Hello from Manila

Professor Torsten Calvi Corporation of Manila asked if I could spend two weeks in their office, helping them make their CAD drafting procedures more efficient. Alan Lee founded the company a decade ago, he  a 42-year-old ex-pat from England.

The company specializes in architectural facades and curtain walls, the fronts of high-high buildings made of glass and other materials. They also perform testing of facades designed by others, when landlords find that the windows are leaking. Currently, he is working with a client who found that the Chinese made glass curtain wall is cracking where the steel pads hold the glass in place. "Everyone assumes at first that the glass is to blame, but I think in this case it's the way the steel pads were designed."

He is a true engineer. After we had finished dinner on Sunday night, we walked past storefronts, and he pressed his palm onto the tall windows of the modern shops -- to the wary looks of security guards. "This is a typhoon area; how long do you think this window would last?" He pressed another one, watching it bend under his pressure. "Imagine the glass horizontal, with bus loads of people standing on it, packed tightly shoulder to shoulder. That's how much force the typhoon puts on these windows."

He has clients in Manila, but mostly around the world. Current projects include a building in Australia and in an Arab country of the middle east. The owner of the one in the middle east has a special request: should a truck drive up to the front entrance and blow up, the glass should withstand the attack. Problem is, the world of bomb-proof glassmaking is a secretive world, and those who claim to have a solution more likely are shysters.

The entire business is conducted out of the 11th floor of the Telecom building, with 75 drafters, engineers, and support staff. Nearly all are Filipino, with the exception of Mr Lee and one more Brit, who handles the business side of the company.

 My first full day in Manila was a guided tour, conducted by the very efficient Emily, who works as receptionist at the company. We viewed the old fort at the waterfront, built by the Spaniards, but then taken over by the Americans and the Japanese in WWII. We had lunch at a restaurant on a pier that extended out into the ocean. We saw the pre-historical artifacts of the Philippines at the National History Museum. And much more.

My first work day consisted of two sessions. First the top drafting team spent several hours showing me step by step how they generate the drawings:

1. Client sends them AutoCAD drawings of the building.
2. From these drawings, they extract the facade information that they need: floors, plans, elevations.
3. The engineers of the firm determine how the facade will be safely attached to the building, using structural analysis and FEA software.
4. Then the drafters get to work, producing reams of drawings: overviews, elevations, plans, details, and illustrated material lists. 

The problem is that today's architects don't like to make rectangular buildings,and so nearly every piece of glass has a different shape. This makes it hard to apply the efficiencies of CAD, which expect uniformity.

As they described their workflow and demo'ed it on a dual-monitor computer, I made comments every so often on how a procedure could be implemented more efficiently. They are terrific drafters, but as I have found in my other consulting gigs, drafters tend not to be aware of all the secrets hidden inside the CAD software.

The second session consisted of a dozen employees asking me questions that they had previously written down. I was able to answer most of them; some of the problems they experienced, however, clearly were bugs.

The drafters use three CAD systems: AutoCAD, AutoCAD LT, and Bricscad. The latter two are used to save money, because Autodesk charges 50% more for AutoCAD in the Philippines than in USA.  As Mr Lee explained, "In the USA, a firm could probably justify a new copy of AutoCAD after a week or two, given the wages paid there. But in the Philippines, the wages are so much lower and the cost of AutoCAD so much higher, that it might take six months to justify the cost."

Also, there is that nasty line in the license agreement that prohibits use of AutoCAD outside of the country from which it was purchased, so Mr Lee cannot simply purchase the software at a reasonable price from the USA. Hence, the need for Bricscad. As a result, any improvement I suggested had to also work with Bricscad, which can sometimes limit what is possible.

Mr Lee is looking to further save money by switching to Linux. He is pleased with the result on the non-CAD side of the business, and finds that any employee whose work computer is switched to Linux eventually asks the IT staff to also install Linux on his home computer.

On the CAD side, however, things are not as rosey. He is glad that Bricsys has a Linux version of Bricscad, but no surprise that its development lags behind that of the Windows version.

Filipinos always use "Sir" and Ma'm" when addressing each other; sometimes they will say "Miss" though I haven't quite figured out when. Every conversation starts with Sir or Ma'm. When referring to someone specific, they say "Sir Ralph." Maybe that's why the Brits like being here.

Sunday's tour guide joked that Manila has three seasons: rainy, rainier, and political. None of the Filipinos I met ever saw snow; except for a team leader, who had spent four months in Belfast on business. She explained to the others that snow is like "dandruff from the sky."

Comments

[Tony]

As far as Miss goes, Tagalog probably doesn't have separate pronouns for men & women, so it's hard to remember when to use "Mr" or "Ms"; I know Chinese doesn't, and so many Chinese speakers use "him" and "her" interchangeably in English.

[erik de keyser, Bricsys]

Bricscad Pro and Bricscad Platinum for LINUX are underway and will make a huge difference. Step by step we are closing the gap between our WIndows platform and our LINUX platform. Thanks so far for your patience and support.

[Rakesh Rao]

Ralph,

Very similar situation in India as well. The "Sir Ralph" concept is common in almost every old-fashioned company here, as well as in government.

It is only the new-generation, modern, IT and similar industry that pro-actively discourage addressing as "Sir".

Looks like Philippines is very much like India. Would love to visit sometime.

[Rakesh Rao]

Sounds very much like India. It is a common practice even here to address anyone in a superior position as "Sir". It is common in old-fashioned companies and governement but not so much in new generation IT companies.

Philippines surely sounds interesting and I would love to visit and compare the chaos. But I would not like to be called "Sir" by fellow workers.

[Joshua Isaac]

very interesting travelogue, thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I must say Mr. Lee has done the right thing by switching to Linux, comparatively cost effective solution.
As a CAD drafter apart from Bricscad, one can also use other opensource CAD apps for Linux like Draftsight, LibreCAD, BRL-CAD to supplement one's work...