301 Top Tips for Design Engineers

Morris Chris

Description

This book is aimed at new mechanical design engineers - to improve your employability and to help you 'hit the ground running'.It also contains useful information and checklists for more experienced designers.It's a quick read, listing real-world, non-academic, practical experiences which you won't find in an engineer's technical reference book.It includes design and drafting guides, good advice for everyday design and general office life, advice on job interviews, how to handle meetings, insights into other departments, looking after yourself in a work environment and more.

Sujets

• Sciences et techniques
• Mechanical engineering

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 26 février 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528994484
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

3 01 T op T ips for D esign E ngineers
To Help You ‘Measure Up’ in the World of Engineering
Chris Morris
Austin Macauley Publishers
2021-02-26
301 Top Tips for Design Engineers About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Book One Introduction My Career My Design Experience In the Office Setting Up Your Office Systems Company Procedures Office Guides General Office Tips Estimating Costs Setting Up a Project Design Meetings Product Design Concept and Scheme Designs Manufacturing and Production Quality and Inspection Health and Safety Industrial Design Maintenance Procurement Project Planning Sales and Marketing Basic Design Guide Basic Drafting Guide Productionise the Drawing Looking After Yourself and Others! In the Office Interactions with Others Your Mental Health Sayings, Abbreviations and Jargon Choosing a Company to Work For Job Interviews A Few Curriculum Vitae Tips Managing Managers Communication General Advice Some Engineering Books And A Good Website Appendix A Royal Ordnance Nottingham Appendix B A CAD and Plm User Guide Example Book Two User Guide for NX CAD and Teamcenter PLM Introduction Section – One CAD Best Practices CAD Modelling Requirements The Basics New Part Creation Assembly Model Creation Large Assemblies Management Drafting Section – Two: Tips and Techniques Colour Plots Plot Reduction Scale Chart Plot Que Manager Deleting Tmp Files To Cancel a CAD Process Drawing Frame Sizes Grip Programs Changing Your Unix Password Listing Assembly Model Components (UG Print Component) Converting Unigraphics File to Millimetres or Inches CAD Fonts Weight/Mass Analysis Converting Windows Metafile (.wmf) to CAD .prt File Importing PC Spreadsheet Data into CAD Spreadsheet Using a Host Workstation Moving Objects Between Drawing Sheets Reference Sets Not Working? To Find Your Own IP Address Converting CAD Files from UNIX to NT Drawing Checking List Item List Order Creating PC Dynamic Shaded Image from CAD Model Using Tar and Zip and Ftp’ing to Another Site – Example Copying a Spreadsheet onto A UG Drawing A Window Has Slid Off the Screen – How to Retrieve Section – Three: File Transfers Some Unix Commands Transferring File between PC and CAD using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Converting CAD File to Parasolid File Converting CAD File to IGES File Converting CAD File to STEP File Converting CAD File to DXF File Converting CAD File to HPGL2 File Converting CAD File to CGM File Converting CAD File to Rapid Prototyping File(.stl) Section – Four: PLM Usage Logging onto a CAD Workstation Creating a New Item Creating a UG Master Creating a UG Part Creating an Assembly Model in PLM Adding Common Parts to an Assembly Model Up-Issuing Item Revisions in PLM Creating a Document in PLM Importing Native Unigraphics Assemblies into PLM Importing Scanned or Unigraphics Pre-Version 10 Files into PLM Importing Pattern Frames into PLM Emergency Export from PLM Exporting PLM Assembly Files into Native Unigraphics Exporting a Single File from PLM to Native UG Importing a Single UG Native Part File into PLM Using PLM on a Remote Workstation PLM Document Version Mismatch Problem
About the Author
Chris studied mechanical and production engineering at Nottingham Trent Polytechnic.
He worked within the engineering industry for 49 years, starting as an apprentice at age 16 with Royal Ordnance (UK MoD), BAE Systems, JCB Ltd and other organisations. He was responsible for the design and production of highly complex precision products.
During his long career, his roles have included technician apprentice, skilled fitter, assistant foreman, drawing office draughtsman, production engineer, tooling engineer, leading CAD draughtsman, CAD supervisor, engineering design services team leader and senior design engineer.
He has witnessed and summarised numerous wise-working practices, which have been shared in his book.
He lives in Nottingham and is married with two sons.
Dedication
To Helen Morris
Copyright Information ©
Chris Morris (2021)
The right of Chris Morris to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528994477 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528994484 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2021)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Book One
Introduction
The following tips are in addition to your technical training and are for basic guidance only from my perspective as a mechanical design and production engineer and include many personal opinions.
You should always consult your company standards and procedures for approved working methods.

