Nope. I started working for a firm out of high school doing surveying. After 2 summers I moved into the office as a CAD tech. Senior design was the only time we ever put a set of plans together and boy was that my time to shine. I had been working on engineering plans for the previous 2 years as a tech. I took our project back to the office and had everything designed and drawn in a couple of evenings. No one else in the group had any idea how to even begin.
You said it yourself, you learned from experienced engineers. To save time, provide good examples of what the final product should look like and have them ask questions if they can’t figure something out. They might even find better/faster ways to do things this way
Find a good "go-by" to use as a starting place. Review the comments (from the local jurisdiction) and as-built info (if any).
Then build from this and make your next project better.
You are the best resource. I’m in this position and have put it upon myself to teach the younger engineers about design, drafting, construction and all that stuff.
We only have entry level and senior staff and no one has the time. Shit is getting messed up that could have been avoided if it was properly reviewed. Because of that I took it upon myself to teach the younger engineers and designers and be available to answer any question.
This sucks and take away from the things I need to do, but I know in about 2 years, they will have a full understanding of the general process to get a job done from the design to close out a project.
This will make my job easier in the long run and I’ll know which designer and engineer can hold their weight or need guidance.
The way I learned was a year of construction inspection. My employer makes all new grads spend 6 months in construction for this reason. Any class won't really teach someone as well as needing to apply them. I even went back to construction after 7 years or so of design and spent another couple seasons as a project engineer and that was a great learning experience.
I also recommend reading the general provisions of the specifications. Understanding how the contract works and parts of the contract relate is a good first step.
What’s been effective for me is this. Show them plan / spec examples of big time screw up’s, explain why it was a screw up, how much it ended up costing, who had to pay (and how much more work the company would need to do to offset the loss), non-monetary impacts (reputation/client relation), and how being a young engineer being hyper focused on quality can prevent/minimize this risk to the company.
I'm sure you have a style guide for your company so show them where all the standard stuff lives and give them tasks like duplicating a title sheet or a plan sheet. Get the title block all set up, and all that jazz. I have some consultants I can pick out from across the room just by how their title sheet looks, no matter what engineer/drafter/team worked on them.
Then move on to having them get what details they think would be needed for a simple thing like a storm layout sheet. Manhole details, frame and grate details, maybe curb details if it's on a paved street (B6-18 vs mountable or whatever is used in your example).
Honestly, I learned in a trial by fire and was literally just thrown into it. I spent a lot of time scavaging through old projects to find details both for the in-drawing ones and the spec documents.
Have them put together contract docs, proposal docs, project plan docs under your review and that will help them a lot too. Doing helps cement the knowledge.
Find examples. Training is obviously good, but in the immediate term, focus on setting expectations with examples.
Build a library of drawing sets and specifications from actual projects. Annotate them to call out what works. And include bad examples that show people what to avoid.
Do talk with more experienced engineers, but also with drafters and designers using new technologies. Older engineers are often unfamiliar with modern design practices and might suggest ways to present information that are less efficient with current technologies.
The last thing you want to do is to implement standards for drawings that were developed for people hand drafting or using CAD, but aren't the most efficient or practical way to present the same information with BIM.
For specifications specifically, if your industry works with specifications following CSI guidelines, then consider financially supporting new hires to earn a CDT certification.
https://www.csiresources.org/certification/cdt
[удалено]
Nope. I started working for a firm out of high school doing surveying. After 2 summers I moved into the office as a CAD tech. Senior design was the only time we ever put a set of plans together and boy was that my time to shine. I had been working on engineering plans for the previous 2 years as a tech. I took our project back to the office and had everything designed and drawn in a couple of evenings. No one else in the group had any idea how to even begin.
The only time we dealt with details was duplicating them in drafting class, but it wasn't actually anything to do with real plan sets.
You said it yourself, you learned from experienced engineers. To save time, provide good examples of what the final product should look like and have them ask questions if they can’t figure something out. They might even find better/faster ways to do things this way
Find a good "go-by" to use as a starting place. Review the comments (from the local jurisdiction) and as-built info (if any). Then build from this and make your next project better.
You are the best resource. I’m in this position and have put it upon myself to teach the younger engineers about design, drafting, construction and all that stuff. We only have entry level and senior staff and no one has the time. Shit is getting messed up that could have been avoided if it was properly reviewed. Because of that I took it upon myself to teach the younger engineers and designers and be available to answer any question. This sucks and take away from the things I need to do, but I know in about 2 years, they will have a full understanding of the general process to get a job done from the design to close out a project. This will make my job easier in the long run and I’ll know which designer and engineer can hold their weight or need guidance.
The way I learned was a year of construction inspection. My employer makes all new grads spend 6 months in construction for this reason. Any class won't really teach someone as well as needing to apply them. I even went back to construction after 7 years or so of design and spent another couple seasons as a project engineer and that was a great learning experience. I also recommend reading the general provisions of the specifications. Understanding how the contract works and parts of the contract relate is a good first step.
What’s been effective for me is this. Show them plan / spec examples of big time screw up’s, explain why it was a screw up, how much it ended up costing, who had to pay (and how much more work the company would need to do to offset the loss), non-monetary impacts (reputation/client relation), and how being a young engineer being hyper focused on quality can prevent/minimize this risk to the company.
I'm sure you have a style guide for your company so show them where all the standard stuff lives and give them tasks like duplicating a title sheet or a plan sheet. Get the title block all set up, and all that jazz. I have some consultants I can pick out from across the room just by how their title sheet looks, no matter what engineer/drafter/team worked on them. Then move on to having them get what details they think would be needed for a simple thing like a storm layout sheet. Manhole details, frame and grate details, maybe curb details if it's on a paved street (B6-18 vs mountable or whatever is used in your example). Honestly, I learned in a trial by fire and was literally just thrown into it. I spent a lot of time scavaging through old projects to find details both for the in-drawing ones and the spec documents. Have them put together contract docs, proposal docs, project plan docs under your review and that will help them a lot too. Doing helps cement the knowledge.
Find the old guy/gal and listen. Make a point to print documents and sit with them and soak up their knowledge.
I would ask what are you constructing and what software do you have access too?
Start a training seminar and earn some fat cash.
Find example sets of plans that look exactly how you want them to look and do a good job of conveying all the information.
Old engineers
Find examples. Training is obviously good, but in the immediate term, focus on setting expectations with examples. Build a library of drawing sets and specifications from actual projects. Annotate them to call out what works. And include bad examples that show people what to avoid. Do talk with more experienced engineers, but also with drafters and designers using new technologies. Older engineers are often unfamiliar with modern design practices and might suggest ways to present information that are less efficient with current technologies. The last thing you want to do is to implement standards for drawings that were developed for people hand drafting or using CAD, but aren't the most efficient or practical way to present the same information with BIM. For specifications specifically, if your industry works with specifications following CSI guidelines, then consider financially supporting new hires to earn a CDT certification. https://www.csiresources.org/certification/cdt