Frustrated

[Admiral McAwesome]

I can relate to the OP's frustration, but I think CAD "standards" are the wrong way to go about it. Drafting Standards! Basic drafting concepts are essential, and they aren't taught very well any more (from what I've seen lately) by any schools. Another portion of the frustration with CAD standards comes with who has set them up. In some companies I have worked for, they are set up by an engineer who has no concept of how to create a drawing in the first place.

[jaberwok]

I can relate to the OP's frustration, but I think CAD "standards" are the wrong way to go about it. Drafting Standards! Basic drafting concepts are essential, and they aren't taught very well any more (from what I've seen lately) by any schools. Another portion of the frustration with CAD standards comes with who has set them up. In some companies I have worked for, they are set up by an engineer who has no concept of how to create a drawing in the first place.

and that's better than most of the clients that I've worked for lately. They've mainly had no standards what-so-bleeding-ever.

[Michael.c]

CAD standards are a necessary evil, if you are working in a multi-disciplined organisation it may be necessary to have a standard for each section with a common core to maintain continuity.

Project documentation is a window through which Clients assess the quality of a company. No matter how good the design if the documentation looks like a dogs breakfast the drawings will not present a good impression.

A drawing standard promotes consistency in presentation, improves performance as everyone knows on what layer, what colour, line type etc. to use and when. When Operator A amends Operator B's drawing no time is wasted working out what's what.

The perfect standard is yet to be written, this is the holy grail of CAD Managers, a item to strive for but never to be achieved, standards must be simple, flexible and under constant review.

Don Smith

PS I cut my teeth in the industry preparing manual drawings, in the days before computers, even before hand held calculators and slide-rules were state of the art when a photo copier was the new kid on the block, that experience I still use today planing my drawings, text sizes, planing view ports etc. That forward planing seems to have fallen by the wayside with operators who have little or no manual experience. I'd be interested to hear if other old timers have come to the same conclusion.

PPS Just had a thought, how many reading this will have ever heard of slide rules or log tables.

Excellent post Don....I don't think you have written a single phrase that I don't agree with.
And yes...I am old enough to remember slide rules and logarithms. Slide rules were great wern't they....surprisingly accurate, better still, they required the use of a degree of mental arithmetic to get the decimal point in the right place!!

[Michael.c]

I don't think any job should be that frustrating, so here's my suggestion. Rather than having to vent frustration, go to the money people. Explain to them how this is losing them money without mentioning said 'Pompous a--!' and kind of get these (or this) people (person) to understand that if there are standards set up and followed, they should be adhered to without any deviation from. Then illustrate the time wasted on making the changes or modification, or even the communication effort, and how that translates to money.

They will then monitor this activity and make stringent suggestions to those not following. You don't need to go to work for that kind of aggravation. The software is SET UP to AVOID this, so if you can't change the atmosphere, force the hand of those that can.

Good idea....I will give it a try.....!!

[seven_tech]

i understand your frustration very well. In my experience it has as much to do with how they were taught in school as anything. I was fortunate enough to have two very good instructors, one a retired structural engineer and one a retired architect. Both had learned to draft on a board before their companies went to autocad, and both made sure the students knew how to draft before using cad. most engineers take one maybe two classes for autocad and thats it. they know how to draw a line and a circle but thats about it.

[Misteracad]

i understand your frustration very well. In my experience it has as much to do with how they were taught in school as anything. I was fortunate enough to have two very good instructors, one a retired structural engineer and one a retired architect. Both had learned to draft on a board before their companies went to autocad, and both made sure the students knew how to draft before using cad. most engineers take one maybe two classes for autocad and thats it. they know how to draw a line and a circle but thats about it.

And yet they think they are "experts" and know what should or shouldn't be shown on a drawing, as well as how to do it best, yadda, yadda...oops, did I say that out loud??? LOL my bad

IMO this "issue" is one of the main problems I see in this industry, and it will only continue to get worse as more and more students graduate from college without board skills and real CAD training from a seasoned veteran. Hence, my new tag line below...

[jaberwok]

"Just because you can doesn't mean you should!!!"
"You don't know what you don't know!"

You could add "Just because you can't doesn't mean I can't."

[Richard McDonald]

i understand your frustration very well. In my experience it has as much to do with how they were taught in school as anything. I was fortunate enough to have two very good instructors, one a retired structural engineer and one a retired architect. Both had learned to draft on a board before their companies went to autocad, and both made sure the students knew how to draft before using cad. most engineers take one maybe two classes for autocad and thats it. they know how to draw a line and a circle but thats about it.

I've only taken one course for Autocad but that doesn't make me a bad Draughter. Its all about CPD and not sitting through a course which in most cases has no relevance to real life scenario's. 90% of draughting is not skill with autocad but knowledge of engineering practice and using drawing standards that are slowly becoming extinct. Autocad or one of its brethren is just a tool.

There are plenty of CAD courses around but hardly any draughting classes. It use to be taught but the lead drafee but in these time of the $ is all important the very few trainees around are left to their own devices.

As John says that massive difference in skills within the industry means that some people cannot or will not understand the more advanced functions in CAD and rather than prod, poke and guide the lower end up to standard it is often easier to dumb down everybody.

[traceyjj]

I understand your frustrations. I spent weeks working on and agreeing standards with a new client... creating all the content that would be needed, rolling out across all disciplines and offices, I thought it was all being used correctly, having asked for feedback a couple of times, and I happened to come across a drawing being done elsewhere, and people have just gone their own way. No 2 drawings look the same. Its so frustrating, but what can I do.

[Richard McDonald]

I understand your frustrations. I spent weeks working on and agreeing standards with a new client... creating all the content that would be needed, rolling out across all disciplines and offices, I thought it was all being used correctly, having asked for feedback a couple of times, and I happened to come across a drawing being done elsewhere, and people have just gone their own way. No 2 drawings look the same. Its so frustrating, but what can I do.

I think in this case its important to raise your point with the line manager and move on up the command chain if you get little response.

If you have agreed the drawing standards with the client then they may think you are responsible for the drawings not meeting them, in this country Engineering is a very small world you have to protect your A..

Most clients judge a company by the drawings produced and not the contract documents, pages of design calcs etc it's about time consultancies realised the importance of this and made the CAD manager associate level so he can kick butt if necessary. I have worked for a few places that have done this and the whole office runs smoother.