My Career
I have been employed by some excellent engineering organisations in my 49-year career, these have included:
The Ministry of Defence Royal Ordnance Factory in Nottingham. I served my apprenticeship there and learned from some highly skilled people. I studied mechanical and production engineering during and after my apprenticeship. Not long after finishing my apprenticeship, I was given a go at being an assistant foreman in the fitting department. After that, I started work in the production drawing office designing jigs, fixtures, tools, gauges and general equipment also product design work and became CAD Supervisor training approximately sixty CAD operators.
The jobs I’ve held at Royal Ordnance were:
Engineering design services team leader
CAD system supervisor
Tooling engineer
Production engineer
Leading CAD draughtsman
Production drawing office draughtsman
Assistant foreman fitting department
Skilled fitter
Ministry of Defence technician apprentice
The factory produced many types of precision engineering products, from small arms to heavy artillery and armoured vehicles, so the design work was extremely varied and complex.
After the ordnance factory closed in 2001, I worked for a design contract company and carried out CAD design work for BAE Systems, Rolls Royce, J C Bamford Ltd and other companies. It was interesting to experience the very different ways of working between the companies even though they were generally using the same design, production and business software!
I became a permanent employee at JCB Ltd and was a senior design engineer, helping to design some of the many tools that can be attached to construction machines. I also worked on vehicle upgrade kits and manuals for worldwide distribution, working with people in countries such as India, China and the USA. All varied and complex work which I enjoyed learning about right up until my last day.

My Design Experience
I’ve helped with the design of many military weapons and armoured vehicles, probably best if I don’t go into details as I’ve signed the official secrets act! It was all precision engineering, with highly complex strong forces and very interesting to design.
I’ve designed hundreds of machining fixtures, welding fixtures, drill jigs, machining tools, inspection gauges and various types of production equipment and also created thousands of production stage drawings for manufacture.
I’ve also been involved in the design of military weapons, armoured vehicles, construction vehicles and construction equipment.
I started to design using a drawing board in 1972. A CAD workstation appeared in the drawing office in 1985, so from then onwards I used computer design, starting with wire frame models and around 1995 using solid modelling. I was trained mainly in Unigraphics NX and also in ProEngineer, Autocad and Ferretti CAMX.
Just to demonstrate how computers have improved, in the early days, I managed to slow down all the computers on the factory site where I worked. All our computers were run from a mainframe which filled a room. Our first CAD was 2D lines only, which would slowly and gracefully appear on the screen, this then developed to 3D wireframe. I naively thought I would try out some 3D solid modelling, this stopped my computer and slowed the whole mainframe, resulting in a slapped wrist from the IT manager. I had to wait a few more years before having another go when computers had vastly improved.
Here are some tips that you won’t see in a reference book. They will help prevent new design engineers being a “LAMB TO THE SLAUGHTER” and to plan ahead!

Chris Morris
In the Office

Setting Up Your Office Systems
If you are setting up office systems from scratch, purchase all your CAD, CAM, CAE, FEA, PLM etc. from the same software company if possible. The software systems will then easily communicate with each other. Your accountants may want you to have cheaper software from various suppliers, but this will mean big problems with data transfer. Example: A few years ago, Daimler Benz, who manufacture Mercedes cars amongst others, changed their whole CAD system to Siemens so that it could easily interface with its Siemens PLM system. A massive undertaking.
Set up a Disaster Recovery Plan: Daily archive your database away from the design office in case of fire or computer problems. Don’t imagine this will never happen to you. It’s best to plan for the worst-case scenario.
Set up a Suggestion Scheme so that company employees can help with designs (or anything else) for a financial award. It’ll make your company more inclusive and will generally help.
Have a large Notice Board in meeting room displaying employee suggestions so that other people can comment on them. Also have ongoing project plans on the wall but have a cover ove