Speaking of CAD...

Computer Aided Design/Drafting is known as CAD. I like anything CAD. The place where I worked as a Tool Designer, we used Microstation mainly because the Plant Engineers were using it. Later as we hired new Tool Engineers, they wouldn't learn Microstation so the company bought AutoCAD. Heck that is what I've learned with. I even learned some programing using 'Lisp'.

Later I've seen people talking about learning centers and asking how should they teach AutoCAD. Firstly, if they really want to teach they must to find what 'Standards' there students will be using. You can teach Circles, Lines, Arcs, and Text. That simple. But using AutoCAD at work requires a working knowledge of the company 'Standards'.

The example I think everyone would understand, you wouldn't use a vacuum set to carpet to vacuum tile, would you? Well standards are like that. Everything in its place and a place for everything. So the instructor needs to know the different discipline these students are working in.

The problem that I had at work, first, they wouldn't allow us to use the 3D model in our drawings. Second, we were not allowed to work in 3D. Everything we did was 2D. Third, our drawing were too large in file size. We came up with some methods to make our drawing smaller. Fourth, learning. The company would pay for training, but it was the simplest type. We did talk our management into getting custom training for the same amount of money. That alone got us faster than anything else.

But the surprising thing I learned was, who used our drawings. Finance even used the timer inside of the software to do Billing. But most the repair people used the drawings to fix the machines.

This raises the question between product and manufacturing support. Most CAD software show there software as for creation of a product. Now that same documentation is used for machine repair.

There is more about this subject and you'll have to search it out.

W. Kirk Crawford

Tularosa, New Mexico