The Mote Method

The rise of the machines

January 13, 2010

Someone asked:

Is the Civil Designer/CAD Technician position slowly being phased out of this industry by technology?

Without a doubt. I call this the march of the modellers.

Indeed designers are being phased out. The designers are standing alongside the engineers, scratching their collective heads wondering what happened. The new generation of modellers are coming and they’re even learning to apply loads on the model. It is scary!

Thirty years ago, a tribe called engineers were leaders of the land, draughtsmen waited for instruction from the mighty lords. In between practising their smart lettering they applied their massive artistic skills and etched plans onto films and monkey boys like me ran off to copy them in the “blue” room, whooo hoo that was some whiff…… The blueprint went to a modeler who sat waiting, whittling his sharp knife on balsa dowel and we dared not snigger at his work. I remember the leery looks, but oh what wonders they created, mini models of the grand scheme to follow. And we all went to the pub at lunchtime and had 4 pints of beer with the chief engineer who was a saxophone player in a jazz band. Engineers designed useful electronic abacus called a mainframe and then things got exciting. We were creating stupid numbers for seismic loads in complicated buildings. I complained the numbers were ridiculous by pointing out one could not stand on a steel beam 12 meters (40′) span, 24 m(80′)  in the air underside a concrete roof  and have zero deflection while the concrete roof 6 m above your head would chuck you into the air with force of 24g! Never mind. We’d go back to the pub for early doors and swop answers on the crosswords. The jokes du jour was Andy Capp.

Suddenly, the secret drinking room became server room and security locks were popping up and we were wearing badges. Huge monitors sat on new desks and the draughtsmen and women were led out the backdoor to disappear. New younger faces appeared, they didn’t drink, the posters came down, the pipe smoking stopped. Project now had managers and we didn’t understand what they were saying or who they really worked for. They had enthusiasm though. Printers became M1 dot matrix and we thought it was cool to hide sexy curves in the text.  The drawings were too crappy for rebar work so we kept a few of the granddads going. Pipe and cigars gave way to cigarettes. Still the numbers didn’t add up when we attempted the first simply supported beam in Frames when it was our turn to try out the four colour screen. It was easier and faster to use the design tables. But still the modeler whittled away on his plastic dowels that came now in 20 sizes and 12 different colours. And what fantastic details they showed, how we admired their handiwork. Later we’d meet up in the new wine bars and show off our fancy calculators and the latest programming tricks. The jokes du jour was Hagar the Horrible.

Now we engineers had computers and we felt important. The age of structural analysis had arrived. We studied manuals and took them home to read and built big models looking for any excuse to make them more detailed, accurate you know? Windows was faulty on the server and the Excel  had changed again. Never mind, this thing does everything you know? And did I tell you it’s accurate?  It calculates to three decimal places. The designers discovered colours, line thickness and better drawings. Even the plotters are nifty! Time to say good bye to grandad, he’s the last smoker in the place and don’t you mind his grumpy ways, he’s the last of the lords of the distant age and he can tell you a story! His timing and jokes were impeccable but no longer appreciated. Ciao Ed. The modellers were awfully quiet in the back room, nobody saw them any more. We went to lots of meetings about meetings and everything else. Project managers sat in them quietly and listened, reporting back to the client that all was well. Engineers got kicked to site to learn that almost all things can be designed without a computer. We went for a pint on Fridays and talked about the old days. The jokes du jour was The Dilbert Principle.

I look at my two screens and the first thing I check is my inbox and list of meetings for the day. The budget for the manpower, resources and drawing register are in, done by the lead designer, ready for the client. I didn’t have to do anything. A few phone calls from a few project engineers who have made up their minds what the client wants. Decisions made, ok. A few more emails from yet more project engineers about more meetings to discuss progress. Another email says drawings will go out for approval even if the calculations are not ready, so long the engineer verifies it is ok (!). Oh and a department meeting about new efficient measures being introduced and an important note about safety again.  something to do with changing toner ink and sniffing. I open a huge folder to start to check the calculations and my heart isn’t in it. It’s another detailed piperack design that was the same as last week. I stand up and look across three cubicles hoping to see if my fellow engineer is awake and has finished reading his internet news, maybe we can grab a starbucks and get over-caffeinated; but he’s not there. Still fancy a cigarette after ten years. I look for a designer but they’re all off to Denver for a week-long training course on something again. Haven’t a clue what they do anymore anyway. Sigh. Looks like another quiet day in the office. I realise I am grumpy today. The IT guys now replaces the colour cartridges on the laserjet we are burning out on screenshots. More IT guys are coming in setting up two new stations, with the latest furniture, smart chairs, super ergonomic everything labeled all over it and the fastest computers in town. Wow, what a gig. What’s happening?  IT guys are great for gossip.  New modellers. Sure enough one arrives, he has greasy hair, acne and skinny. Gosh that could have been me at that age! So young, they haven’t even started shaving yet. I say hi, welcome to the project. The designers are not going to like this I thought, the holidays are over. Nobody goes for a beer now. The jokes du jour was Get Fuzzy.

The march of the modellers.

Filed under: Personal

Tags: calculations, drawing office, modelers, modellers