When you get assembly drawings drafted, you need proper checks, because a mistake on an assembly sheet costs time on site. That is why every sheet passes through at least three review layers with us. A drafter produces the work, a second team member checks it, Sam, our team leader, assesses the technical side and Barry, our project manager, looks over it last.
In practice, that keeps errors to a minimum. We are a dedicated CAD team that takes over drafting work from companies with insufficient capacity.
We draft and model; engineering is not part of our work. Everyone on our team has more than ten years of CAD experience, and the core team has around twenty-five years of experience combined. We work remotely from our own office, with our own licences and the latest software versions. Our clients are based in the Netherlands, and contact runs through email, phone and meetings. We respond within 1 to 2 working days of a new enquiry. We then go through the project with you in a conversation.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
Clients who get assembly drawings drafted by us
Assembly drawings reach us from manufacturers, contractors, engineering firms and architectural practices. The person we talk to is usually a team leader, a project leader or the owner of the business. The problem they bring to the table is rarely about skill and almost always about hours. The order is in, production is running, but the assembly sheets are not ready yet. Fitters cannot get going with a model that only exists on a screen. They need sheets that show which part goes where and in what order it is put in place.
A second situation is a change late in the project. Something changes in a component and the entire series of assembly sheets has to follow. That is exactly the kind of work a drawing office gets stuck on, because it affects many sheets and leaves little room. We pick it up with several drafters at once and keep the pace up. A third reason is absence. If your own drafter is off sick or on holiday, the work stops as long as nobody else is available. With us, we replace someone and the file keeps moving, without you continuing to pay payroll costs.
For Firefly we have run more than twenty projects this way, accounting for hundreds of drawings. So when you get assembly drawings drafted by us, you are not hiring a single pair of hands but a well-coordinated team. We started this service last year because a client asked for it, and it has since become a permanent part of what we do. Since then, most enquiries have come from the same quarter.
What our assembly drawings contain
On an assembly sheet we put the information the fitter needs, no more and no less. That means elevations and sections at a legible scale, with positions, part numbers and the associated bill of materials. Where it helps, we draw an exploded view so the assembly sequence is visible. We add detail sheets for the connections where things go wrong if a dimension turns out slightly different. We draft those sheets in 2D, and where the project calls for it, we build a 3D model first. We generate the views from that model, so a change to a component is reflected on every sheet.
The material schedule stays linked to the model. If a component changes, the schedule changes automatically, which saves a manual checking round. We deliver in DWG, DXF, Revit formats or STEP, including the source files. We arrange a print set for the site cabin if the site team needs one. The layout follows your standard, from title block and numbering to line weights and hatching. If your organisation works with a fixed sheet order, we stick to it.
Revisions to existing assembly sheets and updating as-built material are also part of our work. What we do not do is engineering, so we do not decide how a structure should be put together. We receive those starting points from you and draft them. When you get assembly drawings drafted by us, you retain ownership of all the files. We always supply the source files, so your own drafting team can continue working with them later.
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 cost of getting assembly drawings drafted
We invoice by the hour or at a fixed project price, and we choose the right option together with you. For a series of assembly sheets with a fixed set-up, a project price is usually easy to determine. If the design is still changing, an hourly basis is fairer, because you then only see the hours actually worked. After all, we only bill actual working hours. The clock stops as soon as someone steps away for five minutes to get a coffee. We do not work with prepaid hour bundles or a monthly hours subscription, so nothing keeps running unnoticed. What keeps costs down is predictability in the set. If the sheets resemble each other, we build a set-up that we then reuse every time. A smart component that handles the repeating part pays for itself after just a handful of sheets.
What drives costs up is unclear input. If the standard is missing or the source data has been half-modified by hand, time goes into investigation. We flag that in advance, not on the invoice. You also pay no ongoing payroll costs, no workstation and no licences with us. We work in our own environment, so those costs are on our side. We only produce an estimate after we have seen the documents, with the assumptions included. If you want to try us out first, start with a small set and judge our speed and accuracy. If you are happy, we scale up to the full series. That keeps the risk small for both sides.
Getting started with your first assembly drawings
To get started we need three things: the source data, your CAD standards and a clear scope. By source data we mean models, existing sheets or a bill of materials that shows the build-up. We get the standard from you, because we draft according to your conventions. If there is none, we derive the set-up from existing sheets and present it to you first.
Once we have enough information, we start the work. The first conversation covers the scope, the quantities and the date on which assembly begins. We then put one drafter on a small job, and for larger volumes as many drafters as needed from our large, flexible team.
When things are urgent, we add people straight away. We deliver in stages, gather feedback and move on to the next batch. That way your project leader can see early on whether our set-up matches their way of working. We decide the meeting rhythm together, from every two days when things are urgent to once a week. Barry is the first point of contact and Sam takes care of the technical side. Files go by email, and on larger projects through software you log into.
We are happy to visit you or welcome you at our office, although the work itself is done remotely. We will sign a non-disclosure agreement without objection, even though nobody has asked for one so far. When you get assembly drawings drafted, you mainly want to know quickly where you stand. That is why we respond within 1 to 2 working days and schedule a conversation straight away.
Frequently asked questions about getting assembly drawings drafted
Let us draft your assembly drawings
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.