National
| Median wages (2008) |
$22.42 hourly, $46,640 annual |
| Employment (2006) |
78,000 employees |
| Projected growth (2006-2016) |
Slower than average (3% to 6%)
|
| Projected need (2006-2016) |
26,000 additional employees |
17-3013.00 - Mechanical Drafters
Prepare detailed working diagrams of machinery and mechanical devices, including dimensions, fastening methods, and other engineering information.
Sample of reported job titles:
Mechanical Drafter, Designer, Drafter, Design Drafter, Mechanical Designer, CAD Designer (Computer Aided Design Designer), CAD Operator (Computer Aided Design Operator), CAD/CAM Specialist (Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacturing Specialist), Project Designer, Installation Drafter
Tasks
- Develop detailed design drawings and specifications for mechanical equipment, dies, tools, and controls, using computer-assisted drafting (CAD) equipment.
- Lay out and draw schematic, orthographic, or angle views to depict functional relationships of components, assemblies, systems, and machines.
- Coordinate with and consult other workers to design, lay out, or detail components and systems and to resolve design or other problems.
- Check dimensions of materials to be used and assign numbers to the materials.
- Review and analyze specifications, sketches, drawings, ideas, and related data to assess factors affecting component designs and the procedures and instructions to be followed.
- Modify and revise designs to correct operating deficiencies or to reduce production problems.
- Compute mathematical formulas to develop and design detailed specifications for components or machinery using computer-assisted equipment.
- Position instructions and comments onto drawings.
- Lay out, draw, and reproduce illustrations for reference manuals and technical publications to describe operation and maintenance of mechanical systems.
- Design scale or full-size blueprints of specialty items such as furniture and automobile body or chassis components.
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Tools & Technology
Tools used in this occupation:
| Curves — Flexible curves; French curves |
| Graphics or video accelerator cards — Computer aided design CAD multi-unit display graphics cards |
| Plotter printers — Cutting plotters; Plotting printers |
| Scales — Architects' scales; Electronic scales |
| Scanners — Backlit digitizers; Large-format digitizers; Three-dimensional laser digitizers/digital scanners; Wide-format document scanners |
Technology used in this occupation:
| Computer aided design CAD software — Autodesk AutoCAD software; Bentley Navigator; PTC Pro/Mechanica; SolidWorks CAD software |
| Graphics or photo imaging software — Adobe Systems Adobe After Effects; McNeel Rhino software; Motion graphics software; Non uniform rational b-splines NURBS software |
| Materials requirements planning logistics and supply chain software — Bill of materials software |
| Optical character reader OCR or scanning software — Scanning software; Three-dimensional scanning software |
| Word processing software — Microsoft Word |
