CAD Forum

As someone who has been using SW for awhile for mechanical design/engineering roles, and having worked in various different industries with varying degrees of regulatory requirements, I have come across a wide swath of different drawing requirements and the time needed to create them. Is there some general consensus on how much time is too much of the design cycle? At what point should a drafter position be considered versus paying engineers to create drawings, and have any of you won the argument for this? I know that there is a major difference between whether or not you do civil or building mechanical engineering (which I don't do) and product design/engineering(what I do, and I would think the vast majority of SW users do). Does anyone have some resources that they have used regarding this topic that they can share from a product design perspective?

Depends entirely on the product, environment etc etc.

I've worked in/with some companies where the projects where rather small and linear and the information on the drawings was fairly specific to the project. Couple this with a work flow where the "Designer/Drafter" also tends to fill the role of "Project manager" and you could have a design department filled with 50 "Engineers" and only a couple "Drafters" and those drafters were essentially in training to become "Engineers". Examples of this would be a design department that was tasked with the Gaging, fixturing, die design etc for a company. These are typically "Small projects" where the "detailing" is a lesser part of the project than the design and often critical or part of the design as far as information on the prints.

To the contrary if you are designing large projects where the parts are entirely individually detailed, maintained etc then not only is there a break in "Engineer"/"Drafter" but in larger companies you typically will have Many, Many more breaks than that and specializations. Checker>Engineers>mechanical designer> drafter. Is a very typically line of progression. On top of that you will have Project Engineers and then the dude that sits in the backroom doing simulations, load and material calculations all day long...Super Engineer or whatever you want to call him.

TLDR; In short the ratio of "drafter" to "Engineer" is entirely dependent on what you're doing, what your workflow is and size of your company. The argument for or against is rather simple. If your workflow allows the use and has the volume for a person doing "Drafting" as a full time position then you SHOULD have a person in that position. The reasons are several fold the main reasons being Lower cost and development of your work force. Typical progression is often "Drafter">"Mechanical Designer">"Engineer" and then from there either "Project Engineer" or "checker".

The true advantage of this is that in many cases you get to hire a drafter for very low wages because they don't have a degree. In a company that has 10 drafters you will have some that don't cut it and may quite and or never progress pass being a drafter. Some will move up and in many/Most cases you end up with a better Engineer/Checker/Project manager for less money that if you hired an engineer out of college, paid them engineering salaries etc.

Hard to do that in an engineering department of four, in most cases absolutely the best way to go in an engineering department of 10-15+ and in most cases absolutely necessary in Engineering departments of 50+.

As the previous commenter said it depends by your industry, size of the department etc.
When I used to design injection molds in NX (less than 10 engineers company) we had one guy that did only 2D drafting in parallel with us modelling in 3D, so he detailed the completed parts while we were still finishing the assembly. It was worth as he could check our job and notice errors we tend to skip when looking at the same project every day.

mp3-250 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 28, 2021 4:15 am As the previous commenter said it depends by your industry, size of the department etc.
When I used to design injection molds in NX (less than 10 engineers company) we had one guy that did only 2D drafting in parallel with us modelling in 3D, so he detailed the completed parts while we were still finishing the assembly. It was worth as he could check our job and notice errors we tend to skip when looking at the same project every day.

The flip side is also true. As a single engineer, I do my own 2D drawings required for build. I miss a lot of stuff that a good draftsman would never allow to get through. That can cause problems if the shop is not willing to work with you.