Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
(OP)
Does anyone know what percentage in time a design is reduced in hours based on design being done using a 3D Cad system (Solidworks)? Instead of hand drawings.
Need some numbers to help justify purchasing software for company.
Thanks, in advanced.
Need some numbers to help justify purchasing software for company.
Thanks, in advanced.






RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
I would say that if you're still doing things by hand, you're losing money compared to using software. Your best bet is to go to the SolidWorks website and look at all the various success stories.
Jeff Mirisola
Director of Engineering
M9 Defense
My Blog
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
See 4th paragraph at h
http://www
The biggest "trick" in implementing a CAD system is getting the users enthused with the idea, or even just accepting of the need.
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
lol
Have your management look at what your customers are using. If they are still on the board, then maybe you're OK.
I don't know of too many companies that are still doing hand drawings.
Chris
SolidWorks 11
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
thread559-182676: department shift to solidworks advice
thread559-23721: Help with Proposal to Management...
thread559-15674: Pro's for moving to SolidWorks
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thread559-68203: SOLIDWORKS & AUTOCAD
thread559-89783: Migration from AutoCAD to Solidworks - Warranted??
thread559-195682: Cost/Value of Solidworks?
Ben sure to take into consideration the potential cost of new hardware as well.
"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
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RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
Appreciate the replies as always.
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
- - -Updraft
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
Matt Lorono, CSWP
Product Definition Specialist, DS SolidWorks Corp
Personal sites:
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources & SolidWorks Legion
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
Most of my design time is spent starting at the drafting board or computer screen. 3D CAD will not save much of this. This is a dangerous discussion that will end by making you look like an idiot.
The advantage of 3D CAD is quality. You have way more effective communications with co-workers about what you are doing. You have better communications with your sales departments, your customers, and your fabricators.
In the end, if your 3D CAD is implemented intelligently, you will get to easily re-use existing designs, and then you will have time.
Where do you go to find people who can work on a drafting board?
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
People close to retiring would be a good source for drafting board types, but I doubt many would even contemplate going back. I had a great time while on the board, but after being spoiled by 3D modelling, I could not do it again. I just wouldn't have the patience.
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
At the time many argued that you couldn't teach the basics on CAD that the drawing board was required. Pure nonsense. In any case the customers determined the final outcome. Any reputable program switched to CAD.
Now the fight is to make the final push to 3D-to-2D as the default design practice. (as opposed to using 2D CAD as an electronic drafting board) With the advances in simulation and analysis along with CNC CAD/CAM, in addition to the obvious vizualization benefits - many are using 3D as an engineering analysis and documentation tool. Digital prototyping.
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
h
The biggest advantage of CAD is time saving.
Chris
SolidWorks 11
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
The ability to rapidly develop a design in parametric 3D systems blows the doors off trying to design using anything less. From an assembly you can edit a part to get the design to do what you want. If you really know what you are doing then generating a good drawing is incredibly fast, plus you never have to worry about the accuracy of the object lines. Making sections, alternate views, showing/not showing hidden lines in a drawing, etc. is so easy.
The current job I have I got partly because of eDrawings! I was able to show how easy it is to communicate with others with this simple and free 3D tool. They hired me as the director of engineering when they were originally just looking for a mid-level design engineer. My first assignment was to buy four seats of SWX. Three months later the tightwad owner said we had already exceeded his expectations with what we were able to do with it. THAT is quite a testimonial!
- - -Updraft
- - -Updraft
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
I would find it fun. The only downside I could see would be explaining to people why management wants to maintain the old pencil on paper drawings. Finding a blueprint machine could be fun. Ammonia is now classified as hazardous.
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
Your last comment evokes an image of Lloyd Bridges saying "I picked the wrong day to give-up making blueprints."
- - -Updraft
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
The days of changing/smelling the ammonia and it burning the paper-cuts on the fingers.
Chris
SolidWorks 11
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
Do you remember the days of Constructive Geometry? It was amazingly clever stuff, but I'm so glad I have SWX for all that now.
Designmr, what about making sepias? They were a pain to work with.
- - -Updraft
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
I started with Constructive Geometry.
