In practice, the idea to outsource piping drafting usually comes up as soon as your own team gets stuck: a peak in the drawing office, a deadline that can no longer move, or a vacancy for a piping drafter that has been open for months. We solve that with our large, variable team, which is ready to go and scales per project, exactly as much as the project requires.
When it is urgent we add extra people straight away, so you do not have to recruit or onboard anyone yourself.
We work fully remotely, in our own environment and with our own licences, so you do not need to set anything up on your side. Everyone on our team has more than ten years of CAD experience, and the core of our team brings around twenty-five years of combined drawing office experience. For piping drafting, we deliver piping diagrams, isometrics and connection details with very few errors, even when the schedule is under pressure.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
Piping drafting down to drawing level
By outsourcing piping drafting, we mean the complete package a piping project needs, from the first line diagram to the last isometric. We draw piping diagrams, isometrics, connection details and support drawings, and work them out as 2D drafting or, where needed, as 3D models. Existing installations that need to be mapped again are recorded in as-built drawings, and we process revisions to earlier work without you having to explain the whole project all over again. We regularly receive material from Firefly, the client with whom we have now completed more than twenty projects and hundreds of drawings, that has been modified on site while the drawings no longer match.
Our team then works it out for itself rather than calling you about every uncertainty, and delivers a clean, legible result. With high-volume, repetitive work, such as a series of similar pipe routes with different dimensions each time, we achieve the biggest time savings: we set up the layout once and then repeat it without redrawing everything.
Our drafting team keeps going until the set is complete, with interim deliveries so you can already review the work before the last part is ready. If you are facing a peak where your own team simply has too few hours, you still get a complete, consistent set of drawings from us without hiring a new drafter. That is exactly why companies with technical drafting needs, from engineering firms to manufacturers, choose our approach when their own drawing office is completely full.
Software and files for piping drafting
For piping drafting we mainly work in Revit, AutoCAD and Rhino, supplemented by Inventor and Grasshopper where a project calls for it, and to a limited extent Dynamo and Vault. We always use the latest versions of these packages, so files fit into your environment without conversion issues. We accept and deliver DXF, DWG, Revit formats or STEP, and in practice almost any common CAD format a piping project involves. If a contractor or engineering firm works in AutoCAD and similar components keep having to go on the drawing, we build parametric Revit families for them where possible: smart components that adapt to a new size or situation without our drafters having to redraw them.
The material schedule updates automatically, so if a component changes, the list of materials changes with it without manual updating. If an existing set of families or templates has become cluttered after years of use, we assess whether cleaning it up is quicker than rebuilding everything, or whether a new setup will pay off more in the end. That depends on how far the existing set has drifted from a workable structure. We usually send files back and forth by email, and on larger, long-running projects we use software you log in to so you can follow the progress of the piping drafting.
That way you stay connected to your own systems and formats, while we carry out the drafting with our own licences and in our own environment. We roll out new software versions straight away, so file compatibility with your side is never compromised.
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.
Your CAD standards and layer structure
Every piping project has its own CAD standards, and we do not set those ourselves. Our drafting team follows the layer structure, layer names and drawing conventions you provide, so the result fits straight into your existing project folder and nobody has to convert drawings afterwards. We start with a conversation in which you share the details and usually also supply existing drawings that are due for revision. From then on we deliver in stages, gather feedback and make adjustments before moving on to the next part. Our check-in rhythm varies by client: with one we touch base briefly every two days, with another a weekly meeting is enough, depending on how fast the project needs to move. Contact runs via email, phone and meetings, and where it is more practical we come to you or you come to us.
Barry, our project manager, is usually our first point of contact for a new piping drafting request, after which team leader Sam, who has more than fifteen years of background in architecture, takes over the technical side and directs the content of the drawings. That way you keep one fixed point of contact rather than a different contact person for each drawing. Because your standard remains leading, we keep the quality of the piping drafting consistent, even when several of our drafters are working on the same set at once. If you change drawing conventions halfway through a project, we implement that change at the next check-in, so the rest of the set follows it straight away.
Delivering piping drafting for the next stage
What we ultimately deliver in the set depends on what we agree, but for piping drafting it usually includes piping diagrams, isometrics, connection details and, where relevant, a material schedule that has grown automatically with the drawings. We deliver the set in stages, so you do not have to check everything in one go at the end of the project, but can already steer along the way.
Before a drawing leaves our hands, it goes through at least three review layers: a drafter draws, a second team member checks that work, Sam then reviews it as team leader, and Barry carries out the final check as project manager.
As a result, we keep the number of errors minimal in practice, even with a large, rushed set of piping drawings. For example, when a deadline could not slip, we worked through evenings and weekends, with days of fourteen to fifteen hours, to get the set complete on time. The intellectual property of our work belongs to you, and on request we are open to a non-disclosure agreement, even though nobody has asked for one yet. After delivery you can use the set straight away in your own process, whether that is a permit application, a construction phase or a revision round on site.
We respond to a new piping drafting request within 1 to 2 working days, after which we go through the project and the required deliverables in a conversation. We also remain available after delivery, should a question about the piping drawings still come up in the next stage.
Frequently asked questions about outsourcing piping drafting
Hand your piping 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.