When you look to hire an Inventor technical drafter, the first question is almost always about cost. We charge by the hour or per project at a fixed price, and we agree on the form with you in advance. For hourly work, we only charge for actual working hours. If a drafter takes five minutes for a coffee, we stop the clock.
That may sound minor, but over a long series of part drawings and assemblies the difference adds up visibly. For a clearly defined package, such as a series of revisions to an existing set, a fixed project price is often the more obvious choice, because the scope can be assessed in advance.
Either way, you pay no ongoing salary costs and you do not keep staff on who sit idle between two projects. If someone is out because of illness or holiday, we replace that person so the work carries on. We work entirely remotely from our own office on our own licences, and we respond to a new enquiry within 1 to 2 working days.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
What an Inventor technical drafter delivers for you
Our work is about drafting and modelling, not engineering. We do not run calculations, give structural advice or handle permit procedures. What we do is work up the information you supply into a complete, readable set. That usually starts with 3D models of individual parts, which we bring together in assemblies and then work up into 2D drawings with views, sections and detail views. Dimensions, hatching, callouts, BOM balloons and a correctly filled-in title block are naturally part of that. Many assignments are not new but existing work. A set grows along with a product, changes are only half processed along the way, and at some point the documentation no longer matches reality.
Revision rounds like these make up a large part of our work. We go through the existing documents, compare them with the new information and update the set, including how the changes carry through to the assembly and the associated detail sheets. As-built material is part of the package as well. For Firefly, we received files in which the drawings had been printed incorrectly and partly updated by hand, hard to read and messy. We worked it out ourselves instead of calling the client about it every day, and still delivered it cleanly.
We also handle a lot of repetitive work. Think of variants of the same part in a different size, a series of plates that are almost identical, or drawings that differ only in numbering and material designation. That is exactly where the time savings lie, because we get the set-up right once and then keep drafting. The scope determines the staffing: a short series is handled by a single drafter, and at a peak we add as many people as needed from our large, variable team.
Software, versions and formats for our Inventor drafting work
We use Inventor alongside Revit, AutoCAD and Rhino, supplemented by Grasshopper and, to a lesser extent, Dynamo and Vault. That combination is deliberate, because mechanical drafting work rarely comes on its own. A client supplies a 3D model and expects 2D drawings, or has a collection of DWG sheets that need a model behind them. We always work with the latest versions, so a supplied file does not fail on an outdated installation. Exchange runs via DXF, DWG, Revit formats and STEP files, and in practice via almost any common CAD format.
In mechanical work, STEP is often the bridge: a supplier sends a component, we place it in the assembly and continue drafting around it. Before we start, we look at the state of the existing set. Sometimes it is neatly structured and we can plug straight into it. Sometimes the set has become clogged up over the years with duplicate parts, loose copies and references that no longer lead anywhere. Then we discuss whether cleaning it up makes sense or whether rebuilding would be quicker.
With a very messy set, the latter is often the shortest route in practice, but that is a choice we put to you in advance rather than make on our own. We use our own environment and our own licences. So you do not need to arrange workstations, seats or access, and your own licence management stays untouched. Nobody on your side needs to spend time setting up a guest account or explaining an internal working environment either. What we need is the content: models, drawings, changes and the agreements that go with them.
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.
Working to the client's CAD standards
We do not have a house style of our own that you have to adopt. We work to the standard and drawing conventions you give us. That goes further than a logo in the title block. It covers layer structure, line weights, text sizes, part naming, numbering series, choice of scale, sheet layout and the way revisions are recorded. Anyone who knows those conventions can put a new drawing next to an old one without seeing any difference. That is exactly the aim. So at the start of a project, we ask for the template, a representative sample sheet and, if it exists, your internal drafting manual. If there is no such document, which happens regularly, we derive the rules from existing drawings and check our assumptions with your project leader. Better a short check beforehand than a round of corrections across fifty sheets afterwards.
The same discipline applies to the file naming and the folder structure we deliver in. Our internal review builds on that. A drafter draws, a second team member checks that work, Sam then looks it over as team leader, and finally Barry, our project manager, assesses it. Those layers do not only look for drafting errors, but also test whether the set meets your standard. In practice, that keeps the number of errors to a minimum, and your own drafting team does not need to go through the set line by line. If a convention changes during the project, we apply it and bring the sheets already delivered into line, so that the set remains consistent as a whole.
The set delivered by an Inventor technical drafter
What we deliver is meant to be used straight away, not to be reworked first. A delivery consists of the source drawings and models in the format you use, supplemented by exchange formats such as DXF, DWG or STEP when a supplier or work preparation asks for them. Files usually go back and forth by email. On larger projects, we work with software that you can log into to follow the project, so you do not need to ask how far along it is.
We deliver in batches. A first batch goes out early, you give feedback, we process it and move on to the next part. That way, a different preference in dimensioning style or part numbering comes to light at ten sheets and not at a hundred.
The rhythm of contact differs per client: sometimes every two days, sometimes weekly, depending on the pressure on the schedule. The intellectual property of all our work belongs to you. No file is left behind that you do not have in your own hands, and you do not depend on us to manage your set. That is deliberate, because outsourced drafting work should strengthen your own documentation, not lock it up somewhere outside your organisation.
So far we have not signed a non-disclosure agreement because clients have not asked for one, but we are open to it. Fitting in with the next stage of your process also means we think along about the order of delivery, for example when purchasing needs certain sheets earlier than the rest.
Frequently asked questions about hiring an Inventor technical drafter
Hand your Inventor drafting over to us
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.