The Rise of the Modellers

As a professional engineer, you have to wonder where you will be in ten years’ time in the rapidly changing world; I know I do. Competition, talent and ability to re-invent yourself will be key attributes for engineers in tomorrow’s world. Even today, the designers are feeling the effect of being relegated to secondary roles as big projects and companies embrace the rise of the modellers. The designers today, complain about the loss of quality in the drawings generated from the ‘intelligent’ models. The engineers continue to shrug their shoulders. The aging designers of the last ten years that managed the quality of the drawings and exercised scrupulous checking are now being supplanted by the new generation of designers who will likely never see a day on site, or appreciate the value of the great unwritten hand-me-down rules of the profession.

These unwritten rules would look something like:
Get site experience;
Ask questions;
Take your time;
Understand the common sense design; and
Talk about the design with other disciplines.

These rules look simplistic but there is much wisdom and it embodies the lore of the age. Any time I look at a concrete drawing, Ed Eve would be there in my head, smoking a cigarette, shaking his head in a wreath of smoke, pointing out problems in his lancashire brogue. His acerbic wit, common sense and eye for details were a great learning curve for me. Watching a master perform his trade is exactly what the unwritten rules are all about. I smile now, but I still value his training and knowledge. I still apply the rigorous and critical review to engineering calculations that Ed Eve brought to his drawings and demanded of engineers. Now engineers working along side myself watch how I put my work together on paper and marvel similarly. Suddenly, I find myself teaching my craft and I do so with pride.

I worked on a refinery site in Denmark and it was the quiet craftsmen who patiently built the three-dimensional scale models of the refinery, in a clean room, knowing their days were numbered. The three men team worked solidly and patiently from drawings to create a scale model of the refinery. It was an amazing experience to walk around that model and see the design come to life while outside the site looked grim, flat and empty. That was the last time I saw anything like that model, in 1995. It is not a long time ago, yet it already seems another age has passed.