Maybe it depends on the industry. But I think drafters are getting rare, just as secretaries are rare these days.

Piece of cake for the originator to take a 3D Pro Engineer model and produce 2D view plots with prefabbed title blocks for drawings. That's how we do it. The engineer spends much less total labor completing his drawings than a separate drafter would. We only hire designers (engineers) who can deal with CAD directly.

Put it this way. I could replace my one remaining CAD-jockey drafter in one day but it'd take weeks or months to find a good replacement engineer.

 

Exactly. Companies are looking for an engineer who can do (at least) basic operations in some CAD software. For instance, an engineer, say a structual engineer whose main function is to run FEA (Finite Element Analysis) needs to run a case. To do his/her analysis, you need a 3D solid model and "mesh" the geometry.

However, most of time, the solid model to be used for "meshing" needs to be "cleaned up" significantly from the version of the model that is strictly for drawing/documentation purposes.

Now, the engineer COULD ask a drafter (who most likely has no idea what FEA is and what "meshing" process is involved) and waste time explain what he/she want. OR the engineer can do it himself/herself. This saves a lot of time and money for the company.

 

Well, Im still a student and all, but i know that the Pro/Mechanica suite will form the mesh for you. I havent delved that deep into AnSYS yet, so im not sure about others. Pro/E and Solidworks also make it SUPER easy to just create your drawings from your 3D model.

I personally wouldnt think I would get hired anywhere important without being able to do drafting, be it computer or otherwise, as I have been doing drawings by hand since high school.