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Asked by Phee to Andrew, Angela, Eleanor, Emma, Withdrawn on 5 Mar 2016.
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Andrew Pidgeon answered on 5 Mar 2016:
The amount depends on what part of the job I am undertaking.
As an example if I am creating a design for other engineers to build from it will be a drawings (either 2D or 3D). The writing which is attached to the drawing is usually a key (explaining what a symbol is) or a brief technical note saying what the drawing itself is.
However if we are justifying what we have ‘engineered’ then a huuuuuuuge document is needed as within engineering it is not just about creating something, its about money (or the cost), project control, laws and also the environment too!
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Emma Bradley answered on 7 Mar 2016:
Like Andrew, it depends for me as well! I generally write what we call ‘Basis of Design’ and ‘Technical’ reports. The Basis of Design report will basically summarise the way we have designed the structure, and any assumptions made while doing it. Technical reports can be Specifications (basically, me telling the person constructing the structure exactly what it should be made out of), or they can be Technical Notes (documents which explain any complicated analysis that we may have had to do to show the structure works). I’ve not had to write too many of these reports lately as we are in the construction phase of the project and they are already written!
Because I also do project management, I do have to write some of the massive documents that Andrew mentioned as well (such as a document explaining who was on our team, why they were on our team, what their responsibilities were, how much it would cost the client for them to work on the team for a year etc), but again, not recently!
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Eleanor Sherwen answered on 7 Mar 2016:
In the early part of a project, not much; recording what the brief is, and recording interesting things we find out in the research phase. I have to write down what the design proposals are and get them signed off. But it’s more sketching, modelling, testing, discussing.
Most often I’m actually sharing data, numbers, graphs, images, not written documents so much.
In the end stages of the project there is lots of writing. Lots of testing reports to say that the samples have been checked for safety against the legal requirements (ISO standards). Lots of emails to let suppliers and the buyers and the production line know what to do. But I think I do a lot less paperwork than say, someone working in finance or scientific research. Most engineers I know hate paperwork, I am a bit odd in that I don’t mind and normally I write lots like I have here!
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