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I work in an industry that has seen huge changes in the
past 25 years. The technology
in engineering has grown and
changed so much that we are
executing project with half
(sometimes less) the manpower
we needed before. I work mainly
in the oil and gas industry
but I know that in other areas
it is possibly even more dramatic.
I have been in engineering
industry for 25 years and
when I started computers were
in a main computer room and
there were only a few and
only few people who could
run them. They slowly started
moving on to the desktop about
five years later. I was hired
mainly because I had taken
CAD courses to upgrade my
skills during an economic
downturn. I ended up developing
and teaching courses in AutoCAD
for the company. From those
simple beginnings we have
come a long way.
Let me give an example of
that change. The company I
work for had a project for
a client 30 years ago and
we managed to get the second
phase of the project 12 years
later while I was with the
company. The technology of
the process had not changed
much so the plant was almost
a twin of the first phase.
The first phase was executed
on the drafting board the
second phase was done using
brand new 3D design technology
called Calma developed by
GE (this software is gone
now). During the execution
of the engineering many of
the engineers and design supervisors
commented that they only had
half the people for phase
two compared to phase one.
Another comparison on this
project was in the construction.
30 years ago it was not uncommon
in our industry to have 15%
rework in the field due to
clashes between piping, structural
and electrical. With the new
3D technology we were able
use clash reporting to fix
most of these clashes on the
computer before construction.
The rework in field came down
to 3% on this project and
much of this was due to pipes
that were field routed and
were not in the model.
Leap forward now to 2005.
Another example is from an
article I read in Design News
magazine it was about the
development of Lance Armstrong’s
time trial bike. Trek’s Advanced
Concept Group was given only
28 days to redesign the bike
to make it faster. A group
of 14 engineers and designers
went work using desktop workstations
and eight different software
programs. Even 2 years ago
a redesign of this nature
would have taken them 4 months.
They did everything in 3D
using Solidworks 3D CAD. This
allowed them to do virtual
tests on everything form the
wind tunnel to reduce drag,
to stress analysis to ensure
the bike was safe. Using software
called thinkid from think3
they were actually able to
deform the solid shapes and
the software was able to redo
to geometric calculations
to accommodate the shape change
and still maintain the integrity
of the design. With this technology
they were able to go straight
into production knowing what
they had designed worked because
the model simulations proved
it. They ended up with a bike
that was 2% lighter, 10% faster,
and 15% stiffer then the model
they produced in 2004. Lance
Armstrong proved it was better
by winning the time trials
and ultimately winning the
Tour de France for a record
7th time. I doubt that a bike
of this nature could have
been produced in under a year
30 years ago using the same
amount of people.
One of the main reasons for
these advances in that the
amount of RAM and speed of
processing has increased exponentially.
These new programs require
huge amounts of memory and
processing power due to their
graphic and interactive capabilities.
The new systems of today deliver
that power (my workstation
is now over 3 years old).
15 years ago I would load
one design area of a processing
plant. One design area might
have represented 10% to 15%
of the whole plant. Once I
called up the design area
it was time to go get coffee
because it could take about
10 to 15 minutes to load,
and you would pray it didn’t
crash. Today I am able to
load an entire process plant
in solid model image in about
one minute using Intergraph’s
Smart Plant Review technology.
The ability this gives me
as a supervisor to check designs
and make comments is invaluable,
this technology increases
our quality.
For engineers and designers
the changes have been staggering,
even in my 25 years of design
work I have gone from producing
a limited plastic model of
an oil and gas plant to giving
the client a virtual walkthrough
of every detail of an oil
and gas plant. We must constantly
keep ourselves up to date
with the latest technologies
to keep a competitive advantage.
Those who don’t keep up will
loose the race.
Kevin Redmond is a senior
design supervisor in a large
engineering firm in Canada.
He has implemented and taught
several training courses for
CAD to keep designers up to
date on technology. He also
runs a consumers Website call
http://www.avoidconfusion.com
you can find some great deals
here on the latest technologies
and software. You'll also
find everything from A to
Z here.
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