The work that lands at an AutoCAD drafting firm is usually easy to recognise. It involves flat DWG sets that need to be developed or revised, detail sheets that vary slightly from project to project, piping schematics in which the same components keep recurring, and as-built drawings that need to go from messy source material to a clean set.
There is rarely anything complicated about the technology. The problem is the number of hours involved and the lack of people to put in those hours.
OutsourceCAD takes that work off your hands. We provide outsourced CAD drafting to companies that lack drafting capacity of their own, and AutoCAD is one of our three core packages, alongside Revit and Rhino. We are drafters and modellers, not engineers, and calculations fall outside our scope. The work is carried out remotely from our own office, in our own environment and with our own licences, following the drawing conventions you provide and usually based on an existing set.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
Parametric modelling as a complement to AutoCAD drafting
If you outsource AutoCAD drafting, sooner or later you run into the limits of the software. AutoCAD is not smart when it comes to building components. The clearest example from our practice comes from greenhouse construction, where companies often work entirely in AutoCAD. Anyone there who needs a valve in 90 and in 110 in a piping system draws it by hand every single time. With a handful of items, that is manageable. With a schematic containing hundreds of components, it adds up to hours that add nothing. That is why we build parametric Revit families, in other words smart components.
A component like this adapts to a new situation or a different size. It is created once and then placed in the drawing in a single action, in the size required. The material schedule updates along with it, so a modified component adjusts the schedule automatically. In this type of work, that saves at least seventy per cent of the time. That does not mean every package has to move to Revit. If your drawing office keeps working in AutoCAD, we simply deliver DWG and keep the gains within that software by building blocks and recurring details properly once.
We make that decision per project, based on the numbers and on how often the same components recur. If a family set or template already exists, we look at its condition. If it is very messy or has become cluttered over the years, rebuilding is sometimes quicker than repairing. We put that choice to you before the first hours go into it.
Software, versions and formats at an AutoCAD drafting firm
An AutoCAD drafting firm that can only use AutoCAD gets stuck as soon as a project heads in a different direction. Revit, AutoCAD and Rhino are our core software. We also use Inventor and Grasshopper, and to a limited extent Dynamo and Vault. We always work with the latest versions, so a file you send does not need to go through a conversion step first and no elements get lost when it is opened. We deliver in DXF and DWG, in Revit formats and in STEP files, as well as in any other common CAD format. The next step in the process determines the format.
If the work stays in your drawing office, DWG is the logical choice. If a component moves on to production, STEP is more practical. If the project continues in a building model, we build directly in Revit rather than taking a detour. We work in our own environment with our own licences, not in yours. That saves you a workstation, a licence and the administration around it, and there is no need to arrange access to internal systems for drafters who are joining temporarily. We do, however, align fully with the existing set.
We work to your CAD standards and drawing conventions, which you provide to us. That covers layer structure and layer names, line weights and line types, hatching, text styles and dimension styles, and how title blocks are filled in. We also adopt your file naming. If nothing has been documented, we derive the conventions from the existing files and present our assumptions before we continue.
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.
What an AutoCAD drafting firm actually delivers
Within this work, we deliver 2D drafting and, where needed, 3D modelling, as-built drawings and revisions. On the drawing side, that covers floor plans, elevations, sections, detail sheets, typical details, schematics and production drawings, including sheet layouts and completed title blocks. Revision work on existing DWGs makes up a large share of what comes in. We incorporate changes into the existing set rather than placing a new file alongside it, so your archive does not drift apart. As-built work is the other side of the coin. For Firefly, we received material in which the existing drawings had been printed incorrectly and partly drawn by hand, hard to read and messy. We worked it out ourselves instead of constantly calling the client about it, and still delivered it cleanly. On the modelling side, we build complete models or add to an existing one, and we build or clean up families and templates.
Delivery takes place in stages. You receive a first batch, give feedback, we make adjustments and carry on with the rest, so any misunderstanding about the structure surfaces early. For standalone AutoCAD drafting, files go back and forth by email. On larger projects, we use software that you log into to follow progress. The intellectual property of what we produce belongs to the client, including the blocks, families and templates created along the way. What we do not deliver is part of the picture too. Engineering, calculations, structural advice and permits fall outside what we do. We make that distinction explicit at the start of a project, so no misunderstanding arises along the way.
Three review layers on outsourced AutoCAD drafting
With high-volume AutoCAD drafting, the risk does not lie in one difficult drawing, but in a small error that spreads across an entire set. A wrong layer name, a line weight that is slightly off, a block that has been updated in one variant but not in another. That is why the work passes through at least three review layers before anything leaves our office.
A drafter draws, a second team member checks that work, Sam as team leader then reviews it and Barry as project manager gives it a final check. In practice this keeps the number of errors to a minimum, even across hundreds of sheets. We check geometry and dimensions, but just as much compliance with your CAD standards.
That last point is often overlooked, yet a set that is technically correct but does not fit into the archive still creates work. Sam brings more than fifteen years' background in architecture, worked in Iran for seven years, ran his own design firm in the Netherlands and is still active as an engineer. He leads the CAD team and is responsible for the technical side and project supervision.
Every drafter with us has well over ten years of CAD experience, and the core of the team has around twenty-five years combined. Alongside the review layers, delivering in stages helps. It means a wrong assumption comes to light when ten sheets are done, not when three hundred are finished. We hold no certifications, so we do not rely on them either. What we can show you is our work.
Frequently asked questions about our AutoCAD drafting firm
Hand your AutoCAD drafting 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.