The question behind the decision to outsource drafting capacity is almost always the same: can an external team take over this work without it costing more time than it saves? Our answer is yes, provided the work can be clearly defined and the drawing conventions are known.
We then take over a block of sheets, draft it to your standards and deliver in stages, so a large set never comes back all at once covered in comments. What your own team has to put in is limited to supplying material and one meeting per round.
What you get in return is staffing that moves with the schedule and does not keep running once the peak has passed. We only draft and model; we do not do engineering. That boundary makes the scope simple to define and keeps responsibility for structural decisions where it belongs. We record in advance exactly what is handed over in a drawing list with agreements on the structure. That way everyone on both sides knows which sheet is with whom.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
Getting started when you outsource drafting capacity
To get started, we mainly need clarity about the work itself. In the first conversation we go through what needs finishing, which sheets are involved, which package the set is in and which delivery date is in the schedule. You then supply the details and usually the existing drawings that need revising. It also helps to have a sample sheet that counts as a good example, the layer scheme, the title block and the file naming. If that is not set out in a document, we derive the rules from an existing set and put our findings to you for confirmation.
We can start as soon as we have enough information to keep drafting independently. We respond to a new enquiry within 1 to 2 working days, after which we schedule that conversation. What determines the start date is therefore rarely our staffing, but how complete the material is. A complete file lets us produce almost immediately, whereas an as-built file half added to by hand first requires a round of detective work. We would rather do that detective work ourselves than call the project leader every day; for Firefly we still delivered a hard-to-read file cleanly that way.
Outsourcing drafting capacity works best when the first block stays small. You then quickly see whether our interpretation is right, and we see whether the documents supplied are sufficient. If information turns out to be missing, we list it in one place rather than calling about it every day. After that, the volume can go up without the setup still being up for debate.
Clients who outsource their drafting capacity
Our clients are engineering firms, architecture practices, contractors and manufacturers, as well as other companies with a lot of technical drafting work. The people at the table are managers, team leaders and owners, people who keep an eye on the schedule and can see that staffing will not be sufficient. The trigger is almost always capacity: too little time, too few drafters, or a peak that the in-house drawing office cannot handle. The problem looks different in each sector. At an engineering firm, revisions pile up while new projects are already coming in.
An architecture practice has three projects in detailed design at once and gets stuck on the detailing. A contractor is approaching handover and still has to digitise a complete as-built file. A manufacturer is expanding a product line and needs a whole series of part drawings in a short time. In all those cases the bottleneck is production work with a lot of repetition, and that is exactly what lends itself to outsourcing. We have offered this as a standard service ever since starting it last year, when a client explicitly asked for it.
Our clients are in the Netherlands and that is where our focus lies, while the work itself is done entirely remotely from our own office. Clients are welcome to visit and we also come to them, but the work itself stays remote. For Firefly we have now completed more than twenty projects and delivered hundreds of drawings, largely revision and as-built work. What these clients have in common is that the bottleneck lies in production, not in the knowledge of their own people. They keep the thinking in-house and pass the volume to us.
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.
Drawing types and output when you outsource drafting capacity
Specifically, we deliver 2D drafting work and, where needed, 3D modelling. The 2D work covers floor plans, sections, elevations, detail and standard detail sheets, opening and grid drawings, and pipework schematics. Revisions are a standard part of it: an existing set that needs to incorporate a change, sheet by sheet, with an overview of what has been amended on each sheet and where that amendment comes from. We work up as-built material into a complete digital set that fits the rest of the file. For manufacturers we draft part and production drawings in the structure the shop floor requires. For model work we build in Revit, including parametric families whose material schedule updates automatically with a change to the component. We use Rhino and Grasshopper for freeform work and repetitive geometry, and Inventor for part work.
We deliver in DWG, DXF, Revit formats or STEP, and in practice in any common CAD format. We supply the source drawings, not just an output file, because ownership of everything we make lies with the client. When you outsource drafting capacity, what matters most is that the set continues into your own process after delivery without an intermediate step, which is why we draft in the client's structure from the very first sheet. For standalone work we send files by email. On larger projects we work with software that you log into to follow progress per component. We record in advance in the drawing list which drawing types are in which block. That way there is no discussion about what is still outstanding. We also track the revision status of each sheet in it.
Scaling up once drafting capacity has been outsourced
A project with us can start small, and our large, flexible team grows with each project. The team is already in place, so scaling up means scheduling, not recruiting. When things are urgent, we add someone straight away to the block that is running at the time, without you having to make a new arrangement for it. It works the same way in reverse: if the volume drops, we take drafters off the project and the bill comes down accordingly.
If someone drops out through illness or holiday, we bring in a replacement and the work carries on. That works because we draft in blocks and to the client's standards, so a colleague can pick up the work without days of handover.
Everyone who drafts for us has more than ten years of CAD experience, and the core of our team has around twenty-five years of experience combined. You keep a single point of contact throughout the project: Barry, our project manager, for the enquiry, then Sam, our team leader, for the technical side and project supervision. How far we can scale up at any given moment depends on what is running in parallel, and we tell you that honestly in advance rather than committing to a date we cannot meet.
When a deadline previously could not move, our team worked evenings and weekends, with days of fourteen to fifteen hours. That is not standard, but it is an indication of how we deal with a hard deadline. We would rather meet what we commit to with a small margin than with a promise made in advance.
Frequently asked questions about outsourcing drafting capacity
Outsource your drafting capacity 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.