A very simple mechanical print |
Now like many of you,
I have been on both sides of the aisle on this subject. I've had one foot stuck
in academia and the other foot stuck in manufacturing, which quite frankly
sometimes makes it hard to walk, but both sides really need to get a firm grasp
on this as we continue to try to address the skills gaps found among students
leaving education and joining the workforce.
It is my opinion that
too much time is spent teaching students CAD when what is really needed is for
students to know how to read a blueprint.
I can see all the academics in the group right now with their hair
standing on the back of their neck. The reality in industry is how many people
really need to know how to draw in a CAD program? The vast majority of the
workforce that's needed will never draw parts up in a CAD program. This
includes job roles like welder, machinist, CNC operator, supervisor, quality
inspector, and even a lot of management personnel will not draw in AutoCAD,
Mastercam, Solidworks or any of the other CAD/CAM programs that are out there.
However pretty much every single one of those job roles will need to know how
to read the blue print that's put out on the shop floor. It seems to me that
education has failed a lot of students by teaching them how to draw in a CAD
program but not really training them on the fine art of blueprint reading and interpretation.
Getting harder to read. |
We just let the
engineers handle all of that you say. That's fine. Engineers do need to know
how to draw in CAD programs but they also need to know how to read blueprints. In my experience, the vast majority of
engineers in manufacturing are not doing the design work that requires drawing
in CAD. They are however taking a customer’s blueprint, interpreting it and
drawing the part into their companies CAD program. Blueprint reading and
interpretation is still more relevant.
If you are teaching a CAD class, are you incorporating blueprint reading
skills and abilities in your class? Or are you just assuming that students
already know how to look at and read a blueprint?
My argument is really
quite simple. Blueprint reading is much more of a necessity and critical then
CAD. Education of course embraced CAD over 20 years ago because students sucked
up the technology like sponges and still do. Educators are always excited when
students take an active interest in what their teaching. I can't deny that, whether it's on a high
school or college level, students have far more interest in sitting in a
classroom behind a computer drawing in a CAD program then they do sitting at
drafting tables looking over and studying printed out blueprints.
Assembly print |
For students, designing and drawing in CAD is a lot of fun. I
too would much rather create then copy. But again the reality behind industry
and manufacturing is the design and drawing aspect is a relatively small percentage
of the job tasks that need to be done. There is a relatively small amount of
personnel needed for this task in comparison to all of the other manufacturing
operations combined. When we’re talking about skills gaps, more people will
need to be able to read a blueprint then will be in need of being able to draw
a part in CAD. If students don’t know how to visualize the final 3-dimensional
part from a drawing, either print or digital, when they come out of a class
than did they really achieve what was important for their future success?
And let’s not even begin to talk about G, D & T. That’s
geometric dimensioning and tolerancing for any non-manufacturing people out
there reading this. If a student doesn’t know how to relate part features from
one view to another view than there is no sense to try to explain parallel,
perpendicularity, cylindricity, profile of a surface and other more complex
part design requirements. Heck, I even get myself confused on some of these
sometimes. Where do I have bonus tolerance at and if I make this to +.0003 and
that to -.0001 will the part still fit when the hole is -.0002?
Again I say it all goes back to being able to read the blueprint.
Because it's cool and I'm a Geek! |