I worked with sepias. I hated the chemical (eradicator?) for making changes.
I still have all my templates/tools in a box stored away in the garage. I gave some tools to my son while in engineering school.
Worked at a company ~16 years ago that did hand drawings, microfilmed them, then re-microfilmed every change, signature, etc. Was a PITA!
CAD makes life much easier in a lot of ways...until the computer locks up or crashes!
Chris
SolidWorks 11
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
Ctopher, now you are bringing back painful memories.
By the way does anybody want a used microfiche viewer?
I started as a board drafter where we microfilmed, later went to Auto Cad then Cadkey.
I later discovered parametric with Solidworks and then Alibre.
Would I go back? Well maybe to Solidworks.
Would I do a hand drawing? Possibly on an A sized sheet for a small simple part, then to save it I would still have to scan it so it did not get lost. But I am willing to bet that the time would be a wash and with the solid modeling program, you can print as many copies as you like.
B.E.
The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
I remember the eradicator, plus, having to use "Ajax" or some cleaner to remove large areas of ink on mylar or the "Dry Cleaning Eraser Pad (Scum Bag)"...
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
There are secondary benefits in design integrity and assembly file mating.
"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."
Ben Loosli
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
A good thing about CAD (especially 3D) is the ease of changing things.
A bad thing about CAD (especially 3D) is the ease of changing things. (You can spend a lot of time tweaking things that you just would have probably left as originally drawn otherwise.)
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
The old saying, "You don't know what you don't know" applies here. There are so many design issues that cannot be seen in standard two dimensional orthographic drawings and must be proven in manufacturing. The amount of time wasted going "back to the drawing board" kills companies and is never documented in the true production costs.
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
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RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
And is often never documented at all.
The shop-floor people figure out how to make it work - regardless of the drawing - and make it right (in the works of Mike Holmes).
They store all this information in their head and somehow the documentation never gets updated.
Along comes a big truck as they pull out of the driveway...crash and all that intellectual property is gone in an instant.
Full 3D/2D digital documentation helps ensure continuity in opperations of a company.
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
I am sorry. I do not see your point!
The shop builds it. They modify it and make it work. Then, they go on to the next job. Why would 3D make them more likely to tell drafting something?
People on drafting boards tended to come out of technical schools, where they learned at least something about shop operations. I suspect that a lot of modern day CAD operators have not a clue of what it takes to fabricate their parts. There is minimal communication between the shop and the CAD office.
3D CAD is an awesome tool in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing, but it is not the least bit idiot resistant.
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
Having spent 8 years of my life out on the shop floor as a machinist, the benefits of designing in 3D seem rather obvious to me.
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
"""And is often never documented at all.
The shop-floor people figure out how to make it work - regardless of the drawing - and make it right (in the works of Mike Holmes).
They store all this information in their head and somehow the documentation never gets updated."""
This happened with a major aircraft component manufacturer who subcontracted to build fuselages for another aircraft manufacturer.
The fuselage ribs were rolled to a z shape on a multiroll machine, then stretch formed to the correct curvature.
The company decided to get rid of the multiroll machine and outsource the rolling job.
The new rolled parts came in correct to the drawing, but would not stretch form to the correct dimensions.
I and a supervisor went to the foreman's desk at the point where the roll former stood, literally hours before the desk was to be carted away.
Inside we found a set of marked up prints that were at least 20 years old, detailing dimensions allowing for the reduction in size from the stretching operation.
As hot as the FAA was on people not using marked up prints on the production floor, this one had dropped through the cracks.
And is a classic example of feedback from the shop floor not getting to the drawing office.
B.E.
The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
I agree. But common sense isn't taught anymore.
Chris
SolidWorks 11
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
Nonsense. I think historically there is always perception that "it was better in the old days". There are good teachers and poor teachers. There are good students and poor students.
Always have been. Always will be.
We will see amazing things come from our current crop just as we saw amazing things come from previous generations.
We will also see compete idiocy.
I think we might be getting too far off track of the original topic. I understand that the OP needs facts and figures, but my experience is that no amount of "proof" will sway many people who have their mind set in stone.
