The picture above is Chevron’s huge Jack/St. Malo platform, a floating steel structure the size of three football fields about 200 miles off the Louisiana coast. Below it are underwater pipelines that carry crude from three oil fields about 15 miles away in different directions from the Jack/St. Malo, like tentacles of an octopus. Unlike old-style platforms that suck oil from a field directly below, this weblike arrangement lets the Jack/St. Malo pump more than 3,000 gallons of crude a minute from the trio of fields. 

The way we engineer and design things is rapidly changing with the onset of cloud computing. It isn’t necessarily a new technology, rather it has only recently reached a level that can be adopted and utilized on a grander scale. Cloud computing is allowing CAM and CAD to be done on remote supercomputers. This means that engineers and designers no longer have to rely on a powerful machine in their office if they want to run groundbreaking simulations or create intensive designs. Storing much of a CAD software’s computing power off site also allows for better efficiency in data and power management.

There are a number of engineering firms in Lafayette.  One that is still relatively new on the scene has a little different approach that seems to be working for them. 

Drafting has been a considerable aspect of engineering design for virtually its entire history. Before complex CAD technology, creating 2D drawings for manufacturing and production was essential to creating products. Today, in a world of CAD to CAM and advanced manufacturing techniques, much of how we design has evolved into the current nearly optimized state. One thing remains, however, and that is the presence of 2D detail drawings for parts, components, and assemblies.

Stonewall, an engineering firm in Lafayette, celebrated its graduation from The Opportunity Machine today.