I. Spasic designs models for testing in wind tunnels, including the interior redesign of models for placing measurement equipment, redesign of the exterior of the model for optimization of geometry for the wind tunnel test, making the necessary technical documentation, production and assembly documentation. His work includes coordination with manufacturing engineers in the preparation of technological process and machining (CAM), and coordination of all stages and final model control.

His work includes the following:

• Working as CAD engineer, proficient in computer-aided design in Siemens NX (Formerly Unigraphics).
• Advanced knowledge of 3D design, assembly design, surfacing, drafting and documentation, and control of models geometry
• Developing models that meet needs of wind tunnel testing, most often on a compressed time schedule.
• Preparation or/and editing of solid models using NX versions 7.5 and 8.
• Conversion of models to 2D drawings, and in many cases converting 2D drawings to 3D models.
• Reverse engineering (the reverse-engineering process involves measuring an object and then reconstructing it as a 3D model).
• Creating assembly documentation, reports and assembly guides.
• Design of mold tools for plastic or composite materials.
• Design of electrodes for electric discharge machines.
• Design of large number of prototype parts, tools or assemblies used in MTI (The Military Technical Institute – Republic of Serbia).
• Design of 3rd-party (non army) customer projects.
• communication with wind tunnel engineers, manufacturing Engineers and production personnel.

J. Simmons has, for the last three years, worked on electrical and electronic devices for Lockheed Martin IS&GS in Goodyear, Arizona, where he has been able to refresh previous experience obtained in electronic packaging. Mr. Simmons has twenty-seven years experience in aircraft modification design, twenty-one of which were with various Lockheed Martin aircraft facilities. During this time, he was awarded a patent as the sole inventor of a Foreign Object Deflector developed for the belly of a C-130 Special Forces airframe. Much of his career involved installation of avionic systems, a design discipline that can involve creative methods of structural support and spatial utilization to get the shortest electrical lines possible for some applications. Mr. Simmons received a Bachelor of Science Degree from Southern Illinois University in 1971. His major was Mass communications, with a minor in art. He started in the aircraft design field at Evergreen Air Center in Arizona where he started as a draftsman in 1979. By 1985 when he left for another opportunity, he was Department Head of Engineering, and he had composed the drafting room manual, and investigated and chose the computer-aided drafting system in 1984.

A. Higgs specializes in Injection Mold Design, and Plastic Product Design. He is a contract mold designer with 30 years experience, specializing in quality precision multi-cavity molds for Hot Runner, Cold Runner, Slides, 2 Stage, In Mold Closing, Unscrewing, Stack Molds, 2 Shot Molds, A half Strippers, etc. Certified SolidWorks, Using the latest SolidWorks 2011 for full 3D and 2D designs. He has worked in the cosmetic industry for over 20 years. During that time he developed many solid mold designs ensuring quality molds with extended mold life. Mr. Higgs stared his career as a toolmaker work his way to Engineering Manager in 2002, earning a B. Sc in Mechanical Engineering from Bristol University in England.

J. Brouwer has over 40 years of engineering experience as a contract engineer with a wide variety of defense and aerospace companies. Since being introduced to CAD in 1982 he has accumulated over 54,000 design hours on 3-D CAD, 10,000 on ComputerVision’s CADDS 4X and the remainder on IRONCAD, ZW3D and variety of other PC based CAD programs.

He also provides the following services:

1. Engineering Services, including Engineering Design, 3-D modeling, drafting, CNC programming and complete integrated system management.
2. Plastic Product Design: Providing fully 3-D wireframe, surfaced, solid models and detail drawings if required.
3. Mechanical Design: 3-D design of mechanical assemblies.

Interview with Mr. J. Brouwer

1. What kinds of clients do you serve?

   I support companies that do not have an engineering department. I provide mechanical and plastic product design.

2. What was the most interesting CAD project that you ever worked on? What made it interesting?
   What challenges did you face?

   It was a project for Boeing. They were making models for testing. We did the F-22 and Osprey — who gets to work on project like this? It was a few years ago and we had to make 3D prints. Just making sure the solid/surface models were complete. The work was done in Ironcad and a Hybrid CAD system.

3. Of the software tools that you use, which is your favorite and why?

   IronCAD is my tool of choice because of its ease of use and great flexibility, but I also use a hybrid CAD system when a project has to be broken down to wireframes and surfaces. I have used most of the Pro/E paradigm systems: Pro/E, SW, Inventor and Solid Edge, but never have really got proficient with the Pro/E paradigm.

4. What trends are you observing in the market for CAD services? How have these trends affected
   you, and how are you responding to them?

   Much of my work is reverse engineering requiring working from scanned data. It requires a Hybrid CAD systems to work with this data. I also get called in when the project is a mess and they need it cleaned up and get the parts made.

5. What do you like about working as an interim CAD draftsman or external CAD consultant working on a time-bound project?

   The freedom it offers.

6. Have you ever provided CAD consulting services remotely, either via phone, the Web or email?
   Do you use any screen sharing tools (like Webex, Skype, or GoToMeeting), and are they effective?
   What kinds of questions and problems could you tackle remotely?
   Are there any issues that you feel are better handled face-to-face?

   I started telecommuting years ago when we used phone handset modems. Using CADKEY, I would sent the files back and forth. I use all of the programs you have mentioned. Most of the problems can be handled remotely. Face to face is always important at every milestone, even though I have done projects where I have never met face to face.

J. Cortes is an expert at building building and testing full-scale prototypes of military systems.

D. Hilton has over twenty-five years graphic design experience on Macintosh and PC platforms using primarily InDesign, Quark Xpress, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Acrobat and Microsoft Office. As an architectural and structural draftsperson, she is also adept at preparing plans, details and as-builts from client sketches and specifications using AutoCAD 2011. Ms. Hilton can prepare (2d) cost-effective photographic mock-ups of architectural structures. She is experienced in creating creative websites using CSS, HTML and Dreamweaver.

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Comments

1. Describe a project that was particularly challenging. What was challenging about it? What was the solution and what results did you achieve?

   I draw floor plans of existing homes for my husband who makes scaled birdhouses. The challenging part is that I often don’t have any dimensions to work from, so I have to interpolate the footprint and door and window sizes from photographs. I generally use standard sizes to get the best approximation.

2. Which CAD software programs do you find the most useful for the kind of work that you do?

   AutoCAD 2011

3. What are the pros and cons of the various CAD software programs that you use?

   I only use AutoCAD. I use other programs for other purposes, like Adobe products for graphic design.

4. How do you keep yourself up-to-date with the various developments in your field of work?

   I read on-line articles and talk to colleagues. Also, help forums for help.

5. Which new skills have you acquired in the past year? What new skills do you plan to acquire in the future?

   Just keeping up with the new features in the software is a full-time job 🙂

6. Are there any kinds of activities that you feel are better to outsource or subcontract than to do yourself?

   N/A

7. Send us some samples of your work, in any format (DWG, PDF, JPEG, DXF,etc.), along with a description of each sample.

   Attached is a set of drawings for a structural engineer. Also, see my website of examples:

   http://www.ilikeitdesign.com/drafting/autocad.html

8. Testimonials you would like to send us from your existing customers.

   I have never asked for any.

M. Gross has many years of experience in drafting electrical systems, including a substantial number of mechanical and structural design projects. He has a multi-disciplined background and appreciation of all aspects in the design, certification, qualification, and installation process. Most recent projects have been within the aerospace industry for EASA Part 21J DOA, integrating various aircraft electrical and mechanical systems. Design experience includes aircraft structures, composite Interiors and seating, specification and report documentation. Project responsibilities consist of avionic CVE, mechanical design, installation support, function and qualification testing, including verification of ground and flight-tests.

All projects have produced approved installations and documentation in accordance with EASA, CAA, FAA or Airbus standards, with avionic equipment designed to EUROCAE ED-14 / RTCA DO160 and ABD0100 qualification standards. Previous projects have also included overseas assignments in the USA, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Europe. The aerospace projects have all included creation of supporting documentation for the modification, declaration of compliance, accomplishment ins-tructions, continued airworthiness, equipment assessment and Part 21G inspection documents.

Sulskis has been working since 2001 on CAD-based projects. He is a qualified mechanical engineer with a master’s degree from Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania.
Mr. A. Sulskis has extensive experience in SolidWork, including 3D modeling of plastic parts, metal parts. He also provides surface modeling services and FEM analysis. He has worked for over fifteen years for a company that develops and produces devices for electricity measurement and control applied in residential, commercial and industrial sectors. He works on electronics and electrical product designs. He designs for small companies who do not have their own mechanical engineer.
He has designed plastic cases (produced by injection molding), enclosures for electronic and electric devices and product conceptual designs. He feels that the most interesting project that he has worked on was creating a finger print access control with touchscreen panel. It represented the latest equipment and technology, and was something new for him. The challenge was to make the device compact and attractive to the consumer.