Can "common sense" actually be taught?
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
The other side is that many companies run on such a rushed schedule that engineers and designers are not given proper time to exercise "common sense" on many design projects. When things are rushed, mistakes are bound to happen, and then all fingers point back to engineering. What a warped world we live in...
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
I would create an example to be drawn by hand and also done on CAD.
If it's too long to do it live maybe a video of each method would be enough.
Make sure each side start from scratch (For cad have a fresh install without any adapted template or other tools)
Have them do changes.
Also there are a couples of points that comes to my mind.
I guess you don't do much sheetmetal (It would be easy to find example giving a clear advantage to cad.)
If you need to do laser cutting or other numerical operation then you need .dxf or .dwg, It's easy to see the benefits of cad just with that.
Ten years ago it's was difficult to find vendor with cad model but today pretty much everything you need to purchase is modeled in CAD. It's a real time saver.
Also a demonstration of an assembly on CAD with movings parts, exploded views, render, etc. should be very convincing. (If you need those functionalities of course)
It really all depends on what is your current workflow and why is it still in use today, then I'm sure you will find VARs who will be able to match the strong points of the draft boards with CAD while giving up a lot of the downsides.
Then of course there is the implementation and the learning curve from your staff but then again I'm sure the VARs can give you some success story for support.
Patrick
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
I didn't mean only in schools, I meant in general.
Most 'frafters' and 'designers' that I have talked to usually only have AutoCAD experience from a trade school or similar. They none or very little hand drawing experience or training.
If you want someone that knows how to do hand drawings, they have already progressed into the 3D CAD era, or have retired.
Hand drawings (drafting) is pretty much a dead art. If someone does not know 3D CAD these days, they are out of work or switch professions. There are very few companies that have manual drafting anymore. I predict that will go away soon.
Chris
SolidWorks 11
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
I have worked in board drafting environments where we had design/drafting checkers. That was in the days where you were actually allowed time to properly check designs before manufacturing and the bean counters pounded the table with their ridiculous demands. This did not eliminate all mistakes getting to the shop floor, but sure decreased their numbers.
Nowadays, you have a designer/engineer/checker all-in-one role because the bean counters have deemed it necessary to meet the increasingly greedy demands of the president and stockholders. You and I both know that a person who engineers, drafts, and checks his/her own projects is an accident waiting to happen. But the greedy capitalists do not get it. So, on goes the downward spiral until the overly stressed engineer/designer/drafter/checker burns out and is dismissed for being an "incompetent oaf". Phone calls are placed to recruiters, and a new victim, er.. employee is brought in.
And on goes the vicious cycle as the engineering game of musical chairs continues on its way. The greedy stockholders and their knee jerk puppet under-managers never catch any blame and continue to be rewarded.
3D CAD has only made this whole cycle worse. How many have gone into companies where the 3D CAD data is garbage, largely due to the previous guy not having proper time to tie up loose ends on his projects? Geometry that is not dimensionally correct, improper use of GD&T, parameters that are either non-existent for the downstream data users, or are severely in error, etc.
In most organizations, they have seen the investment in 3D along with the hardware and network upgrades that go along with it as "necessary evils" and engineers as expendable.
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
It's 42
Hard to believe 7-1/2 million years have gone by since you first posted the question.
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
Just worked at a company that used checkers a couple years ago. The design was done on Pro/E workstations and the checkers would plot out E size prints to check with, along with the help of pulling exported .dxf copies of the Pro/E drawings up on their workstations to take electronic measurements with.
I also worked as a design checker at Caterpillar in the 1990's when that company still had some sense about it.
Design checkers really are a necessity that most companies think they can do without. Little do they know the true costs incurred.
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
But, unfortunately some companies cut them out because of cost.
It's ignorance within management.
Chris
SolidWorks 11
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
But if you do need 2D drawings, consider this. You've often got a minimum of three views, and up to six views, plus sections, plus details, etc. etc. etc. Edit one dimension, and you've got to go through every view to make sure your edit is propagated through everything properly. But if my 2D views are taken from (and linked to) my 3D model, as with SolidWorks, I make the edit to my model and my drawing views are generally up-to-date (ALL of them) with the exception of maybe having to nudge dimensions around to their optimal positions. The huge savings of time in this case is in editing. But I find that to be generally true of almost every project anyway.
