At the end of the day the level of design will not return to its former levels
until the construction companies see the cost of risk in not doing it. Perhaps a
few vice presidents or piping design supervisoprs need to end up in jail for
manslaughter or criminal negligence before the others take notice. Perhaps we
all need to ask ourselves "what will the coroner say?"
"R. Beale" <bealer@telusplanet.net> on 12/05/2001 15:44:31
Please respond to <a href="/group/PipingDesign/post?postID=x0PdAr7CUWjr-SZPvxUHSL-FFq0koYKv-NqAaYH4xN9jPA1dUQN_wvckTlNFRjPY3x7ckK0OBKku6hhrkt1uK01Pdadt_hk">PipingDesign@yahoogroups.com</a>
To: <PipingDesign@yahoogroups.com> cc:
Subject: Re: [PipingDesign] RE: TIRADE
I knew at some point I was going to feel compelled to get involved in this dialog, so here's the way I see it.
CADD can do some wonderful things, but it can't substitute for design experience. And I don't just mean layout experience; a good senior understands orderly project execution, where to go for information and when to raise flags. I believe we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Good processes and procedures have fallen by the wayside. When I was a junior I learned from the mentorship of the seniors. Primarily I learned from my mistakes, i.e customary practice was to backdraft one's own drawings.
With CADD the industry changed. Software manufacturers sold oil and gas companies on the storage and retrieval benefits of CADD files and EPC companies latched onto the fact that they could charge a premium to the client by having CADD. Project managers were sold on the notion that it was faster and cheaper. Younger people are generally quicker on CADD and they're certainly cheaper, so it was inevitable that they would become the primary operators. Consequently companies started to ask themselves why they should have those expensive seniors around? (maybe one or two to oversee); bring them in later to check. After all, changes could now be made at the push of a button, couldn't they?
Designers used to take pride and ownership in their work. It was a point of honour that a checker would not find anything to mark-up on your drawing. I'm sure anyone with fifteen years plus experience has witnessed some pretty heated discussions between designer and checker. Now the checker can bleed all over a drawing and the originator often doesn't even get to see it, let alone backdraft it. And operators have come to believe that it's the job of the checker to put things right. The "fast-track" philosophy hasn't helped, and 3D has compounded the problem. Designers assume that with 3D where everyone is working in real-time, e.g. structural are right behind piping in the model, changes are automatically communicated. Unfortunately rework becomes par for the course.
Let's go back fifteen years................... We're doing a project thatrequires a plastic model and it is decided that the junior/intermediates can build this model, with some supervision, but essentially on their own from the P&IDs and plot plan. When it's done we'll get the senior people to check it. I think you would've heard the screams from Houston to Anchorage. But that is essentially how things are being done, except now the model is CADD. I know things have changed somewhat and seniors are making inroads into getting trained, but still the recognition of the worth of a senior piping designer has been lost both within and outside our discipline.
The piping designer interfaces with all others disciplines, and piping being the heart of a project can have a big influence on the outcome. CADD is here to stay and while I personally lament the passing of the manual draftsman (but not getting hit with one of those eraser powder poaches) I recognize that we have to work with it. The technology is fascinating, and it's also enticing that companies pay a premium for PDS operators, so it's easy to understand why designers focus on it. But it is only a drafting tool. Let's get back to some basic understanding of how a project should be run and what we're drawing: the study stage, seniors passing their layout knowledge down to junior/intermediates, and pushing back when we don't have all the info we need to carry-on (how many of you have felt pressured to check and issue a drawing when you only have preliminary vendor information?).
Paul, I believe you said that you thought pipers would be a more chatty bunch. I believe we are (we certainly have a grapevine that rivales any old lady network), but usually only over a pint (or two, or three) in the pub. All design/drafting disciplines have been divided into two categories - those who know CADD and those who don't. Let's keep this conversation going as I for one am optimistic we can meld the best of both worlds.
Richard Beale
Piping Supervisor,
Calgary, Alberta
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Received on Sun May 13 18:43:00 2001
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