Engineers and Crappy Drafting 7

[LONDONDERRY]

Why are mechanical engineers such bad drafters. I've been a Mechanical engineer since mid-90's and before that a drafter since the late 80's degreed in both. Every company I've have ever been at I've never come across an ME that understands drafting / CAD standards. I seen such crappy drafting work or CAD file managment that I can make a career just going from company to company and cleaning up messes. Its sobad some times that ME's could care less about producing drawings they could be proud of or its below then to do drafting to begin with.

 

[CheckerHater]

I think this is vastly broad generalization.
You didn’t make it clear, in which part of the world you observed the phenomena, but in some places engineers are actually required to take drafting classes and are capable of producing decent drawings.
In other places “engineer” is seen as “leadership” position that requires telling other people what to do instead of actually doing something by him/herself.

 

[KENAT]

Londonderry - similar and variations (or at least threads that reveal attitudes on drawing) have been discussed multiple times since I've been around, here's a few:

thread730-221206
thread731-193707
thread732-236588
thread731-232080
thread730-184173
thread732-87322
thread730-282775

Some engineers seem to see drafting as below them - some engineering boards implicitly support this by not counting time spent drafting toward the experience requirements to become a PE.

I've also seen crummy work by designers/drafters on occasion.

I'm an engineer (at least have my bachelors) and I like to think I'm a reasonable drafter given the time to do it properly. I've certainly been told I'm better than most of my immediate peers during reviews etc.

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[TWJR]

Might be more accurate to say "designer" rather than engineer. Regardless, I've noticed this as well, especially among the younger ones. Smart guys, just can't make a decent drawing. I've asked guys like this how much they were taught in college, and the response I get is something like "they touched on drafting, but didn't spend much time on it". That's probably a lot of the problem right there.

 

[KENAT]

Oh yeah, that was my other point. How is drafting taught to/learnt by most engineers?

Most university courses don't spend much time on it - and what time they do spend may be more on learning specific CAD systems these days rather than what to do with any generic CAD system (or heaven forbid drawing board).

I was pretty much self educated by reading standards etc. with encouragement/cajoling from checkers/more senior staff etc.

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[TheTick]

Still trying to figure out why drafters are such bad drafters.

 

[ctopher]

From my experience. May or may not true for everywhere/everyone.
Good drafters are detailed oriented, and usually somewhat artistic.
A lot of bad drafters are hired, or promoted within, to draw lines that others don't want to do.
Engineers generally are not taught drafting. The ones that are, don't want to do it because they think it degrades their IQ. They think that is what designers/drafters are for.
Good drafting skills are a thing of the past for a lot of companies. Sending 3D models out via CAM or 3D printing has taken over. Drawings are now mostly used for dimensional checking.

Chris
SolidWorks 11
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[LONDONDERRY]

For me I got my associate degree and drafting and worked my way up through the years as an engineer getting a BSME. I love drafting it breaks up the design end of things. I worked with many engineers that just don't care or understand GT&D or basical drafting standards. Or alot of them cover there arse by over tolerancing every dimension and callout.
What I'm experiencing more these days is you get a new ME job, and the engineers don't bother creating drawings and just send the 3d model out for fab or I'm replacing someone who quit and I'm hearing all the raves about how good an engineer they where, but the legacy drawing they leave is junk.

I just started a new job 2 months ago and I heqard all the raves about they guy I replaced, but he never did any detail drawings and the ones he did are terrible, withno pride in work

 

[KENAT]

"with no pride in work" I see this in things other that explicitly drawings though. Be it sloppy assembly work instructions, amateurish reports/procedures or just leaving common labs/work spaces in terrible states...

I'm hesitant to say the typical schedule pressures we feel cause the issues, but certainly a time crunch can exacerbate things.

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[MikeHalloran]

I learned drafting in high school. I could make a pretty drawing when I graduated in 1962. I didn't know squat about tolerances or manufacturing, so my drawings were not 'good'.

The 'Engineering Graphics' courses in college taught Design of Experiments, FORTRAN programming (the Elbonian way), and how to make nomographs.

The 'Engineering Practice' course in college attempted to teach manufacturing processes, but it was taught by grad students who hadn't worked in manufacturing or used a machine tool. The best source for practical advice, if you asked, and if you listened, was the cranky old super of the student machine shop.

I didn't have a good handle on processes or tolerancing until about ten years after graduating from college in 1966. Of course I _thought_ I understood all along.

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[ctopher]

Cartoon

Chris
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[looslib]

Chris,

I think a new college graduate engineer would say "What does this thing do?"

