If 'CAD partner wanted' is on your drawing office's list, you usually start with two practical questions. In which file format does the work come back, and to which CAD standard does the firm doing the work draft? We run Revit, AutoCAD and Rhino on the latest versions and deliver in DXF, DWG, Revit formats and STEP, and in practice in any common CAD format.
We adopt your drawing conventions, so the layer structure, naming, title blocks and numbering follow your conventions, not ours.
Our drafters all have more than ten years of CAD experience, and Sam, our team leader, oversees the technical side. We draft and model; engineering stays with you. We carry out the work remotely from our own office with our own licences. We respond to requests within 1 to 2 working days. This is followed by a conversation in which we go through the material and point out what is still missing. With our large, flexible team, we scale up or down per project, so a peak does not leave you with ongoing wage costs.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
When a CAD partner makes sense and when it doesn't
Outsourcing does not pay off in every situation, and we would rather say so up front than afterwards. It works well for a peak your own team cannot handle, a vacancy that stays open for months and repetitive work that a drawing office has to do but would rather not take on itself. A clearly defined revision pass on a set of existing DWGs is also typical work we can take over without much of a run-up. It makes less sense when the drafting is interwoven every day with design decisions made around the table. If a drafter sits next to the structural engineer all the time to try out variants, the coordination burden outweighs the time saved.
We are also not the right firm for work that consists entirely of engineering, because we do not run calculations or give structural advice. A third consideration is the state of the source material. If there is nothing usable and someone first has to take measurements on site, our work only starts after that. What we do when the material is messy is shown by an assignment for Firefly. We received as-built material that had been printed incorrectly and partly drawn by hand, and instead of calling the client every day we worked it out ourselves and still delivered the set neatly.
If you are looking for a CAD partner, it pays to weigh this up openly. We think along with you, even if the outcome is that your own team is better off keeping the work. A hybrid is actually the most common arrangement. The firm keeps the design-sensitive part in-house and passes the series, revisions and detailing work on to us.
The cost side of bringing in a CAD partner
We work by the hour or at a fixed price per project, and we choose the right form together. A tightly defined package with clear design criteria lends itself to a fixed project price, because we can then estimate the scope reasonably well. Work whose scope is still shifting, such as a revision pass on a set in unknown condition, we prefer to keep on an hourly basis. Sometimes we start on hours and switch once the picture is complete. On an hourly basis, we record only net working hours. If someone steps away for five minutes for a coffee, the clock stops, and that is exactly why the comparison with an in-house employee often turns out differently than expected.
With us, you pay no ongoing wage costs, no workstation and no licences, and in case of illness or holiday we cover internally so there is no idle time. We do not have prepaid hour bundles, and we do not offer a monthly hour subscription either. In practice, three things keep costs down. Complete source material saves hours of searching. A documented CAD standard prevents correction rounds. And repetitive work that we can build parametrically takes time on the first drawing and hardly any after that.
We only make an estimate once we have seen the material, because an estimate without documents is a shot in the dark. We do not quote figures on this page; they belong in a conversation with the work on the table. What we do explain in advance is how our estimate is built up and which uncertainties it contains. If it turns out during the work that a component is clearly running differently from the estimate, we tell you immediately.
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.
Which clients benefit from a CAD partner
Our clients are engineering firms, architectural practices, contractors and manufacturers, and more broadly companies with technical drafting work. Around the table are usually managers, team leaders and owners, often with a concrete problem that has been dragging on for a few weeks. The trigger is almost always capacity. Too little time, too few drafters, or a peak the in-house team cannot absorb. At an engineering firm, we often see that the structural engineers have finished and the detailing is left waiting. At an architectural practice, it is regularly a set that needs updating after changes while the design team has already moved on to the next project. Contractors come to us with as-built files and revisions, because that work piles up during construction and nobody has time for it in the rush. Manufacturers more often have production drawings and variants of the same component, where volume and repetition are the problem.
In all these cases, the same applies: the work has to be done, it is not complex enough to put an expensive specialist on it, and there is too much of it to squeeze in on the side. We started this service last year because a client asked for it, and it worked well. If you are looking for a CAD partner, you will usually recognise yourself in one of these situations. Our focus is on the Netherlands. On that side of the table, the conversation is almost never about technology alone. Managers and owners also weigh up what it means for staffing, for the schedule and for the risk of a deadline slipping. We try to be as concrete as possible on those points, even when the answer is unfavourable.
How the process works with us as your CAD partner
It starts with a conversation in which we go through the work. We want to know how many drawings there are, in which software, with which design criteria and when they need to be finished. We then receive the details and usually the existing drawings that need revising. If the CAD standard is not written down, we extract the conventions from the material supplied and put our assumptions to you for confirmation.
Once we have enough information, we get started. We then deliver in batches, and that is a deliberate choice. A first batch that goes out early gives your project leader the chance to test our interpretation before we carry the same approach through the whole set.
We process the feedback we receive on it and then move on to the next batch. The meeting rhythm varies per client. When it is urgent we speak every two days, on calmer projects weekly, by phone, email or a scheduled meeting. We send files back and forth by email. On larger projects, such as greenhouse construction projects, we use software you can log into to follow the project. Before anything leaves our office, it goes through at least three review layers, with a second drafter, Sam as team leader and Barry, our project manager, taking the final look.
At the end, we hand over the source files, because ownership of what we produce lies with you. If you would like to start with a small assignment, feel free to suggest it. A first package like that gives both sides an honest picture of the collaboration in a short time.
CAD partner wanted: frequently asked questions
Looking for a CAD partner? Let's talk
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.