Hiring a Shop Drawing Reviewer
Hiring a Shop Drawing Reviewer
(OP)
We (me and my group) have been busting tail on designs for the last year. A lot of our work is going into construction simultaneously. So I'm proposing we hire a person just to check shop drawings. This is for several reasons, like lowering our costs (having a cheaper specialist rather than an more expensive engineer who views shop drawing review as punishment) and helping morale. I figure that the pay would be somewhere around a senior CAD operator ($35 to $40 an hour) I see this submittal crunch as lasting for the near (a couple years) future.
In my past life, we had Eastern European guys (I'm not sure if they were degreed or not), who must of come into the USA after the war, do this work. They were called shop drawing checkers. They were technically very savvy and could review rolls of shop drawings day after day after day. Some even specialized in reinforcing, others structural steel. These guys are gone, dead or retired or both.
So how could I could hire someone to just do shop drawings? I don't see a new graduate as a possibility. Once they get familiar, they're going to want to move out of this job and do designs. I don't really blame them. And to keep them, even if they don't get burned out, they're going to want regular raises to keep up with their buddies which reduces my economic advantage.
Would a detailer be a good fit? Someone who doesn't want the pressure of doing designs, just checking others work? How do I write an ad for this job?
In my past life, we had Eastern European guys (I'm not sure if they were degreed or not), who must of come into the USA after the war, do this work. They were called shop drawing checkers. They were technically very savvy and could review rolls of shop drawings day after day after day. Some even specialized in reinforcing, others structural steel. These guys are gone, dead or retired or both.
So how could I could hire someone to just do shop drawings? I don't see a new graduate as a possibility. Once they get familiar, they're going to want to move out of this job and do designs. I don't really blame them. And to keep them, even if they don't get burned out, they're going to want regular raises to keep up with their buddies which reduces my economic advantage.
Would a detailer be a good fit? Someone who doesn't want the pressure of doing designs, just checking others work? How do I write an ad for this job?






RE: Hiring a Shop Drawing Reviewer
Isn’t there some learning value in young engineers checking shop drawings, and learning how things go together and get built? Isn’t there some value in people actually involved in the design doing the shop drawing checking, who else knows the design intent better than they do? I do remember many moons ago, that this was not the most fun part of a young engineer’s job, but it was edifying and I had some advantage becuase it pertained to my design and I knew what I wanted/intended. This, as opposed to someone who sees the design drawings for the first time when you also hand him the roll of shop drawing, (my age betrays me, I mean screen full of shops). Does knowing the design somehow equalize the hourly rate difference, in finding the important points to hone in on? Isn’t there a software for such a menial task today, just hook it up to your BIM and everything spills out including your wife’s (not wives) birth date, and your mistresse’s desires for dinner tonight. Wasn’t BIM intended to make everyone understand everything and have an equal access to all knowledge of the structure?
RE: Hiring a Shop Drawing Reviewer
Is it important to draw from specific company knowledge and be on-site with your team? Perhaps you could team up with some sort of job training & placement program. I'm actually setting something along those lines up in southeast asia at the moment, although your nearby community college may also be interested.
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The name is a long story -- just call me Lo.
RE: Hiring a Shop Drawing Reviewer
Professional Engineer (ME, NH, MA) Structural Engineer (IL)
American Concrete Industries
https://www.facebook.com/AmericanConcrete/
RE: Hiring a Shop Drawing Reviewer
Would be a great choice. I use to work at a large EPC outfit and we had a guy who did nothing but exactly what you are talking about......and he spent a lot of his career working for a fabricator. We'd catch the strength issues.....he'd catch the dimensional problems.
Just like you said it. You know what you need. Spell out his day to day duties in the ad. And one thing to note in the ad (to avoid scaring off the older guys) is what type of CAD software (if any) he needs to be familiar with. A lot of the older guys I've known who do this full time aren't always up on the latest software. You just print it out for them and turn them loose on it.
RE: Hiring a Shop Drawing Reviewer
From a selling point, if the projects are local you could offer him the field inspection portion. If he has drafting skills he could also help out in that department when he isn't busy. This would help to breakup his day-to-day work. Plus once the shop drawings are done he could transition into a full time drafting positions if the work is available.
RE: Hiring a Shop Drawing Reviewer
dheng: I'm not saying new engineers shouldn't ever do shop drawings, but I'm not planning on hiring any new grads, and as others have said, once they get good at it, it's time to move on to either doing designs or quitting.
Lomarandil; We get interns for about three months. Even if the timing and intern (I've had some back out at the last minute) are perfect, it's at least a month before they can read drawings and be productive on reviews. During that month, one of my other people are occupied part time training them. Then I might get about two strong months from them. And if all they see is submittal reviews, they're not going to want to ever come back. The good point is they're basically free labor.
RE: Hiring a Shop Drawing Reviewer
RE: Hiring a Shop Drawing Reviewer
RE: Hiring a Shop Drawing Reviewer
RE: Hiring a Shop Drawing Reviewer
RE: Hiring a Shop Drawing Reviewer
RE: Hiring a Shop Drawing Reviewer
The lesson I took from this is that anything that isn't going to be completely reviewed should not be given to an intern. Maybe they can do other reviews, but I want one of my permanent employee's name on the product. Including shop drawing reviews.
RE: Hiring a Shop Drawing Reviewer
I do a fair bit of drawing checking myself, and it does get old, so not what I want to do all day every day.
RE: Hiring a Shop Drawing Reviewer
Shop drawings are the last chance to catch any design issues before it gets built and most busts I see in shop drawings aren't the obvious, easy to find items. They're the minute, easy to miss details. Both items not really something I'd feel that comfortable entrusting to an intern unless they were really, really good. Them doing a first pass scan is fine, but personally would be a little wary if it's not also getting reviewed (and not just glanced at) by someone with more experience. Preferably someone with more experience who was involved in the design and is familiar with the critical aspects of the design.