Meet the Team: National CAD Day with André

Every product Tyrone Fabrication manufactures starts long before a single sheet of steel is cut. It starts on a screen, with a designer working through the specification. For National CAD Day, we sat down with André, Engineering Manager at Tyrone Fabrication for 26 years, to talk through what the work involves.

From Tractors to CAD

André's route into design work began on his home farm. He was a big tractor man, even driving his tractor to secondary school to sit his summer exams, and that love of machinery is what sparked his interest in engineering. André studied a BTEC in Engineering at Omagh College which introduced him to the CAD software back in 1992, and he went on to study a degree in agricultural engineering.

From Brief to Finished Drawing

A typical project starts with the client. André works through an initial specification with them until the requirements are clear, then the design itself moves through the three stages of CAD software. AutoCAD produces the initial drawings, which get signed off with the client. From there, the design is built as a 3D model in Autodesk Inventor, which despite looking complex André feels is genuinely the most user friendly of the CAD software’s. Finally, it is converted into CAM software using RADAN, which prepares everything for the workshop floor, nesting the parts on sheets and writing the code the cutting machines will run.

The 3D model also plays a practical role before manufacturing begins. Because it's a true three dimensional representation, CAD identifies clashes that a flat drawing never could, and on the CAM side, the software works out exactly how much steel a job needs, keeping material waste to a minimum.

The Misconception of CAD

People often assume CAD is just a drawing, an illustration of what will eventually get built. André explained that CAD is so much more than just a drawing. The 2D drawing is where the real problem solving happens, with accurate measurements worked out to scale, and the 3D model that follows isn't a separate creative exercise. It's the product itself, built digitally before it's built in steel.

The Project He's Proudest Of

Ask André for a project he's most proud of, and he doesn't hesitate: a job for London Underground, building fire rated signal equipment rooms (SERs). It was a completely new product, designed specifically for the brief, and the scale was substantial, with the largest building stretching over 30 metres. To make transport and installation possible, the design was split and manufactured in ten parts, then shipped to site and joined together there.

Getting it right meant serious testing. The specification called for a fire rating of 60 minutes, and the wall panels didn't achieve it on the first round of testing. The team reworked the design, and on the next round the panels achieved a fire rating of 120 minutes, doubling what the specification required and giving the enclosure a real margin of safety.

Installation brought its own logistics. Roads had to close, cranes had to move in, trains had to stop, and all of it could only happen at night, the kind of forward planning that doesn't come together at short notice. From first development to finished installation took a year, with a month set aside for design and a month for manufacture. The deadlines were tight, but the job went in on time and to spec.

Advice for Anyone Starting Out in CAD

For all the problem solving that goes into a design, André says the most satisfying part of the job is seeing it built and installed on site, doing exactly the job it was designed to do. If he had to sum up CAD for someone outside the industry in one sentence, he puts it simply: it is software used to illustrate and engineer a design concept, and to show a customer exactly what will be produced for them before it exists.

His advice for someone new to CAD or design work is straightforward. Keep up to date with the latest technology and training so you are getting the most out of your software. As he puts it, CAD is a great way to build your engineering knowledge and turn an idea in your head into a real design that becomes an actual product.