【转帖】cad department organization

yang686526

cad department organization
hi, all
have you had any experience in starting a cad department
for engineering? (mechanical,process, electrical drawings)
have you had any experiences?
to have the cad drafters after them a cad supervisor?
and then the engineers? should be a three steps process
to approve a drawing?
to draw,revise,an revise and approve?
the drafter should be a technician, the reviser a technician also or engineer?
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what about to coordinate between disciplines the engineering drawings management?
can you lead me to get information about how the engineering process should be done?
let麓s say procedures,standards and so on to be complied by all the participants in a project.
(managers,drafters,engineers,project managers, etc.)
procedures like: document control, minutes of meetings
changes of scope, etc.
sorry for many question, i hope you can help me
thanks too much

drafting departments per se are not as useful as in times past.  it's more engineering services now.   
also, there shouldn't be repeated revisions before approval.  a drawing/model is revised and then approved.
it might help if you mention which industry you are in, as eash field has its own particulars needs.
matt
cad engineer/ecn analyst
silicon valley, ca
also, start with a set of the asme/ansi standards.
start with the guidlines that qa, machine shop and inspection use.
as matt wrote, it also depends on your industry. the very basics can be the same.
chris
solidworks 07 3.0/pdmworks 07
autocad 06
matamaticas,
   i hate the term "cad department".  if you insist on calling it that, you will wind up with a department full of cad operators, supervised by a cad manager.
   cad software is user friendly, and just about any one can learn to operate it.  engineering, design and drafting is hard.  it requires training and a lot of practical experience.  
   you have a mechanical design department, or an electrical design department, or a civil/structural design department.  
   your manager would be good at these things.  they may wind up not bothering to figure out the cad.  they can figure out if the drawings and designs are good, and they can figure out if the designers and drafters know what they are doing.  a cad manager is potentially unable to understand any of this, perhaps in addition to not understanding who is qualified to use the fea to do structural analysis.
   cad is only a tool.
                          jhg
i agree drawoh.
chris
solidworks 07 3.0/pdmworks 07
autocad 06
i have experience of being in a new 鈥楧esign services鈥?department, we鈥檙e primarily mechanical but occasionally get involved in electrical.  the department was only a few months old when i came in and hadn鈥檛 expanded to its full role so i鈥檝e seen most of the development.  i鈥檓 the only 鈥楨ngineer鈥?with a bachelors but we have 2 experienced designers/drafters (both started working before cad), a senior design checker (40 years experience including checking military packages to level 3), a number of interns (usually 2-3) and a manager.  none of the   
i would second "engineering services" as the appropriate title for your new department.
heckler
sr. mechanical engineer
swx 2007 sp 3.0 & pro/e 2001
xp pro sp2.0 p4 3.6 ghz, 1gb ram
nvidia quadro fx 1400
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(in reference to david beckham) "he can't kick with his left foot, he can't tackle, he can't head the ball and he doesn't score many goals. apart from that, he's all right."  -- george best
i'll third that!
i agree with much of kenat's comments, however i question the need for a checker in many industries, especially if the company has a good plm set up and an experienced cad staff.  processes can be made simpler too, again, depending on industry.
matt
cad engineer/ecn analyst
silicon valley, ca
matamaticas,
the relative size of the group will end up establishing some of the structure (manager, supervisor(s) etc.)  my experiences with department setup/procedures is similar to what kenat relates.
engineering creates initial cad models and refines the design.  maintains responsibility for design intent.  there may be a single manager or a manager by discipline (mechanical, electrical, etc.) depending upon group size.  a multi-manager organization will typically have an overall leader (current place i work is a vp level position)
designers/detailers take the cad models and put them into drawing formats per established standards (for us, ansi y14).  again, depending upon size, there may be an supervisor or manager for the group(s)
here my experience diverges because we do not have a stand-alone group for checking/reviewing drawings.  they go to the engineer who originally created the design for review and then to the project/program manager for additional review.  manufacturing also gets a sign off on it if they are going to be producing the part/assembly.
we have a separate group that does engineering changes on released drawings.  eco's are reviewed by the originator, engineering, and other affected departments as needed.
regards,
fcsuper, i've heard the argument about not needing a checker but from what i've seen the quality of drawings is significantly (i鈥檓 tempted to say order of magnitude but might not be able to justify it) better when you have a good level of checking.  for a small department that can't justify a dedicated checker(s) then a dual function designer/checker is a good option.  peer checking is better than nothing but can be of limited value, especially if the peer isn't an experienced designer/drafter...  
the other (often overlooked) advantage of checkers is that in order to do their job they need to be highly experienced with good knowledge of drawings standards, gd&t etc as well as just having been in industry a while.  as such they can serve as a source for advice and instruction to less experienced personnel.  my checker often gives me input that isn鈥檛 directly related to just drawing correctness etc.
if the op has the opportunity to implement a dedicated checker then i think it would be massively beneficial.
one thing i don鈥檛 see is how a good plm system has any impact on needing a checker or not.