Design automation.
Rare is the manager who was not outraged by the slowness of projects in his own organization. Indignation is often accompanied by the desire to disperse the design department.
In addition to the radical one, there is another way to solve the problem.
It is not implemented so quickly and requires financial costs, but the result justifies itself.
Automation contributes to a significant acceleration of work and an increase in the quality of the final product.
You can automate both individual stages of work and the entire process.
In design, an example of the simplest automation is the use of templates for basic documents and standard scheme templates. This type of automation has not been implemented except in young organizations where experience has not been gained and a corporate style has not been established.
Sooner or later, a company comes to the idea of creating templates, at least so that the released projects are designed the same way and the documents created by different designers are uniform. As a result, there is a significant saving of time, since design is a long process, and sometimes endless due to the lack of limits to perfection.
Many organizations use information databases. They simplify the work of a number of departments of the company, including the design department. Templates of some table documents are created in databases and linked into a single corporate system.
Such a structure allows employees to quickly exchange documents and work with them. The advantage becomes most obvious when several specifications with a wide range of nomenclature need to be created for one object.
Setting up access control prevents documents from being viewed by people for whom they are not intended. Linking the corporate catalog with specifications results in uniform writing of equipment brands in all documents of the system, simplifies the purchasing process and reduces the likelihood of errors.
To create databases, you need a specialist who will develop them, implement them and then support them. Depending on the client's requirements and the scale of the company, developing databases can take from three months. Sometimes it is more profitable to buy a ready-made product that will only need to be «tailored» to the company.
But even in this case, you cannot do without a specialist: in order for the program to function effectively, it must be edited taking into account the needs of users and the specifics of the company's work. It is also necessary to train employees in the skills of working with the system.
Ignorance of users is probably the biggest drawback of the databases. For the uninitiated, this automation becomes a burden, it irritates and darkens life. However, the program is easy to use and does not require special efforts to learn.
To increase the speed of execution of individual drawings, an application to AutoCAD is used — the most common graphic editor in design organizations. The program is adapted to a specific company, taking into account its style and specifics of work.
With the help of the application, you can implement various tasks.
As a rule, the most labor-intensive and monotonous part of the project is automated – the execution of drawings of junction boxes and crosses. In this case, the designer is required to place subscriber equipment, boxes and cabinets on the plans.
It will be necessary to use blocks of symbols registered in the program; connecting lines are drawn in a special way so that the machine perceives them correctly. The program determines the connections between elements along the lines.
If you set up data upload to Word, the computer will issue a cable log containing cable designations, their lengths and routes. You will need to enter cable brands manually, after which their number will be automatically calculated.
Unlike the cable log, the blocking table does not need to be modified — it is completely ready.
Such automation is justified at large facilities for which complex security systems are designed.
It would seem that with such a service the work of designers should turn into a holiday and bring continuous pleasure. But, as it turned out, engineers do not like easy ways and are jealous of machine work. The schemes drawn by the program cannot be felt and thought through properly. They are created quickly, before the designer's thoughts are tuned to work.
The result is alien, stamped and unfamiliar.
Another thing is a project that has been sculpted for months — during this time the author has time to study all its details and nuances, knows every curve of the fence, the height of the ceilings and the length of the corridors. He becomes close to his creation and then reverently keeps it in his memory.
It is very difficult to abandon the usual methods of work and follow the instructions of the developer. The programs with such thorough automation are by no means simple. In order to master them, you have to apply diligence and devote a lot of time.
There is a software product that many will like.
This is a print accelerator with an intriguing name PodarokOtDoyarok.
It allows you to print AutoCAD files without opening or configuring them — one click of the mouse is enough to send documents to the printer.
PodarokOtDoyarok does not require any mental effort from the user, which is especially nice.
Automation is necessary to one degree or another, and its depth is determined by the goals of each organization. The desire to avoid automation, for whatever reason, leads to a decrease in quality and an increase in work time.
There are extremes when a manager seeks to obtain a program that includes all stages of design, believing that this will allow him to reduce the time frame and staff to a minimum.
This option is unlikely to be possible, since in any case the project will not be ready immediately, especially without the participation of designers.