OT: Howdy, everyone. Looks like it's been a while since I've posted here.
Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
Theophilus,
When I laid out something complicated on a drafting board, I drew an arrangement drawing with station numbers. At some point, the scale drawing would break down, but you would still have good numbers.
ASME Y14.5-2009 still allows you to show off non-scale dimensions by underlining them.
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
My impression is that only about 10% of MCAD users actually know how to use the software, so more time won't help the situation (much).
Note that I am including all users, including "trained" users in my estimate. I come across a lot of users who just don't seem to have an apptitude for this stuff and additional training won't do much to improve the situation.
What do the rest of you think of my estimate?
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
Any nostalgia I might have for board drawing is offset by the hundreds of bad hand drawings I have seen.
http://www.EsoxRepublic.com-SolidWorks API VB programming help
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
Well, I see there are ALOT of old time board people here. I can't believe I use to do board drawings in the first place.
Adding a new note between notes 6 and 7, and you had 3 colums of notes. Nothing like trying to squeeze the height and squeeze the width of the notes so you didn't have to redo them all. Ah computer notes, so EASY to add a note...
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
Art, this thread is titled "Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings" so you have to expect some mention of board drafting, whether you like it or not. Most of the comments were not reminiscing about "the good old days", just stating factual comparisons.
If that somehow offended you, then maybe you should have read the thread title in its entirety before clicking on the link.
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
If it is simply to create drawings like you might see in a catalogue for bolts where dimension A= X etc then I doubt 3D CAD is any quicker or worth the investment, if it is complex 3D modelling or mechanisms with many changes then it is a no brainer.
Just because a car is faster and can do many things a bicycle cannot does not mean that a bicycle is not the best means of transport in certain circumstances, it entirely depends on what you want to use it for.
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
Chris
SolidWorks 11
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
UCSD's whole pitch is that their ME curriculum is closely tied to feedback from the big engineering companies in southern CA (HP, Boeing, etc.) and what they're looking for in recent grads. The obvious conclusion is that there aren't enough companies looking for engineers who still know how to draft by hand to make it worth the students' or professors' time.
Honestly, even taking my educational bias into account, I have a hard time believing that anyone would think that a $5K investment to be able to see your prototypes in 3D space before dumping cash and resources into making them would be overkill...especially if your product is already complex enough to warrant paying an engineer's annual salary.
"Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems." -Scott Adams
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
The reason behind my question, even though yes it makes sense why would a company not already understand that $5K (or what ever cost) is not worth it. Guess some companies where the pencil pushers who control the money don't understand design and watch very closely cost spending. These type of people want to be shown exactly why engineering is spending money...To them the pretty pie charts, endless comparison graphs and printouts is what they want to see before saying go ahead and spend the money.
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
I graduated in 1982, and my on-board drafting training was minimal. I learned lettering and clean line-work, on the job.
This stuff used to be taught in technical high schools. Failing that, you find a job with someone who has the patience to let you figure it out.
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
- - -Updraft
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
You have not said in these discussions what it is your company draws. Are they small one piece items. or is it a process plant 6 stories high with interconnected machinery on every floor.
B.E.
The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
http://www.solidworks.com/sw/images/content/Other/ROI_Report_SolidWorks_2006.pdf
So that satisfied my boss, who would pass it to his boss, who would, and so on and so on.....
Berkshire.
Funny this is a global Aerospace company, founded in 1883, there is a bit of old fashion thinking going on here. The company already uses, AutoCad, Solidworks, I believe even a couple seat of Solid Edge. Guess to get a couple more licenses, someone up above wants numbers.....
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
RE: Time savings 3D Cad Designs VS Hand drawings
Based on your latest answer, you already KNOW, how long it takes to draw by hand versus CAD, since you already have Autocad and 3D parametric modeling programs in house. Can you not find solid information in house to justify another seat to the annoying bean counter?
B.E.
The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor