If you are like me, an engineer by incorporating years' experience building drawing office, you no doubt know value of whatever you do is usually tied inside calculations. Many of us say the way we concentrate on some kinds of designs but sometimes you show it? How do you prove it?<br /> [[http://b3.zcubes.com/v.aspx?mid=3376544|structural consultants wa]] are the cornerstone of your respective credentials being an engineer. From the very first time, I walked in to a drawing office to begin my career like a graduate Structural engineer, I realized I knew nothing about calculations, my mind was obviously a blank. I knew only what I had submitted in my tutorials at university. I knew nothing about the considerations and preparation I should undertake within my professional role. I had theory but no confidence. I had my eighth edition Steel Designer's Manual (1978) as my preferred model. I was put directly to work checking calculations inside QA department for seismic designs; calculations that streamed in from over forty engineers.<br />Remember, it was within the days before personal computers. I saw many different forms of the pen-and-paper tradition. [[https://penzu.com/p/d6d0c9e6|site structural investigation Rockingham]] in QA checking was an interesting experience that I can appreciate now. As much as there are differences in people's character, same with there of their calculations.<br />I felt I was often chasing their personalities as well as the simple questions became confrontational occasionally. We had the lazy, the scruffy, the clean, the detailer, the late ones, the incomplete ones, the defensive, the nonchalant along with the brilliant. Clearly, there was clearly no-one rule to follow. I was fascinated by one particular engineer's work with his excellence, his brevity and power to educate me with what he was doing, in writing. I asked him to teach me how I should prepare calculations in such a fashion. He set it up analytical tasks to accomplish and I learned using design tables, apply Hardy Cross method, sub-frame analysis and wall-plate bracket designs and the idea was to discover ways to present it, to his satisfaction. What he taught me are still the same principles I follow today when I prepare calculations. As my confidence grew I thought everybody will be pursuing a similar goals too. How wrong I was.<br />More than twenty-five years on, the problem has not yet improved. My concern is what will we expect in another twenty five years' time? What do engineers believe about calculations, their roles and responsibilities for the future?<br />Engineers do not even talk about calculations. In over twenty five years experience working around the world, from UK to S. Korea and USA to Middle East, it is an embarrassment of silence. It is a taboo subject, likely political, personal and highly selective. It is something which divides the generations rather than unites. Calculations are intimate on the way we work, the way we presume as well as the way we present ourselves to the peers. How do we pass the baton to the newer generation? What can perform to inspire an upcoming generation to a profession in engineering?<br />When I broach the subject of calculations, I am not talking about the analysis, the theory or perhaps the structural analysis packages, I am referring on the work practice in the preparation of computer. The introduction of personal computers has transformed the electricity to analyze complex as well as simple problems to an extraordinary degree but unfortunately we have not agreed to a methodology that evolves in the pen-and-paper traditions acceptably. So while designers and managers have accelerated their productivity with the electricity of computers, the engineers are already blinded with the chance to over-analyze and under-deliver the calculations. Engineers are becoming analysts instead of potential leaders of projects.<br />Consider the next scenario:<br />A typical calculation designs the concrete and steel components of a modularized piperack design. It is a ring binder of filed results, say 400 pages enclosed. These endless streams of pages are printed from various applications used inside analysis. The engineer worked as a chef, in isolation, for a period of three months and contains finally gotten around to preparing his help checking although pages usually are not signed or initialed. The narrative is missing, and 75% in the paperwork is centered on the inputs. The checker performs a 10% check, in order to fulfill the deadline that gets missed.<br />Is there anything wrong with that picture? The initial good intentions of completing calculations on time have ended. What was the need for the calculation towards the team?<br />I recently asked a small grouping of engineers a few simple questions and also the results was astonishing. [[https://zhangabernathy6.bladejournal.com/post/2020/03/19/Preparing-for-a-Building-Survey|concrete corrosion engineer]] seems 80% of engineers who spend 80% of their time doing calculations, say they hate it! Can you imagine when I told them I loved it? I reported that in the above example from the modularized piperack design, this might be finished in a fortnight and 40 pages, in to a single document in MS Word. How or why would anyone want to complete that?<br />A calculation carried out in two weeks and 40 pages, into a single document in MS Word? Just reading that last sentence will provide many defenses. It is not intended like a criticism, it is an possiblity to share knowledge and locate a common path missing within our current work practices.<br />Many will argue they do not intend, or feel compelled, to improve their methods. Change is not required for the individual, it really is required for your future with the engineering profession and our obligation to generations to come. Change is hard but often easier than you believe too. We happen in comfort zones and experience little challenges to a evolved defaulting way of working. Change doesn't need most of us all to switch but that only an ample amount of us do evolve then this rest follows.<br />We can be a highly mobile workforce, getting moved from project to project with difference faces, different expectations and different team cultures. Engineers needs to have a portfolio of design examples for presentation to the new team, new customers, or even a prospective employer.