If you need to clear a drafting backlog, the first thing you look at in practice is turnaround time. The pile grows faster than your drawing office can clear it, and every extra week pushes the rest of the schedule further out. We take on that pile with a team that is already in place.
Our large, flexible team scales with each project, and we add more drafters as soon as the volume calls for it. When it is urgent we add people immediately, without you having to go through a recruitment process first.
Everyone who drafts for us has more than ten years of CAD experience, so no time is lost on onboarding. The work runs entirely remotely from our own office, with our own licences. We deliver in stages, so your project lead can see after the first batch where the backlog is shrinking. We then gather feedback, make adjustments and keep going until the list is empty. You will hear from us within 1 to 2 working days.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
Where drafting backlogs build up
The clients who approach us are engineering firms, architectural practices, contractors and manufacturers. The people at the table are managers, team leaders and owners, and the problem they describe is strikingly similar. Work has been won, drafting capacity has not grown with it and the list of outstanding drawings keeps getting longer. Sometimes it is due to a peak the in-house team simply cannot handle. Sometimes there is a revision round on a large set of existing DWGs that nobody can fit in. And sometimes a drafter has dropped out while the schedule had no slack. In all these cases we see the same pattern.
The backlog rarely lies in the difficult work, but in the volume of repetition. Details that come back twenty times, floor plans that need going through again for every variant and sections that need updating after every change. That work demands precision and time, but it rarely requires the scarce attention of your own senior staff. That is exactly where we take over. Your drawing office keeps the work that involves coordination with the client or the construction site. We work through the repetition at the pace the schedule requires.
We draft and model, and we deliberately do not do engineering. Calculations, structural decisions and permits stay with you; we deliver the drawings. That boundary keeps the collaboration sharp and prevents discussion about responsibility. For a drawing office manager, it means the backlog shrinks without your own way of working being turned upside down. We often hear that it has been on the internal to-do list for months and keeps losing out to ongoing projects. At that point outsourcing is the fastest route to an empty list.
The drafting work we take on to clear the backlog
We deliver 2D drafting and, where the project calls for it, 3D modelling as well. Think of floor plans, façade elevations, sections, typical details and general arrangement drawings. We also produce as-built drawings and revision rounds on sets that are already in circulation. In Revit we build models and populate the associated sheets and views. In AutoCAD we update existing DWG sets, tidy up the layers and remove the remnants of old revisions. We use Rhino for form work that is awkward in the other packages, and Inventor for parts.
We deliver in DXF, DWG, Revit formats and STEP, and in practice in any common CAD format. A backlog rarely consists of a single drawing type. More often there is a mix of a few dozen details, a series of floor plans per variant and an as-built file that was half drawn by hand. We split that mix across the team so that separate parts run in parallel. We track the status of every drawing, so your project lead knows what is already finished. Where there is a lot of repetition, we build parametric Revit families, in other words smart components.
A component like that adapts to a different size or a new situation without any redrawing. The material schedule runs along with it, so a change to the component is reflected in the schedule straight away. That cuts the number of actions considerably and makes the rest of the backlog easier to manage. The delivered set connects to the next stage of the process, whether that is work preparation or construction. We agree in advance which sheets, scales and naming you want to see back.
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 it costs to clear a drafting backlog
Hourly billing or a fixed price per project are both possible, and we decide on the model together. For a backlog of unclear size, an hourly rate often works best. If the scope is fixed, for example a defined set of revisions, a fixed project price makes more sense. We only bill productive working hours. We stop the clock as soon as someone goes to get a coffee for five minutes. That sounds strict, but it keeps the time sheet honest and any discussion afterwards short. What keeps costs down most is the degree of repetition in the work. A set with many identical details, or a piping diagram in which the same valve keeps recurring, lends itself to smart components. We see this in greenhouse construction, because if you need a valve in 90 and in 110, you draw it by hand in AutoCAD every single time.
With a parametric family it is in place in a single action, which saves at least seventy per cent of the time in that kind of work. The quality of the supplied material also counts. Clear source drawings and a clear CAD standard mean less investigative work than a file full of handwritten notes. You pay no ongoing payroll costs with us. If one of our people is off sick or on holiday, we replace them and the work carries on. Our collaboration does not run on prepaid hour bundles or a monthly hours subscription. A short job is fine, and we can also start with a small first package so you can judge our speed and accuracy. We indicate in advance how many hours we expect per part, so the estimate remains verifiable.
How we start clearing your drafting backlog
The process starts with a conversation in which we go through the project. We want to know how big the pile is, which drawing types it contains and when it needs to be finished. We then request the existing documents, usually drawings that need revising. We need your CAD standards, plus the layer structure, title blocks and naming. If templates or families are available, we build on them.
If not, we propose a working agreement based on the set you supply. As soon as the information is complete enough, we start. We first complete a small part and present it, so you can adjust course early. If the set-up is right, we scale up the number of drafters and the rest follows the same pattern.
We tune the meeting rhythm to the urgency: every two days on a tight schedule and weekly on a calmer project. Files go back and forth by email. On larger projects, such as greenhouse construction projects, we work with software you can log into to follow the project. Day-to-day contact runs via email, phone and meetings, and we visit you or welcome you at our office. At OutsourceCAD, Barry, our project manager, is usually the first point of contact for a new enquiry, after which Sam, our team leader, takes over the technical side.
That way you keep a fixed point of contact and nobody has to tell the story twice. You can reach us by phone or via the contact form on our website. In terms of intellectual property, everything we draft belongs to you. We are happy to sign a non-disclosure agreement if you wish.
Frequently asked questions about clearing a drafting backlog
Let us clear your drafting backlog
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.