Good thoughts and words! As an engineer (and a lazy one), I have always
depended on technicians, designers and draftsman to do what they are
much better at then I, when I could.
Every company that I have worked for has had rules and guidelines for staffing that got in the way. Back in the old days (I'm much to young to say that, but it was in the late 1970s and early 1980s), I had difficultly getting access to draftsman because my department didn't do work that required them (according to company staffing policy), so I had to do my best, and I acknowledged that what I produced were only sketches and concept drawings, and worked around compnay policy when I could or really needed to. In the late 80s and 90s I worked for companies that had hiring policies such that getting permission to hire a PhD was the same procedure and justification to hire a technician or CAD guy, so many if not most managers went out looking for PhDs, who then got frustrated because they were required to expertly use AutoCAD, order parts, set up equipment, replace bearings, and what have you. Now I work in an organization that is just beginning to realize that a CAD drafter is not a commodity - that one specializes in architectural, or electrical or piping or mechanical, and that there might also be a difference between a CAD drafter and a designer!
So, it's not just the technology, it is a lack of understanding of management and the uberkontrol of the accountants, and Human Resource specialists who were trained to know about factories or department stores but not engineering.
... Bruce D. Bullough ...
Sebesta Blomberg & Associates, Inc.
2381 Rosegate
Roseville, MN 55113 USA
desk: 651-634-7344 fax: 651-634-7400
www.sebesta.com
-----Original Message-----
From: <a href="/group/PipingDesign/post?postID=Lt_0aqhHmldLzeqaYAHZU_mN07HwK2PVK3r_9Pj5YlnSdQOdhb-xlB9hBH00Ixp0YGa49helNENaEl8JmJBxLzG5bQ">PipingDesign@yahoogroups.com</a> [mailto:<a href="/group/PipingDesign/post?postID=Lt_0aqhHmldLzeqaYAHZU_mN07HwK2PVK3r_9Pj5YlnSdQOdhb-xlB9hBH00Ixp0YGa49helNENaEl8JmJBxLzG5bQ">PipingDesign@yahoogroups.com</a>]
On Behalf Of Paul Bowers
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 7:53 AM
To: <a href="/group/PipingDesign/post?postID=Lt_0aqhHmldLzeqaYAHZU_mN07HwK2PVK3r_9Pj5YlnSdQOdhb-xlB9hBH00Ixp0YGa49helNENaEl8JmJBxLzG5bQ">PipingDesign@yahoogroups.com</a>
Subject: [PipingDesign] Ability, Talent and Skills
[sls][bcc][faked-from][spf]
Back when I was learning stuff about piping design (I never kidded myself, my goal was to be a good designer) I thought that I'd have lots of work opportunities if I just applied myself and learned as much as I could on the job by talking to more experienced people. After all, the baby boomers would be retiring by the time I'd be hitting 35-40, and there'd be tons of opportunities opening up.
Somewhere along the way I must have missed the boat, because this has not happened. Although I did have one of the original personal computers
(a Sinclair, if I remember correctly) , I found that dealing with it was
too time-consuming and offered little results.
What actually happened was that Bill and AutoCAD overtook the profession
and promised all sorts of wonderful things and everybody fell for it. That is not to day that CAD, office automation and the internet ruined piping design it's rather my point that people that had been in the business for decades just gave up and left.
It would be very disingenuous of me to condemn the very technology that I am now using to communicate with you, but I think we've lost something
very important.
Drafting skills (or engineering drawings, technical drawings) were made redundant within about 20 years. This killed-off a few thousand years of
tradition and historical heritage.
One of the very few office workers that were unique in the past were draftsmen. They needed lots of space, used specialized tools and were obviously a key to any engineering-heavy business. Yes, they were considered to be nerds, but they were unique nerds.
After world war two, many returning servicemen ended up with office jobs
and the concept of office work vs. factory work changed. We ended up
with a lot of paper-pushers because the workforce demanded it. There
were many more important paper-pushers as the non-combatants
(non-qualified GI males and female factory workers) went back to
whatever they were doing before.
The draftsman population didn't increase because it took talent to fill those jobs.
In my mind, a good draftsman is a good counter to an engineer. There are
others that think differently, so I'm not dictating the relationship here.
Today, with CAD, it is easy to downgrade the role of "draftsman" as a check/balance and run full steam ahead. I don't think this is a good thing and that's not just because my chosen profession has been diminished in importance.
Requiring experience with specific software packages has further downgraded what was once known as drafting and also affects engineers looking for work. Engineers should be making idea sketches and bouncing the concepts off draftsmen, schedulers, fabricators, construction managers. They should NOT be producing near-final drawings, because this
indicates that no other brains have been picked (my apologies to one member of the list).
I find it quite amazing that the companies that made manual drafting "obsolete" haven't set up a museum of sorts to honour what they replaced. It would take a few million dollars, but that's peanuts compared to the benefits we've all gained by people making technical drawings by hand over the centuries.
Where should it go? Italy. Vinci, to be specific. After all, Leonardo was a draftsman before he became famous.
Paul
Yahoo! Groups Links Received on Thu Jan 12 09:49:00 2006
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Tue Mar 04 2008 - 11:40:46 EST