BUILDING INDUSTRY EXAMPLE OF OCCUPATIONAL TASKS

Tracer Receives CAD file of building floor plan and elevations. Copies file and provides with name to match company standards. Deletes irrelevant data, modifies layers as required to meet company/project standards. Inserts drawing sheet, fills in title block and otherwise sets up basis of drawing.

Drafter Receives drawing from tracer, decides additional sections, views and details. Then produces additional drawings as necessary.

Design-Drafter
Receives drawings from drafter then designs dependent systems and prepares additional drawings. Includes structural drawings, mechanical services (HVAC, water supply, sanitary drainage), electrical services (power supply, lighting, communications, data, security).

Technician Designer/Analyst Reviews design-drafters drawings or produces themselves. Uses Design handbooks, manufacturers catalogues, and codes of practice to evaluate the suitability of the drawn design-solutions. For example size air conditioning units and ducting, size water pipes and sanitary drainage pipes, size and locate vents to drainage system. Size power cables, lighting and switching cables, determine number of circuits and design circuit layout. Size simple beams, columns and connections.

Engineering Officer (Design/Analyst) Single air conditioning duct not suitable, and more complex network or ducts proposed, similarly for water pipes and sanitary drainage. Electrical system demands more than normal mains supply can provide, sophisticated control systems and programming required, possibly small substation or emergency power supply. Structural forms less routine, instead of applying routine formulae need to apply routine procedures. Otherwise involved in developing design tools for technician designer/analysts. Designers do not want to be held back by the evaluation of the suitability they want to get on with applying suitable solutions to their design problems.

Engineering Technologist (Designer/Analyst) Principally employed developing design tools for the lower level designers. Typically should not be involved in day to day design projects unless the employing enterprise specialises in high end design projects. There are very few high end design projects; our industrial society already exists, and therefore all our industrial systems have been designed and constructed already. The primary requirement is therefore to APPLY the solutions and improve the solutions, and improve our ability to apply and supply the solutions.

Engineer (Designer/Analyst) Generally should not be required on a building project. However new scientific research may provide economies not previously available and demand the skills of engineers until specialist technicians have been trained and appropriate design tools developed.

Architect (Designer/Analyst) Architects may have designed the original floor plan provided to the tracer in the first instance, but more likely a design-drafter produced the original floor plan. Internal fixtures for the building maybe design by an industrial product designer, but also most likely designed by design-drafters or even drafters.

CONCLUSIONBasically once an architect has developed a suitable building-solution for a particular application, the solution can be applied by design-drafters or drafters to a multitude of similar situations. When it comes to needs, supply is more important than any objections an architect may have about aesthetics and repetition. Besides repetitive buildings tend to acquire individuality, as they evolve with the end-users usage. Fundamentally therefore the vast majority of our technological systems should be within the scope of technicians to design and evaluate. Tracers, Drafters and Design-Drafters should be capable of being trained on the job, and pursuit of self-study. They should be able to use books on engineering graphics, technical drawing, manufacturers catalogues, prescriptive codes of practice and experience gained from drafting other designers design-solutions to develop their own design-solutions for given design problems.

ARCHITECTS / INDUSTRIAL PRODUCT DESIGNERS

Historically industrial product design was developed by architects, applying the principles of design outside the arena of the built environment. Architects have less focus on the detailed quantitative assessment of designs and more focus on the qualitative aspects of design. The architect is equivalent to the engineer, with lower level technologists, building designers and architectural drafters below. Architects normally employ the services of engineering consultancies for detailed quantitative assessment of design-solutions.

ENGINEER (DESIGNER/ANALYST)

Minimum education 4 year Bachelor of Engineering (or equivalent) in the design and enabling sciences. The design problems cannot be solved by APPLYING known solutions, nor by ADAPTING such known solutions, ORIGINAL solutions are required. Evaluation of the design-solutions is beyond the scope of known design-science and additional empirical research and original evaluation models need to be determined. Once the design-science has been developed it can be passed down the line, so that the design-solutions can be APPLIED and ADAPTED by others.

ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGIST (DESIGNER/ANALYST)

Minimum education 3 year Bachelor of Technology (or equivalent) in the design and enabling sciences. They principally ADAPT routine solutions to the circumstances of new projects. Routine design-solutions are unsuitable and the methods of assessment/evaluation need to be adapted to fit the design-solution proposed. Some potential exists for novel and original solutions and empirical research.

ENGINEERING OFFICER (DESIGNER/ANALYST)

Minimum education of 2 year Associate Diploma (or equivalent) in the design and enabling sciences. Like the technician, they APPLY routine solutions to new projects, the solutions however are more complex and flexible, and some potential exists for ADAPTING the solutions to new circumstances.

TECHNICIAN DESIGNER/ANALYST

The lowest level formally educated design/analysts possessing a minimum of a 1 year (full-time equivalent) certificate in design-science or other enabling-sciences. With their knowledge of design-science they are able to develop design-solutions and evaluate suitability of such solutions using routine assessment methods. They can determine form and function, make qualitative assessments, and simple quantitative assessments. They APPLY routine solutions to new projects, and are capable of deciding that such solutions are inappropriate.

DESIGN-DRAFTER

The experience drafter with the ability to conduct dimensional and geometrical design and simple functional design. Is able conduct design where the design-solution is a routine assembly of commonly available components and the principal or initial design requirement is achieving fit. Initial design-solutions may require assessment/evaluation by higher level designer/analysts. (This is likely the highest level attainable without a formal education in design-science)

DRAFTER

In a design organisation the position is principally a trainee position for design-drafters. In other organisations principally concerned with documentation and illustration, drafters are career positions. In a design organisation it is the next step up from tracer. The drafter is responsible for organising the graphical information for a project. The drafter determines drawings, views, sections and details required, and decide on symbolic or pictorial format for the drawings. Given design sketches (at least two complete orthographic views), produces formal drawings to drafting standards, and can generate all additional views, sections that maybe required to clearly communicate the design concept and intent.

JUNIOR/ TRACER/COPY DRAFTER

Primarily a trainee, principal task is to be present in the office and assist where required with all low level tasks in order to get over all experience of what the business of a design office is about. It is the first stepping stone towards becoming a drafter. The individual either traces or manually copies the contents of one drawing sheet onto another drawing sheet. This develops skills in reading drawings, and producing drawings, and also provides foundation knowledge in the area of the product being designed. When using CAD the tracer will copy files, delete layers, rename objects, and otherwise modify the style/format of a copy of an existing drawing to meet current project specific CAD standards.

On Professions

I have little interest in professions. I basically consider that in the main professionals have hijacked the human knowledge base and are holding it to ransom for extortionate fees, via the use of fear uncertainty and doubt (#fud). People don't find out that the professional knows less than they do until they have paid the fee, this is particularly the case when it comes to management consultants.

Humans are supposed to be the most intelligent and adaptable creatures on earth. Yet teachers having told the class this, proceed to treat their pupils like sheep, and turn them into inflexible cogs supposedly required by the machinery of industrial society. It all fits with a mechanistic view of the world. Chop and dice up knowledge and tasks.

The knowledge required to survive in the world of tomorrow cannot be based on that of yesterday. it is not professionals who have continuing professional development imposed upon them that we need. It is individuals who seek to learn, and better understand the future that we are heading towards.

A professional is simply a cog required by some established system. Professionals are highly specialised inferior subspecies of humanity. Aim to be human rather than a professional.