/sci/ - Science & Math

I wasn't sure where to post this. But I feel this might be the right place to start.

I am technically a sub-arc welder, I used to just go from site to site running my sub arc machine for root welds on pipes and the odd heavy fillet weld. I got sort of bored with it, I made a streamlined excel spread that had a large spread of settings to thickness' and it just became a game of tapping my parameters from said spread sheet. Yay...

I got out of that world and decided to take on some structural welding, Flux core to be exact. And I learned a lot, I caught on quick, and have been fascinated by the shop drawings in relation to what I am doing, I ask all sorts of questions that go way above other workers heads and I need to wait for answers from the inspectors most times.

Anyways. The company I work for is in the midst of building a new plant, and the work of course is being done, by us, the guys who work for the company.
The last few days I've been working on some weldments that don't make sense. The entire piece is rather complex, and only 1/4" welds, it's so complex that some of the 'triangle' stiffeners was beveled because one side just physically could not be welded, so they beefed up the welds on one side, and forgone the other side.

The whole time I was thinking "Why the fuck did they detail this thing like this?" It was a nightmare to weld.

My overall question is. Is it better to engineer and detail a structural piece for speed and efficiency like what my company clearly attempted to do thinking "oh they are only 1/4" welds it'll take less time". Over taking a bit extra time to engineer and detail a piece that has bigger welds in more convenient locations? In some spots i had to literally blindly weld away from me in overhead position, and my company is supposed to be a leader in the industry...