An as-built drawing rarely comes on its own. In the assignments we receive, it is almost always a file of dozens to hundreds of sheets that all need updating to reflect the situation as built. That is the hallmark of this work: high volume, lots of repetition and relatively little thinking per sheet.
Updating a single floor plan takes a drafter an hour. Updating two hundred sheets takes a drawing office a quarter, and that quarter is usually not available.
We are set up precisely for that kind of volume. Our large, variable team scales with each project, and everyone who drafts on it has more than ten years of CAD experience. That is how we have completed more than twenty projects and hundreds of drawings for Firefly. We draft, we do not do engineering, and with as-built work that is a welcome boundary. It is about accurately recording what is there, not about rethinking how it should have been.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
From initial inventory to delivery in batches
An as-built drawing project opens with a conversation in which we establish what needs to be done and what is available. This is followed by an inventory of the material supplied. We look at how many sheets there are, which of them are complete, where the gaps are and which files open without problems. We deliberately take that step before any drafting starts, because a file that turns out to be incomplete halfway through costs more than a day of inventory at the outset. We then split the work into batches.
A batch is a logically connected part, for example a building section, a floor or a series of sheets with the same kind of change. The first batch goes through the full route of drafting, checking and delivery as a trial. You review it and give feedback, and we apply that feedback not only to that batch but to the working agreements for every batch that follows. That way, a misunderstood convention stays limited to a handful of sheets instead of the whole file. After that, the project continues in a steady rhythm.
We deliver per batch, you spot-check the work and we keep track of which points have been referred back. The way we keep in touch differs per client. Some project leaders want a brief catch-up every two days, others are happy with a weekly check-in. Contact runs via email, phone and meetings, and on larger projects via software that you can log into to follow the project. We come to you or you come to us, but the work itself remains remote.
What we learned from a messy as-built file
The clearest example from our as-built and revision work came from Firefly. We were supplied with material in which the existing drawings had been printed incorrectly and were partly drawn by hand. Legibility was poor, the structure was messy and on some sheets it was hard to see what the original intention had been. The reflex with a file like that is to refer every unclear point straight back to the client. We took a different approach.
Instead of calling again and again, we worked it out ourselves, by comparing sheets with one another, recognising recurring patterns and reconstructing hand-drawn parts from what did add up elsewhere. The result was still delivered cleanly. We took two lessons from that. The first is that the quality of source material almost never reaches the level assumed beforehand, and that it is wise to treat the first sheets as a reconnaissance. The second is that bundling questions works better than passing them on one by one.
A project leader who is interrupted ten times a day loses more time than they save. So we collect whatever remains genuinely unclear and put it to you in one go, together with our own reading of it. The same goes for a deadline that cannot slip. For a deadline like that, our team worked through evenings and weekends, with days of fourteen to fifteen hours, and the work carried on even during a planned holiday of Sam, our team leader. That is not our regular rhythm, but it shows how we treat a firm commitment.
No ongoing payroll costs and no idle staff once the peak is over. If one of our people is off sick or on holiday, we replace them and the work simply carries on.
An as-built drawing that follows your layer structure
An as-built drawing only has value if it fits into the system you continue working in. That is why we work to your firm's standard and drawing conventions, not our own. At the start, we ask for the template, the layer structure, the linetypes, the hatches, the title blocks and the naming of files and sheets. The way changes are marked and how the status is tracked are part of that too. If there is no documented standard, we derive it from the existing set and put our assumption to you for confirmation. With as-built files, that is no formality. Anyone taking over an existing set often finds several conventions side by side, because different people have worked on it over the years. The question then is which line we follow.
We do not make that choice ourselves; we put it to you. In the layer structure, we also watch out for things that come back to bite you later: objects on the wrong layer, manually overridden properties, blocks that only exist in one file and external references with paths that are no longer correct. We flag points like these before we continue, because otherwise they spread across the whole set. What we deliver are the source files in the format your firm works in, so that your own team can carry on with them without an intermediate step. You retain the intellectual property of every drawing we make. We do not hold back any files and do not deliver the set as a locked export.
Three review layers on every as-built drawing
Every as-built drawing we produce goes through at least three review layers before it leaves the building. A drafter creates the sheet. A second team member then checks that work, with fresh eyes and without the assumptions of the person who drew it. Sam, as team leader, then checks the technical side and the coherence between the sheets. Barry, our project manager, gives it a final look before the set goes to you.
That may seem a lot for work that looks simple at first glance, but with volume it really pays off. An error in a single sheet is a correction. The same error in a convention applied across a hundred sheets is a week of repair work.
In practice, the review mainly catches three things. First, dimensions taken from unclear source material. Second, deviations from the agreed set-up, such as a sheet set up on the wrong layer or a title block that has not been filled in completely. Third, inconsistency between sheets made by different drafters, because that risk arises as soon as several people work on one set at the same time.
Because the work follows this route, the number of errors in practice stays minimal. That does not mean you no longer need to check anything. It means you can do it with spot checks rather than sheet by sheet, and in a large file that saves more time than the drafting itself. We keep a record of what has been checked per batch and which points have been referred back, so that there are no loose ends at delivery.
Frequently asked questions about as-built drawings
Hand your as-built drawings over to us
Send us your documents and drawing conventions and we will let you know within one to two working days what we can take on and when.