The Rise of the Structural Modeler
I like to believe the design and construction industry has become a brave new world in recent years. By this I mean that the advent, acceptance, and adoption of 3D as the new best practice has completely changed the landscape of opportunities within the industry. This is most true for the venerable occupants of the “smoky back room” of design firms—the drafters. New responsibilities are available, greater influence is possible, and, of course, higher compensation is likely. This will become our new normal. The structural drafter of the past has become the structural modeler of the future. Three drivers will influence this: supply, demand, and suitability.
Supply
Starting with supply, we begin with the common refrain of almost everyone in the entire construction sector. We don’t have adequate talent and skilled labor to fill the needed roles. As it relates to modelers, it is a much more complicated problem than most. This isn’t just about parents trying to convince their kids to go to college instead of being a bricklayer or ironworker. The modelers of the future may very well go to college, and if they are lucky may even find a place that teaches building modeling. Far more likely is that they will find an outdated two-year program with faculty still banging around in AutoCAD®, and who have little desire to update their curriculum to pick up Autodesk® Revit®, let alone some of the more discipline-specific modeling tools.
The fact remains that there are simply not enough students choosing the path in the first place to feed the current need. When students can choose between working in graphic rendering and modeling for the next version of Halo, Call of Duty, or whatever Apple sells us next, the idea of modeling apartment buildings, warehouses, and office buildings may have limited allure. Some of this has been helped by engineers and architects taking over modeling duties, but even that has its cost limits as they gain experience and their salaries go through the roof, not to mention the lack of continuity in production quality that came with experienced drafters. This leads to the next, and frankly more significant problem—demand.
Figure 1: Today’s college students acquire minimal 3D modeling skills (source: Pixabay)
Demand
For years, demand for drafters was steady or declining as productivity gains through the use of AutoCAD and other drafting tools decreased the ratio of drafter to designer in most offices. Across the board, the labor pool contracted. All of a sudden, the idea of a 3D modeler pops up, and everyone needs one. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone. In the past, we competed with other design firms for people, maybe even a design builder now and then. That landscape has changed completely, and we now compete with every general contractor, major subcontractor, product supplier, and who knows what else. Heck, we even have to fight for talent with software companies, interior designers, and video production people.
The ability to visualize in 3D and translate that into an accurate model is suddenly the hottest commodity in construction, and given that adoption is not even yet across the board, I see no end in sight. This leads to my third point, and the most unexpected one for us and I imagine many early adopters: suitability for the job.
Suitability
In the past, a drafter could be a task type role. They get a design and they draw it. Sure, there was artistic skill involved back in the day, and experience counted (particularly when “guiding” young engineers and architects who needed a nudge in the right direction), but at the end of the day direction was given, and the responsibility stayed with the architect or engineer. The drafter also needed to be accurate, but not necessarily good at visualizing in 3D, because their job was creating drawings, not buildings.
Now we have entered an era where modelers have to be inherently capable of seeing things in 3D in their heads, and translating that to buildable models. They also end up making far more high-level decisions as they place objects within models and coordinate with other trades instead of just working on redlines. Particularly in the offices of builders, modelers take on ever greater responsibility.
Figure 2: Drafting tools, and those who are familiar with them, are becoming rare (source: Pixabay)
What Does It Mean?
What does all this mean, you say? First and foremost, and relevant to all of us, is that there is suddenly significant upward pressure on salaries. Design firms are going to struggle to figure out how to fit this into their current pricing models, and it will have to work through a combination of improved efficiency, distribution of workload to other staff (like junior engineers and architects), and hopefully, better fees and margins. It will also fuel continued pressure to outsource, although I know of few people other than very large firms who have figured out a way to do this successfully.
Second, it has fueled an increase in the mobility of these types of roles. Firms will have to look further afield, and it will become cost effective to relocate talent to fill these positions as the markets continue to heat up. The talent war is just beginning and will not be local anymore. I certainly hope we see some relevant programs pop up (Pittsburg State University in Kansas is a particularly good example), but I hold out no hope in the short term as the demand is growing faster than we can react to it.
At the end of the day, I believe we are seeing the rise of a new type of employee in the industry…the rise of the modeler as a professional in his or her own right, and a key player in how we design and build in the foreseeable future.
Figure 3: Revit Structure model courtesy of Carney Engineering Group, York, Pennsylvania
Josh Carney is a practicing structural engineer and president of Carney Engineering Group, Inc. in York, Pennsylvania, and Baltimore, Maryland. He was a very early Revit Structure convert, and believer in BIM as a game-changing technology.
