A5 - D1 - Evaluation of Methods of producing Engineering Drawings

Evaluation of Methods of producing Engineering Drawings

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In this document I am going to be evaluating the different methods of producing Engineering Drawings such as CAD and Pictorial Drawings I am also going to be giving the advantages and disadvantages of these drawings which will help me to evaluate the drawings. There are not that many ways to produce an accurate engineering drawing however the most popular of all methods is to hand draw the drawings, using various skills, engineers draw an accurate drawing with a pencil and paper. Meanwhile CAD or computer aided design has been growing massively in popularity since the invention of the program and the computer, it is a computer program which enables you to produce precise scale drawings, this is much more accurate than hand drawing and is also much easier to edit and share the drawing.

The first method that I am going to be talking about for producing engineering drawing is Pictorial Drawing. Pictorial Drawings has many advantages but also it had some disadvantages as you would expect with hand drawing detailed precise drawings. The advantages of using pictorial drawings include, having skilled highly trained engineers that are needed and trained to complete the highly detailed drawings, due to this there is a demand increases for trained engineers, this allows all the skills and tricks of the trade as some people call it to be passed down to the next generations. Another good point or advantage of using pictorial drawings is that the drawing it’s a humans true interpretation of an object, this allows the drawing to have a human element. This is very good and better than CAD because when you use CAD it has a tendency to automatically correct the drawings which means that they might not be a true representation of the object, using pictorial drawings eliminates this problem and computer error meaning that you will be left with a true correct drawing of the object in question.

However there are disadvantages and fall back of using these pictorial drawings, this is defiantly the case when it comes to having to share, copy and store the image/drawing. This is because ALL of the pictorial drawings are on paper and drawn on with pencil and sometime inked in to look better, this means that there is only ever one copy of the drawings unless it get re-drawn, this has it draw back because the two drawings may not be identical so you will have two different size prototypes if it goes onto that stage. However you may be able to photocopy the image so they will be identical but this also has drawn back because the photocopy may have a lose image quality or be pixilate due to the printer you are using. Normally the pictorial drawing in question will be sent out to the manufacture for production, this is normally very easy as the place where the drawing is stored is in the same factory as the producers but sometime this isn’t the case, sometimes the office where the drawing is stored is in a different location than the manufacture. This cases a big problem as the pictorial drawing will now have to be moved and sent safely and securely to the manufacture via a courier service, this is a problem because it can cost the company a lot of money to have to pay the driver also some of the couriers aren’t very reliable and you can’t rely on the to get the drawing to the factory in time for production to start.

The other method that I am going to talk about for the producing engineering drawings is using CAD or computer aided design. With CAD drawings and designs they are much less limitations that using pictorial drawings, this is especially the case when it comes to sharing, copying, viewing and editing the drawing itself. This is because CAD drawing can be stored, viewed and edited on a computer so that they are just ordinary files that can be put onto memory stick and external hardrives. This allows the drawing to be copied and shared easily as you can also email the files. Also because CAD drawings and drawn using a computer programs there are certain automated elements built within the programs with can help with the drawing production as it can be made much faster than using pictorial drawings which saves time and money for the company and the customer. These automated elements also help reduce errors in the drawings by pointing out where mistakes may have been made if it was hand drawn. Using CAD also saves money as mistakes may be built into the final product which could cost the company money in materials, man power, labor costs, waste disposal and also recalls of the actual product after it has gone on sale.

However CAD can also have drawbacks and limitations because as everyone knows all forms of computerized systems whether it be word, Norton or CAD will eventually fail at one point in its use. This is a very big down fall with using the CAD systems because if a company drew all of their designs using the one specific CAD program, such as 2D design, the company who manufactures their products must use exactly the same program to be able to read the drawings and also print the drawings. If the producers of the drawings had to use another company permanently and that company did not use the exact same CAD program one of the participating companies will have to change their systems and CAD program in order to use and view the engineering drawing. This will cost the company changing their system a massive amount of money as they will have to purchase the programs which aren’t cheap. These days sometimes one single manufacturing and designing company can span the entire world and when their computer system crashes the entire company will be brought to a halt which again will cost the company thousands and thousands of pound each day that their systems are down.

Although CAD systems and programs can crash, fail and have compatibility errors, their range of features such as 3D rendering/viewing and computerized product testing makes them far superior than having to us pictorial drawings and having to hand draw all the objects in question read for manufacturing. This is because hand drawing models are just an accurate drawing of the object on a single sheet of paper rather than a complex drawing that can be manipulated and rendered in many different way whenever they are needed and where ever they are needed unlike pictorial drawings will have to be redrawn and kept in one place apart from being able to be sent all over the world.

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Dominic Clifford 

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