For many drawing offices, the decision to hire an AutoCAD specialist is a direct response to a peak, an approaching deadline or a vacancy that simply will not get filled. A project leader sees work piling up while the in-house drafters are already fully booked, and looks for a way to add capacity quickly without a lengthy recruitment process.
Our team is already in place, with drafters who each have more than ten years of experience with AutoCAD and related software.
We work according to your drawing conventions and standards, so the result fits straight into what is already in the project. This concerns drafting and modelling; we do not do engineering or make structural decisions. We start a small assignment with one drafter, and on a large project we deploy as many drafters as needed from our large, variable team. When things are urgent, we add extra people immediately, so a deadline that cannot move genuinely stays achievable.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
The repetitive work where an AutoCAD specialist saves time
If you are considering hiring an AutoCAD specialist, you are usually dealing with work that comes back in high volume and with a lot of repetition. Think of a piping diagram in greenhouse construction, where a drafter redraws a valve in different sizes by hand every time because AutoCAD does not automatically handle that kind of part intelligently. Every time a valve of ninety or one hundred and ten millimetres is needed, someone draws that shape again, even though it is really the same part. That takes time that is badly needed elsewhere, especially when several projects are running at once.
We do this type of work every day, recognise that pattern immediately and handle the repetitive part more efficiently, including with smart components that adapt to the situation. In that kind of work, this saves at least seventy per cent of the time compared with drawing by hand every time. The same repetition is found in revision work, where our drafters update existing DWGs step by step to reflect the current situation.
A drawing office that has to do this alongside ongoing projects quickly falls behind and sees the backlog grow. By outsourcing that part to us, you keep your own capacity available for the work that involves more consultation and coordination with the client. We do not take over the entire drawing office, but precisely the part that is high-volume, repetitive and therefore time-consuming, so the rest of your team can focus on what does require a bespoke approach.
What an AutoCAD specialist at OutsourceCAD delivers
Hiring an AutoCAD specialist from us means we draft and model at the level the project requires. That ranges from 2D drafting, such as floor plans, elevations and details, to 3D modelling where needed. As-built drawings and revisions are also part of it, for example when an existing set no longer matches the actual situation. We deliver the output in DXF, DWG, Revit formats or STEP, and in practice in virtually any common CAD format. Everyone on our team has more than ten years of CAD experience, and Sam, our team leader, who has a background of more than fifteen years in architecture, directs the work.
We do not do engineering or give structural advice, because that remains explicitly outside the scope of the assignment. It is about the drafting itself, carried out according to the standards and drawing conventions you supply. A specialist who works alongside you in this way fits straight into the ongoing project, without us first having to set up a separate way of working. Every piece of work goes through at least three review layers. A drafter draws, a second team member checks, Sam reviews it as team leader and Barry, our project manager, carries out the final check.
As a result, the number of errors stays to a minimum in practice, even when we deliver a lot of drawings in a short time. For a project leader who is specifically looking for drafting capacity, rather than advice on the design itself, that is exactly the boundary that matters. We set out this clear line between drafting and engineering in every conversation beforehand, so there is no misunderstanding along the way about who makes which decision.
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.
Parametric working with Revit families and smart components
Much of the time saving that clients hire an AutoCAD specialist for comes from parametric working. We build parametric Revit families: smart components that adapt to a new situation or a different size. We build such a part properly once, and after that it can be placed anywhere without being redrawn. That is exactly what many companies in greenhouse construction run into, because they often work in AutoCAD, and AutoCAD is not smart at building up parts such as valves in piping systems. Anyone who needs a valve in ninety and in one hundred and ten there ends up drawing it by hand every time in practice. With a smart family, that same valve is placed in one action, in the right size and without anyone forgetting anything. A second advantage is that the material schedule updates along with the part.
If the part changes, the schedule changes automatically, without anyone having to update it separately. That prevents the errors that arise when someone maintains a schedule by hand alongside a set of drawings that has already been changed again in the meantime. We can clean up existing families and templates when they are still usable, or rebuild them when the existing set has become too messy to repair. Which is the better choice depends on the state of the existing family set, and we look at that together with you in the first conversation. For a drawing office that works with a lot of repeated parts, this is often where we achieve the biggest time saving of the entire assignment.
Software, versions and formats when you hire a specialist
If you hire an AutoCAD specialist, you usually also want to know which software and versions we work with. Revit, AutoCAD and Rhino are our main software, supplemented by Inventor, Grasshopper and, to a limited extent, Dynamo and Vault. We always work with the latest versions, so there are no compatibility issues with what you use yourself.
We receive and deliver DXF, DWG, the common Revit formats and STEP files, among others, and in practice virtually any other CAD format that is needed. Fitting in with the existing set is a fixed part of the process. In the first conversation, we discuss which CAD standards, layer structure and agreements already apply within your project.
We then follow those standards, rather than imposing our own way of working that you would have to adjust afterwards. That is especially important with existing Revit families and templates, where our drafters first need to understand how the set is structured before they add or change anything. If an existing family set has become messy, we look together at whether cleaning it up is enough or whether rebuilding it is quicker.
We work remotely, in our own environment and with our own licences, not in your environment. For one-off assignments, we send files back and forth by email, and for larger projects we use software in which you can follow progress. That way we keep the connection with the existing situation intact, whichever package you use.
Frequently asked questions about hiring an AutoCAD specialist
Hire an AutoCAD specialist from our team
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.