By:
Kurt Kloehn – Retired Baisch President
What changed the most in my career at Baisch is the execution, production and distribution of engineering documents, and the related design systems.
When I worked during high school and summers during college (1974-1979), all engineering documents were hand drawn and blueprints were made one by one on the print machine in the basement. I was first hired as a “print boy”, the accepted title of the day, and ran prints or helped with modest drawing updates.
When we had a big “issue” or “drawing release”, we’d spend days making drawing sets to ship to the contractors. They were rolled, wrapped in brown paper, and shipped, sometimes by the pickup truck load, for really big jobs or bid package releases.
In the 1980s we began using computer-based drawings. By 1988, I was on a project for a company in Green Bay where we had a blend of CAD drawings and hand drawings.
Around 1994, Baisch made the commitment to transition to fully computer based CAD drawings and our designers cycled through training sessions. At this point, everyone got their own CAD station, which was a change from having a central “CAD Room”.
It’s hard to imagine how we completed complex projects, compared to today’s 3D modeling, interference checking, smart P&IDs and document control that Baisch has in place.
Checkout was accomplished by using colored highlighters on a master P&ID hung in the control room and updated each shift. This seems amazingly backward compared to our current checkout and startup website system which tracks real time status and percent complete by discipline.
Baisch’s culture of attention to detail has deep roots. Baisch continues to be recognized in the engineering industry as a quality design leader.
SERVICE BEYOND SOLUTIONS
