The choice of a BIM drafting firm in the Netherlands is usually weighed against two other options: hiring a freelance modeller or taking on a drafter yourself. All three solve the same problem, just not equally fast and not with the same risk. A vacancy means recruitment, onboarding time and then ongoing payroll costs, even in a month without work.
A freelancer is on board as long as he is available, but if he drops out, the work stops. Our team is already in place: we deploy what the project needs from our large, variable team, and in case of illness or holidays we replace someone so the work keeps moving.
Everyone who drafts for us has more than ten years of CAD experience and every sheet passes through three review layers. We draft and model; we do not do engineering. Our clients are in the Netherlands and that is where our focus lies too. Below you can read when outsourcing makes sense, what we deliver, where the time savings are and how communication works.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
When an in-house BIM team is better off keeping the work
Outsourcing is not a goal in itself, and there are situations in which an in-house team is faster. When modelling work is intertwined day to day with decisions made in the office, handing it over costs more time than it saves. The same applies to projects where the modelling conventions are still changing every week, because then we are drafting towards a moving target. Work in which the drawing is merely the outcome of an engineering decision is also better kept in-house, because we do not make that decision. Outsourcing does pay off when there is volume with repetition, when a peak overflows your own schedule, or when a vacancy for a modeller has been open for months.
Then the comparison with a new employee is simple. A new hire costs recruitment, onboarding time and then payroll costs that continue through quiet months, while a peak usually only lasts part of the year. A freelancer is quicker to arrange, but he is one person with one diary and no replacement. With us there is a team behind the work, so scaling up is possible without a new recruitment process and we absorb any absence.
The hybrid model is what we see working most often: your own team keeps control, the complex elements and the contact with the end client, while we handle the volume and revision rounds. We tell you when a package does not lend itself well to outsourcing. That costs us an assignment, but it saves both sides a difficult project and makes the agreement on the part that does fit much more concrete. We would rather have that conversation at the start than halfway through, when there are already sheets nobody wants to redo.
Drawing types and output from our BIM drafting firm
What you get back from us depends on the project, but the building blocks are always the same. We build models in Revit and derive the sheets from them: floor plans, elevations, sections, details and the material schedule that is linked to the model. Separately, we do 2D drafting in AutoCAD, from part drawings to complete diagrams, and form-finding work in Rhino when a geometry is easier to build there. We use Inventor and Grasshopper where appropriate, Dynamo and Vault to a limited extent. As-built material and revisions form a separate and fairly large part of our work.
We bring an existing set that has been half updated by hand back to a model or drawing set you can build on again. We also deliver families and templates, because they belong to your set and not to us. We always work with the latest versions, and exchange takes place in DXF, DWG, Revit formats and STEP, and in practice in any common CAD format. The intellectual property of everything we make belongs to you, so you can carry on with it without us. What we do not deliver is just as clear: no calculations, no structural advice, no permit process and no site supervision.
We draft and model, and we keep that boundary sharp. We agree exactly what output your downstream process needs before the first drafter starts. If something is missing from the design basis, we first look into it ourselves and bundle the remaining questions into a single list.
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.
The repetitive side of BIM modelling work
Most of the time in modelling work does not go into the special component, but into the component that recurs fifty times in a slightly different size. For that we build parametric Revit families, in other words smart components. A component like that adapts to a different size or a new situation, so we make it once and then place it in a single action. The material schedule follows along, so a change to the component carries through to the schedule without anyone having to update lists. An example from our own practice shows how much difference that makes. Companies in greenhouse construction often work in AutoCAD, and AutoCAD is not smart at building up components such as valves in piping systems. If you need a valve in 90 and in 110 there, you draw it by hand again each time.
With a smart family it is in place immediately, and in that kind of work it saves at least seventy per cent of the time. We can clean up existing family libraries or rebuild them from scratch. Which route is wiser depends on the state of the library, because repairing a clogged-up library sometimes takes more time than starting afresh. We present both routes along with the time they take, and you choose. Not everything needs to be parametric, and for components that occur only once we advise against it, because building them then costs more than it gains. We make that trade-off per set, not as a fixed rule. We approach templates in the same way, because a template nobody trusts costs time again every week.
One fixed point of contact and visibility into the project
When you outsource work, you want to know where it stands without chasing it every day. That is why you keep one fixed point of contact with us. Barry, our project manager, picks up a new enquiry, and then Sam, our team leader, takes over the technical side and guides the project in terms of content. He has known architecture for more than fifteen years, worked in Iran for seven years, ran his own design practice in the Netherlands and still works as an engineer.
If we scale up to more modellers, that point of contact stays the same. We decide on the rhythm of meetings together: every two days on a tight project, weekly for calmer work.
For larger projects we use software you can log in to and follow the project, so you can see for yourself which batch of sheets is ready. For standalone AutoCAD drafting, the exchange goes by email. Daily contact runs by email, phone and meetings, and we come to you or you come to our office. We do the work remotely, and that works well nationwide because communication is largely digital anyway. We deliver in stages, collect feedback, make adjustments and carry on, so you see the work grow rather than only at the end.
We work to your drawing conventions, even when several people are working on your project at the same time. We respond to a new enquiry within 1 to 2 working days. We deliver in the format your downstream process requires, and the source files are always included, so nothing stays behind with us afterwards.
Frequently asked questions about a BIM drafting firm in the Netherlands
Hand your BIM modelling 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.