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.
