Welcome to SeeMSixty7, a place to discuss AutoCAD, Databases, Development and More. We don’t have to limit ourselves to just AutoCAD, though CAD in General.
Where to Start…. Why Start this Blog? Well I’m frustrated and disappointed in the direction of Drafting/Design. Over the years it seems quality has gone down, in my opinion. So let’s open that up for discussion. Keep in mind this is not a debate, just a place to talk about how to improve our industry.
AutoCAD has grown into a powerful CAD system that offers tons of features and abilities. Drafting in the last 10 years though has not improved as a result, from what I have seen. I believe there are a number of factors that are influencing this trend; younger drafters that have not been properly mentored or trained; offshoring to places like India; data driven systems that produce drawings; older designers that never really learned CAD efficiently. There are more, but I think those are the big ones.
Younger Drafters typically learn AutoCAD and have the belief this now makes them a drafter. Not quite. Drafting has evolved over the years in so many ways and has so many guidelines and semi-standards that should be followed. Keep in mind drafting in one industry compared to another may in fact contradict each other’s standards. The problem is made worse when a young drafter holds a position as a drafter for a year, and suddenly believes they are now a designer or worse senior designer. Reality is you are setting yourself up to fail if that is the case. Do your time and become a good drafter, before taking on being a designer. Your time drafting and better understanding of what you are presenting will help you be better at both. Learn from the older guys. they might not be the best at CAD, but they should be better at the design and the drafting. Something else to keep in mind, Engineers are not drafters, and unless they started as a drafter, they probably are not the best at instructing you on how you should draft or present your content on the drawing. That is not a knock against Engineers, but they are typically engineers because they are good at engineering, not drafting!
Offshoring to India is sore subject when we see jobs leaving our cities to go to another country. Typically the people that trained many of those in India were designers/drafters who were reluctant to teach them how to draft, and frankly probably wanted them to fail. This is not a knock against the drafters in India or the people of India in any way. It is just a fact that people don’t like to train their replacement and then get laid off. I’m going to avoid the political points on all of this, but from what I have seen, the results coming out of India are the same as the previous paragraph, lack of experience in drafting and design. Quality is still not where it needs to be.
Data Driven systems that produce ISO’s, Loops, P&ID’s, One-Lines, Wiring Diagrams… I have been automating drawing processes for nearly 30 years. I created Loop generators from lotus 123/excel data back in 89. I Managed to generate over a thousand loops in a few hours. Keep in mind 286 processor with 2 MB of RAM back then. It wasn’t exactly fast. They were good looking Loops too, because I worked the templates to be clean, I knew the format of the data, I knew all the nuisances that would come up and wrote my code to compensate. Data Systems are typically taken out of the box, and data thrown into them and drawings start spitting out. These systems are written to fit a generic template or layout with a particular data format that works with the generic. When you tweak the data formats, the data model input into the system you tend to blow that consistency up, resulting in poor quality drawings. Automated systems are great. I love them, but they need so be flexible enough and the time needs to be taken to properly implement them.
Old Guys, of which now I’m either in that group or pretty close to it. LOL. I’m still in denial on that. Some of the “more experienced” designers started on the board, and begrudgingly moved into CAD in the late 80’s and early 90’s. I personally started on CAD and did some board drafting. I have a lot of respect for the board drafters, some serious skill and tedious efforts in that. Some took to CAD like a fish to water, others adapted as best they could. Keep in mind they didn’t grow up with computer in the house. Technology was added much later in their years. Some it is natural, and some it isn’t. These are the people you can learn from. Appreciate their opinions, just because you know more about CAD than they do, does not mean you know more about drafting/design than they do. My father once told me. “You can always learn something from someone, and there is always someone that knows more than you do.” The “more experienced” can also learn some CAD from the “less experienced.”
This has been a lengthy intro, but hopefully we can start some good dialog and start sharing knowledge to make us all better. Thank you for participating. Create a login and start contributing. I will be sharing a wealth of information, tools and best practices with blog members.