Is drafting even taught in engineering courses these days? It was in my first semester at Northesatern in the fall of 1970. We all had to buy a drafting kit; small C-size board, T-square, various triangles and a set of pencils and lead.

Give that to an 'engineer' today and ask him to draw a line at 75 degrees to a horizintal line and see what they do, or how they do it. If trained right, it is a snap.



"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli

 

[LONDONDERRY]

Loosbi-
I went to Wentworth, right next door to Northeaster back in 95. Even back then I was the only student that had a AS in drafting and 6 years of experience and opted out of any required GT&D/ drafting class.

back to my original post, it gets frustrating to deal with engineers, esp the young ones, that are clueless on the following:

* Don't understand, could care less or beneath them to do proper drawings for a machinist. take short cuts by just sending a 3d file
* Don't unterstand on how parts are fabricated, because they spend zero time either in a machine shop. When no drawings are created and parts don't fit together they deflect the problem back to the shop.
* Don't understand, proper CAD file, ECO procedures.

 

[TheTick]

Corollary: What's the point of making great drawings when no one can read them?

 

[CheckerHater]

They don't have to know how the parts are fabricated, they specify functional requirement, a. k. a. "I don't care how you make or quality check this"

 

[LONDONDERRY]

CheckerHater-
As a designer I'm by no means a machinist, welder or sheetmetal guru. But I do have to have some basical knowledge on how parts are fab'd. How do I design and create drawings if I don't have a basic foundation on that?

 

[KENAT]

"They don't have to know how the parts are fabricated, they specify functional requirement" - in fairness ASME Y14.5M-1994 essentially says that's what you're meant to do on a drawing most of the time.

However, in the whole scheme of designing a part rather than just detailing it then obviously the how - as in can it be made cost effectively - is a big deal.

Most of the time if you're truly documenting the drawing such that you're explicitly capturing functional requirements then on a basic level you should have what's needed for inspection. It may not mean you can do all the inspection with a set of callipers or similar without having to think about it though.

The thing that's frustrating to me isn't so much that they don't 'know' how to do drawings & document control etc. but that some don't care enough to educate themselves and in some cases look down on design communication as being below them etc. If your job requires you do do your own drafting I figure that means you need to learn to do it properly (or at least adequately) - that's what I did. If you object to doing your own drafting so strongly then the correct & "Professional" thing isn't to half a$$ it and never learn but is instead to go find a different job where you don't have to do your own drafting. Though if you can't at least understand how to read a drawing how to you know if the person doing the drafting for you has done it correctly? What's the point in having an awesome 'design' if it's documented so poorly it can't be made correctly?

I also don't buy the 'I wasn't taught this' or the idea that you can only learn how to draw by having explicit 'teaching' or 'training'. I learnt through looking at previous drawings, looking at drawing standards (and occasionally drafting books); getting feedback on drawings from peers/asking them questions; formalized drawing check (with the personal goal of creating a perfect drawing that didn't get red inked - never happened); more recently asking questions on this site/searching the web and at the end of the day lots of practice - not all of it on the company's dime.

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[CheckerHater]

It looks like I am not alone getting old – according to latest studies inability to detect sarcasm is one of the signs :-(.

I myself am proud of time I’ve spent on the shop floor. So this is my biggest grudge with drafting standard bodies (ISO is guilty as well). They wave “functional” flag and outright reject process – and dedicate entire standard books to gauges, castings, weldments, plastic parts, you name it.

I don’t believe one can seriously consider working with GD&T without at least basic knowledge of both – machining and quality control. Maybe that’s the problem with low GD&T adoption rates – the guys are dying breed.

 

[ctopher]

My son has been in engineering school the past few years (BS, MS, now Phd). Drawings/drafting was never taught other than some CAD work.
How to do proper drafting was maybe touched on by one class for a day or two.
I believe it should be taught. Not only how to learn drafting, but mainly to know how to read drawings.

Chris
SolidWorks 11
ctopher's home
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[IRstuff]

"Don't understand, could care less or beneath them to do proper drawings for a machinist. take short cuts by just sending a 3d file"

This is NOT an engineer problem; it's a management problem. Engineers, particularly young ones, are not kings; they report to someone. That "someone" is and should be responsible for proper direction, guidance, policy, and yes, even management of all activities related to their department. If the engineer doesn't know that it's his job to generate machining drawings, whose fault is that, really? Where is the procedure that describes the process for creating a valid drawing for procurement or fabrication? Where is the peer review that's supposed to catch things like that? And, where is the manager in all of this?

TTFN
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