He is skilled at creating 2D drawings, 3D models and renderings. His passion is aviation and he has an abiding interest in 3D modeling of aircrafts and sailplanes. He has specialized in aviation components, electrical designs, fixtures and furniture designs, machine designs, construction and industrial designs.

He works mainly on SolidWorks because he finds it suitable for modeling, drawing and rendering. He is also competent in AutoCAD, Autodesk Fusion 360 (for 3D), Bentley MicroStation (for 2D and 3D designing), DraftSight for (2D design and drafting), KeyShot (for 3D rendering), Onshape and Parasolid.
Mr. Sulskis enjoys working on time-bound projects as he likes to find the best technical solution and implement it.

He uses e-mail or Skype to provide CAD consulting services to clients located overseas.

C. Oruganti creates 3D CAD models and 2D drawings in Solidworks and AutoCAD respectively. He also designs jigs and fixtures using software tools such as Solidworks, Catia V5, AutoCAD (latest versions)

A. Ali is an Interior Designer and 3d modeler. He is an expert in AutoCAD, and provides drafting, designing and 3d modeling services. He has a certificate in interior designing from CRISP and 3ds Max with V-ray.

Interview with Mr. A. Ali

1. What kinds of clients do you serve?

   All kinds of companies that require machining of car parts. I design car or industrial part machining lines, including design of special machines, fixtures, transfer lines, FMS lines and multi spindles.

2. What was the most interesting CAD project that you ever worked on? What made it interesting?
   What challenges did you face?

   Design the metalic car parts production & machining lines like the Peugeot 206 & 504 pivot and rear arme, the Renault drive shaft, a KIA Motors cylinder block and head, and EF7 motor cylinder block & head and brake disk lines.

3. Of the software tools that you use, which is your favorite and why?

   Mechanical Desktop , because it has very powerful 2D. And Catia software , because it has very powerful 3D, analyse, and CAM. Also, Master CAM and Powermill.

4. What trends are you observing in the market for CAD services? How have these trends affected you, and how are you responding to them?

   The latest technologies enable us to finish projects quick and easy.

5. What do you like about working as an interim CAD draftsman or external CAD consultant working on a time-bound project?

   I can work both on site and remotely.

6. Have you ever provided CAD consulting services remotely, either via phone, the Web or email?
   Do you use any screen sharing tools (like Webex, Skype, or GoToMeeting), and are they effective?
   What kinds of questions and problems could you tackle remotely?
   Are there any issues that you feel are better handled face-to-face?

   Face to face is best, and after that is email. Skype is last because my net connection speed is not good.

Patel has been drafting and designing since 2008. He has been actively involved in product development for a number of companies. The 3D models and simulations that he creates are further used to estimate actual weight and area of objects, lookout of objects and manufacturing time.

He has constructed 3D models and simulations for aircraft test equipment and test stands, models for aircraft and industrial load banks, packaging solutions for the pharma and pesticide industries, design drawings for food and dairy. He has fabricated drawings for brewery, cosmetics and all types of gear boxes, design models for industrial hoists and cranes, packaging solutions for hydroponic fodder systems and models for bellows expansion joints in cross country pipelines. He has produced drawings for heat exchangers, pressure vessels and tanks, hydraulic solutions, foundry and furnace industries and ceramic industries. Working as a CAD professional on these projects, he has gained confidence in his skill as a CAD engineer.

He feels that the projects he found most interesting and challenging were for:

• a military Maintenance Repair and Operations services (UAE),
• a state-owned aerospace manufacturer (China),
• a worldwide hydraulic systems engineering services specialist (Netherlands),
• a detention center (USA),
• a not-for-profit financial cooperative (USA),
• a leading developer of IT systems for the aviation industry (USA).

According to Mr. Patel, one of the most interesting projects that he has worked on was the designing of large generators for which he received help from engineers of Indian Space Research Organization. He feels that the most challenging job for him was to join two large drive bases.

His favorite tools are AutoCAD for 2D, SolidWorks for 3D, CreoFusion360 and Inventor.

According to Mr. Patel, there is an increasing demand for CAD-based projects that require 2D drafting, isometric drawings, schematic diagrams, 3D modelling, simulation, animation, surface modelling, sheet metal work, weldment, piping and routing and analysis.

He typically works remotely and communicates via email. He also uses Skype frequently and finds it very effective, although he says sometimes it’s difficult to handle troubleshooting on Skype due to file size and formatting limitations.

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