A typical package when you outsource drafting for steel structures looks like this. There is a hall with a portal frame drawing, a series of repeating grid lines, dozens of elevations and sections, and a bill of materials that has to match the drawing every single time.
The brief itself is clear, the detailing takes weeks, and your own drawing office usually does not have those weeks free. We take that package off your hands. Our drafters work up the sheets based on your material and design parameters, in DWG or in a model, and deliver in stages so your project leader can make adjustments along the way.
We do not design the structure or run any calculations, because that stays with your firm or the structural engineer. What we add is experienced drafting capacity, a fixed review line and the ability to scale up quickly within our team when a date is under pressure. You keep control of the content and see the work come back in stages.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
Who this steel structure drafting is for
Our clients are engineering firms, architectural practices, contractors and manufacturers, and more broadly companies with technical drafting in-house. Around the table there is usually a manager, a team leader or the owner, and the problem they bring is almost always capacity. There are too few hours, too few drafters, or a peak is coming that the in-house team cannot handle. With steelwork, there is something extra at play. An incoming order often has a short lead time, while the amount of detailing only becomes visible once the drafter starts on it.
A manufacturer that wants to put two large halls into production at the same time suddenly faces a double drafting load with a staffing level that was not built for it. Recruiting offers no solution in that situation, because a new drafter only works independently after months and the costs keep running afterwards. A second recurring case is the firm that handles the structural side perfectly well but gets stuck on the number of detail sheets that follow from it. The substantive decisions have already been made and what remains is mainly production work.
That is exactly where we come in. We have a large, variable team and scale up or down for each project, from a single drafter to as many drafters as the work requires. You keep control and we provide the hands, without any change to your fixed costs. Often a partnership like this starts with one project where the need is greatest, and then grows along with your order book. There is no obligation, because every assignment stands on its own with us.
The steel structure drafting we deliver
The focus is on 2D drafting, supplemented by 3D modelling where the project calls for it. We work up general arrangement drawings, with floor plans, elevations, sections and the associated grid references and dimensions. We draw detail sheets according to the brief we receive, so based on the connections and principles set out by the structural engineer or firm. We supply bills of materials and material schedules, and in a model we let them update automatically with the component, so there is never a discrepancy between drawing and list. Revisions are a standard part of this work.
If a section profile or height changes, we check every sheet it affects, including sections and cross-references, rather than only the place where the comment was made. We also process as-built material, even when it arrives as a pile of printouts with handwritten corrections. We model in Revit, and in Rhino or Inventor where the geometry calls for it. Exchange takes place in DWG, DXF, Revit formats and STEP, with STEP mainly useful for production and suppliers. We supply print-ready PDF sets per sheet layout as standard, with your stamp and naming scheme.
What we do not do is engineering, so we do not produce strength calculations, choose section profiles or give structural advice. The design parameters come from you and we turn them into a drawing set the shop floor can work with. If a standard detail is missing, we flag it and wait for a decision rather than inventing one ourselves. That attitude prevents discussions further down the line.
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 outsourcing steel structure drafting
We charge by the hour or per project at a fixed price, and we decide which model fits in consultation with you. A fixed project price works well when the scope is clear, for example a defined set of sheets for a hall whose principles are settled. An hourly rate is better suited to a dossier whose scope only becomes clear along the way, such as a revision round on an outdated set. We only bill genuine working hours. If someone steps away for five minutes to get a coffee, the clock stops, and for us that is not a marketing line but the way we keep our records. We do not use prepaid hour bundles or a monthly hours subscription, so no costs keep running in a quiet month. You also carry no ongoing payroll costs, and in case of illness or holiday we put a colleague on the dossier so the work carries on.
What really keeps costs down in practice is the quality of the source material. A complete set of design parameters, a clear drawing protocol and cleanly structured files save hours on our side straight away. Repetition also keeps costs down, because a second and third similar sheet go faster than the first. We never produce an estimate blind. We first review the material, determine how many sheets are really involved and which rounds we expect, and only then come back with a proposal you can weigh up. If it turns out along the way that the scope is larger than expected, we tell you straight away and not only on the invoice. That way the cost agreement remains verifiable for both sides.
How we start a first package
For a good start, we need three things: the existing drawings, the design parameters and the drawing conventions. We prefer to receive the existing drawings as DWG, because then we can work directly in the file rather than redrawing a printout. The design parameters cover everything that defines the structure, so section profiles, heights, grid lines and the standard details you use.
The drawing conventions consist of the drawing protocol, a sample sheet, the template and the naming scheme. If any of that is missing, we derive it from a representative sheet and briefly present our assumptions for confirmation. The process itself starts with a conversation in which we go through the project and pin down the scope.
We respond to a new enquiry within one to two working days, and as soon as we have enough information, we can get started. A short assignment is fine, so many firms first have us work up a limited section to judge our speed and accuracy. We deliberately deliver that first section early, so comments on line weights, text size and sheet layout come in before the volume starts. For urgent work, we add people to the team straight away.
The intellectual property of everything we draw belongs to you, and we are happy to sign a non-disclosure agreement if needed. You can reach us by phone or through the contact form on our website, after which we schedule a conversation. In that conversation, we also spell out what we will not take on, so there is no misunderstanding about the division of roles afterwards. After that, you set the pace at which more work moves over.
Frequently asked questions about outsourcing drafting for steel structures
Hand your steel structure 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.