Hamish Ross is the CADD Manager at ATC Williams, responsible for Computer Aided Drafting and Design (CADD) throughout ATC Williams. His role includes leading the Melbourne team using Autocad, Muk3d and Civil Design software and oversight of the Melbourne drafting team.
Hamish talks to us about the evolving landscape in the CADD space, including AI, AR and VR technology and their influence on the future of dam and tailings storage facility (TSF) design.
Hi Hamish, how is your industry evolving to adapt to emerging technology?
Right now, artificial intelligence or AI, is the biggest element we need to stay on top of in the CADD field. AI has the potential to aid what we do in design in many ways. AI could prompt the software we use to automate certain design decisions by writing scripts that streamline workflow. There’s also a lot of buzz around augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).
I’m very interested in how these technologies can be utilised in client presentations and to aid engineers and site staff. I can envisage a time, maybe as soon as five to ten years, when drawings will take a backseat to digital models as the critical element used to build our designs. VR could be used as an alternative to staff going to sites. Instead, we could bring the sites back to us, significantly saving on-site and travel time while reducing our carbon footprint.
Are you concerned about AI making CADD jobs redundant?
No, I don’t believe that AI is going to replace our jobs for some time yet, if ever. In the specialised dam and tailings fields, human experience is essential to make critical decisions and utilise the software correctly. There are some mine sites I have worked on directly since 2003, and I’ve been the lead designer on many projects for the past ten years. That depth of historical experience is invaluable and difficult to replace by machine learning.
However, it is crucial to keep upskilling even as a high-level CADD expert. For example, I look for people who use multiple design programs but have skills in programming and scripting. AI is a time-saving tool that we can use to write scripts in Python and LISP, but we still need to be able to apply it correctly.
In what ways is your role as a technology manager changing?
I have recently appointed Nuria Oliver as our new CADD Team Leader in Melbourne so I can focus on growing and upskilling our team to meet demand. Jose Sanchez, my life-saving 2IC, manages most of our larger and most challenging projects. Our CADD team in Brisbane, led by Brad Tarlington, is growing and has a highly skilled and experienced team looking after Queensland and a few international projects. Brad and I will work together to move ATC Williams to a more streamlined approach to CADD.
Along with leading change, I am actively recruiting skilled CADD techs who are future-focused and willing to grow a career with us. ATCW is strategically expanding our engineering capabilities, which needs to be supplemented by increased tech capacity in Muk and CADD design.
You’ve worked at ATC Williams for 20 years. What other significant changes have you seen?
There are three that jump immediately to mind. The first was when we began to use Muk3d Software to do tailings desposition, and dam designs. Before Muk, the deposition was manually completed by offsetting lines at a slope. Developing beach models could continue for months on larger jobs, and when there was a late design change, the manual modelling would need to start again. Using Muk has reduced the modelling time from weeks or months to several days.
Over the years, the Muk developers have adopted many of our recommendations for improvements, which has increased the speed of our workflow. We have probably the highest percentage of Muk users to company size of any company in the world, with some of our users being the best around. In addition to developing drawings and figures, Muk has become an essential tool that we use to present design models to our clients through animation.
The second is the use of drones for surveying. Over a short period, we’ve had to adapt from using 10-200Mb survey files to processing and designing with drone data that could be anything from 1Gb to 50Gb of data. Drones have facilitated the use of up-to-date aerial photography in our drawings and when designing in Muk.
The third was adopting a DWG-based software as our software of choice for designing and drafting. Due to its use by almost all of our international clients and its overall market dominance, we decided to join the party. That meant some short-term pain while we weened ourselves off our previous program – a far from an enjoyable process but worth the effort.
What other future-focused projects are you working on?
I am involved in a few initiatives, including one investigating the use of VR, AR, 3D Visualisations, Animations and 3D printing from an engineering perspective. I always find this part of my job interesting, as new techs bring a bit of Hollywood to engineering. Other projects I’ll be involved in are the ATCW Standards Library and the Searchable Project Database & Drawings Catalogue.
How did you decide upon a career in CADD design?
Initially, I was involved in the mechanical engineering field. I studied for a Bachelor of Technology (Manufacturing) while learning to be a fitting and turner. The company where I did my traineeship had a start of the art workshop, which gave me experience using CNC machines and exposure to CAD and machine programming. After graduating, I moved to Brisbane, where I worked my way up to assistant factory manager for a brick factory. Then, the travel bug took me to England on a working holiday, where I gained experience with a rail company and doing landscaping. I returned to Melbourne keen to continue landscaping and accepted a position at ATC Williams (then known as MPAW), as they were using Terramodel, a software used in golf course design, which looked interesting to learn. Funny how things work out sometimes! Twenty years later, I’m fortunately still here and hopefully have become an integral and valued part of the company.
You can follow Hamish on Linkedin here
