If you need a machine building drafter, you usually choose between three routes: taking someone on, hiring a freelancer or outsourcing the work. A permanent employee means a recruitment process, an onboarding period and then ongoing salary costs, including in the months when there is less drafting work.
A freelancer fills a seat, but drops out when ill and brings their own way of working, so the drawing office still has to provide supervision. We work differently.
A large, variable team stands ready that scales up or down per project, with cover as soon as someone drops out. You carry no salary costs in quiet periods and do not need to provide a workstation, licence or hardware, because we work remotely in our own environment. On top of that, every drawing goes through at least three review layers before it leaves the building, something that is rarely organised with a single contractor. 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 we work up as a machine building drafter
In machine building, drafting work revolves around parts that actually have to be manufactured, and that determines what we deliver. We model individual components, bring them together in assemblies and work up the whole into drawings with views, sections, detail views and a correctly filled-in title block. Dimensions, tolerances as supplied, material designations, part numbers and item positions in the assembly are part of that. What we do not do is calculations or structural advice. We draft and model; the technical decisions stay with you and your engineers. A large part of the work consists of further development of existing machines.
A frame is modified, a drive is moved or part of the build is replaced, and that change has to carry through into the complete set, including the assembly sheets and the associated lists. That kind of revision work is labour-intensive and fits poorly into a busy drawing office, while in terms of content it is easy to hand over. As-built documentation also comes up regularly, often when a machine has long been running and the drawings have fallen behind reality.
We also draw sheet metal flat patterns, layouts and variants of the same machine for a different customer situation, where only the dimensions and a few components differ. That last type of work comes back in high volume and delivers the clearest time advantage, because we do the set-up work once. We deliver output in the formats your downstream process requires, including DXF, DWG and STEP, so suppliers can get straight to work with it. We agree exactly which formats before the first sheet is set up, so that nothing needs converting afterwards.
Working with an external machine building drafter
Outsourced drafting work stands or falls on coordination, especially when the drafter is not in the same building. That is why we work with a fixed point of contact. Barry, our project manager, is usually the first contact for a new enquiry, after which Sam, our team leader, takes over the technical side and manages the project. So you do not have changing contacts and do not need to ask your question twice. We decide the rhythm of contact together.
On a tight project we speak every two days, on a calmer one weekly, and that rhythm adapts as soon as the pressure changes. Contact runs via email, phone and scheduled meetings, and we visit you or welcome you at our office when a set is better discussed around a table. On larger projects, we use software that you log into yourself to see where the project stands. You can then see for yourself which sheets are finished and which are still in progress, which largely removes the need to chase for updates. For one-off drafting work, files are simply exchanged by email, because an extra system would only get in the way.
We would rather bundle unclear points in the material supplied than interrupt a project leader all day long. Where we can work something out ourselves, we do so and afterwards only put our assumptions to you. For Firefly, that approach worked well on a file that had been supplied in poorly legible form. We unravelled it ourselves and still delivered it cleanly. A way of working like this only holds up when the assumptions made are visible, which is why we record them in our feedback.
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.
Ownership and confidentiality of machine drawings
Drafting work in machine building often touches the core of a product, and that calls for clear agreements. The intellectual property of everything we draw belongs to you. That applies to the models, the drawings, the structure behind them and any smart components we set up. We do not hold back source files and do not deliver in a form that only we can edit. So you can manage the set yourself, have it modified later by your own drafter or hand it over to another party, without anything of ours standing in the way. We handle confidentiality in the same down-to-earth way. So far we have not signed a non-disclosure agreement, simply because clients have not asked for one. If the question does come up, we sign an agreement before the first documents are exchanged.
For a manufacturer having its own machine worked up, that is often a logical step, and it is never a point of discussion for us. In practice, handling material carefully also means we do not use designs as examples and do not place anything outside our own environment. We work with our own licences and our own systems, so files do not end up scattered across all sorts of separate accounts. Exchange runs via the channels agreed with you, not via random services. We record exactly which agreements apply before the drafting starts. That is better than having to discuss what happens to files halfway through a project.
From supplied documents to delivery in machine building
Every project starts with a conversation in which we go through the project. It covers what is available, which sheets are needed first and what the deadline is. You then supply the details, which in machine building is usually a combination of models, existing drawings that need revising and a description of the change. We also ask for the drawing conventions, because we work to your standard and not to a house style of our own.
As soon as the information is complete enough, we start. We deliver in batches. A first part comes back early, you review it and give feedback, and we process it before the next part is finished. That prevents a different preference, in part numbering for example, only becoming visible once the whole set is finished.
For work going to suppliers, that sequence is even more important, because purchasing sometimes needs to get started with part of the sheets already. Before a sheet leaves the building, it has gone through at least three review layers. First someone drafts it, then a colleague checks the work, next Sam looks it over as team leader and finally Barry assesses the set.
As a result, the number of errors in practice stays minimal and your own work preparation team does not have to act as the first line of review. If the scope grows along the way, we first discuss what that means for staffing and scheduling. If it is urgent, we add people to the team straight away. After completion, we briefly look back on how things went, so that a next assignment can start faster.
Frequently asked questions about hiring a machine building drafter
Hand your machine drawings 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.