Without a BIM drafting partner, the work nobody picks up simply stays on the shelf, and that costs a drawing office more than it seems at first glance. The revision round on an old set gets pushed back week after week. The as-built file that is half drawn by hand moves from desk to desk.
Meanwhile, the schedule of the live project fills up and attention goes to whatever is shouting loudest. That is exactly the part we take over. We draft and model, at high volume and with a lot of repetition, and we do not do engineering.
Our team consists of drafters with more than ten years of CAD experience, led by our team leader Sam, who has a background in architecture. We work in Revit, AutoCAD and Rhino, in our own environment and to your drawing conventions. With our large, flexible team, we scale up or down per project. We respond to a new enquiry within 1 to 2 working days. We then go through the work package with you in a conversation.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
The cost side of outsourcing BIM drafting
The cost of outsourced drafting is easier to control than the cost of in-house capacity. Work can be done by the hour or per project at a fixed price, and we agree that together. For a clearly defined package with a lot of repetition, a fixed project price is the obvious choice, because the scope is fixed. For a revision round on a set whose condition is still unclear, we prefer to work on an hourly basis, because a fixed price would then mainly consist of a risk premium. We bill pure working hours only.
If someone steps away for five minutes for coffee, that time is not counted. That sounds minor, but over a project of hundreds of drawings it adds up. We do not work with prepaid bundles or a monthly hours subscription, so nothing keeps running when there is no work for a while. You also pay no ongoing payroll costs, no workstation and no licences, because we work in our own environment. What further keeps costs down is preparation. Complete input, clear drawing conventions and a set that does not change direction halfway through save hours that nobody ever sees in the result.
Smart Revit families also reduce costs, because a component does not have to be drawn again each time. In a set with many variants of the same component, that is the first thing we look at. We base our estimate on the documents, the number of drawings and the degree of repetition. We only give figures once we have seen the work, and that takes one conversation.
Scaling up with a BIM drafting partner
Capacity is the trigger for almost all of our jobs. We start small where possible and scale up with our large, flexible team as soon as the project calls for it. The team is already in place, so we do not need to recruit anyone before the work can begin. When things are urgent, we add people to the ongoing package straight away. If the work drops off, we take people off and their time recording stops. That is the difference from a permanent hire, where costs continue through quiet months.
If someone is out due to illness or holidays, we replace them from the same team. The handover takes little time, because every file passes through several hands in our review layers anyway. You therefore keep one agreement and one point of contact, no matter how many drafters are working on it at any given moment. We make sure ourselves that scaling up does not come at the expense of consistency. A larger team calls for tighter agreements on layers, naming and sheet layout, and we set those down at the start. Everyone who joins has more than ten years of CAD experience, so there is no onboarding period of weeks in between.
If a BIM drafting partner can only deliver what was planned in advance, it is of little use to you during a peak. That is why we plan our staffing with a margin. What we commit to has to hold up when things go wrong, so we would rather promise a little less than we can handle. If you want to know what is possible in your situation, just put the peak and the deadline on the table.
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.
From first conversation to partial delivery
The project starts with a conversation. In it, we gather the details: what is there, what needs to be done, which standard applies and how quickly it is needed. You then send us the documents, usually existing drawings that need revising, sometimes a model and sometimes just sketches. We review that set first and report what we find, even if that is uncomfortable news about its condition. Then we start drafting. We deliver in stages rather than all at once at the end. After each part, we gather feedback, incorporate it and move on to the next block. That way, a deviation comes to light after part one and not only when the whole set is finished. We match the rhythm of our check-ins to the pace of the project: every two days on a tight schedule and weekly on a calmer one.
For standalone AutoCAD work, files go back and forth by email. On larger projects, such as in greenhouse construction, we work with software you can log into to follow the project. Before a partial delivery leaves the building, it has passed through at least three review layers, from the drafter to a second team member, then to Sam as team leader and finally to Barry, our project manager. In practice, that keeps the number of errors to a minimum. We can start as soon as we have enough information, and we respond to an enquiry within 1 to 2 working days. A first conversation costs little and makes it clear straight away whether we are a good fit.
Who a BIM drafting partner solves problems for
Engineering firms, architectural practices, contractors and manufacturers are our clients, and more broadly any business with technical drafting work. The people we talk to are managers, team leaders and owners, in other words people who steer on capacity and planning. The problem they bring to us is almost always the same: too little time, too few drafters or a peak their own team cannot handle.
At an engineering firm, it is often detailing that lags behind the pace of design. At an architectural practice, it comes up with a set of details that has to be finished while the next project is already coming in. Contractors come to us with as-built material that still needs processing after handover and keeps ending up at the bottom of the pile internally.
Manufacturers mainly need repetitive work, such as variants of the same component in several sizes. In greenhouse construction, we see piping schematics in which a valve in 90 and 110 is drawn by hand again every single time. The time saving there is so large that the question is no longer whether this work should be outsourced, but when. Our clients are located across the Netherlands, and that is where our focus lies.
We work remotely from our own office, and you are always welcome to visit. We launched this service last year because a client asked for it, and we have since delivered more than twenty projects and hundreds of drawings for Firefly. We do not yet have public reviews, so we would rather let the work speak for itself. If you recognise what is described here, you can bring your own bottleneck to us in a conversation.
Frequently asked questions about a BIM drafting partner
Make us your BIM drafting partner
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.