pinch.
There are parts of the job where a specialist is needed, such as the initial setup of a job in its directories, xrefs, and backgrounds. If that is done to company standards, it is easier for the engineers to do CADD and not have to worry about file management.
Finally, I have never met a CADD tech specially trained to do electrical drafting. I have known techs who were self-taught, techs who knew CAD but knew nothing about electrical design, and I have known electricians who knew CAD. All things considered, I prefer the latter. In general I don't like setting up drawings or creating drawing elements; there are those who do--I would just as soon leave the raw drafting to them and the mods to me.
RE: CAD work
New and inexperienced engineers, though they might be able to perform calculations, can learn a whole lot from veteran drafters who can teach them how things are put together.
Before personal computers, engineers did their own drafting. There were tracers and there were drafters. You had to earn the title "drafter".
At this day and age, engineers should possess at least basic CAD skills to edit CAD drawings. But it makes business sense to leave the main CAD work to those who are trained in CAD. Much faster (and cheaper) than engineers.
RE: CAD work
RE: CAD work
I am a technologist mechanical designer and I do all my own drawings. I would be uncomfortable having someone else do my fabrication drawings because my dimensions and tolerances are based on design requirements that I understand. I am much happier farming out sub-assemblies with simple, well-defined interfaces, and let the other designer figure those out, completely.
If I do engineering calculations and analysis, I am working on stuff where I control the assembly, parts list, and fabrication drawings. All this information connects together.
Back in my drawing board and 2D CAD days, I spent maybe 5-10% of my time on fabrication drawings. The task was not worth farming out.
On 3D CAD (SolidWorks), I start the fabrication drawings immediately, so that I can feed in the critical dimensions as I work them out. It creates a useful, alternate view of what I am doing. Again, I would object strongly to farming it out.
In my field, I do not understand the concept of a specialized drafter. If you are going to get any of your own work done, you have to walk away and let them work. You have to trust them while you are not watching them. They require some level of engineering expertise.
JHG