Outsourcing Your CAD Requirements To CAD Drafting Companies

Specialised fields require specialised personnel to get the desired output. This is more than true for CAD drafting which requires qualified draftsmen to visualise and subsequently reproduce your concept. Also 2D and 3D drafting have become a mandatory requirement for engineering industries like architectural services, MEP, mechanical services and structural services in the recent past.

Why outsource your CAD drafting

Need for Outsourcing

In order to meet up with the designing and drafting demands of your company, it is best to outsource the same. This saves both on

The cost and manpower benefits

• Money: By availing the services of a CAD drafting service as and when required, you do not need to employ a fixed draftsman and pay him for the whole year through.

• Manpower: By not employing costly specialised manpower for drafting and designing purposes, the resource which would have been spent on this can now be used in some area where its requirement might be more.

Criteria for choosing the Outsourcing Agency

However, outsourcing of such specialised work should be done to a particular drafting company only when you are satisfied that they will deliver what they promise. For this they need to meet certain criteria like

What to look for in a CAD drafting company

• Experience: They should have ample prior experience of handling projects such as yours in the relevant fields. Recommendations proving this should be cross-checked and opinion sought out with regards to their behaviour and performance.

• Knowledge: Generally a drafting company will hire multiple draftsmen, each proficient in a different field or aspect of the engineering industry. Such a drafting company perfectly matches your requirement for they will have experienced as well as specialised personnel ready to attend to the specifics of your work.

• Legal software: The internet is a virtual treasure trove of information. Hence there are ample opportunities of downloading free software of any company. This is especially true for CAD drafting wherein software like AutoCAD, QCAD are easily and freely available. Hence care should be taken to ensure that the drafting company to which you are outsourcing your work uses a legally valid copy of the same as

  • It is illegal to support software piracy and

  • Downloaded free software will not have all the features of a legal copy and this will affect the output.

• Pre-submitted revisions: Care should also be taken to ensure that revisions of pre-submitted designs and drawing should be included in the contract. If this is not done, they will charge you extra money for doing this work.

Summary

This article makes the case for outsourcing CAD drafting rather than employing a fixed in-house draftsman, arguing it saves money and frees up manpower for other priorities. It advises checking a drafting company’s experience and references, confirming they use properly licensed software, and ensuring the contract covers revisions of pre-submitted designs to avoid unexpected extra charges.

Questions this article raises

• How do you verify a CAD drafting company’s past project experience?
• What should a drafting contract specifically say about revisions?
• How much can outsourcing CAD drafting realistically save over hiring in-house?