"Stinger" wrote in message
. ..

I'm the GM for a steel fabrication company. Our engineering people use
AutoCAD (as well as some industry-specific add-ons for it) in producing
"placing drawings" for various projects. Some of our sister companies
accomplish the same thing with MicroStation, but almost all colleges and
trade schools teach AutoCAD -- so we've found that we can ramp-up a new
detailer much faster with AutoCAD-based software.

As for drafting, it really looks like it's a dying art. Very few kids
coming up know much more than the basics "on the board," due to training
heavily in CAD. One of our most seasoned people still letters his
drawings
(using a "triangle" and his "straight-edge") so perfectly (and quickly)
that
the rookies watch him in awe.

I read somewhere that CAD really only saves time on changes rather than on
the initial drawing (unless of course that initial drawing can be started
from something similar). If you are starting completely from scratch,
experienced manual drafters can turn out a drawing as quickly as experienced
CAD operators. However, since almost every drawing is going to be revised
over the lifetime of a product, the time saving on changes is very
important.