When you request a technical drafting quote, it means little until it is clear who checks the work before it comes back. With us, every sheet passes through at least three review layers. A drafter produces the work, a second team member checks it, Sam, our team leader, then reviews it and Barry, our project manager, does the final check.
That sequence is not a formality, because in sets of hundreds of sheets an error in the layer structure or dimensioning immediately carries through to the entire delivery.
Because we have set things up this way, the number of errors stays minimal in practice. We provide outsourced drafting for companies that lack sufficient drafting capacity of their own, and we do so to the client's standard. Engineering is not part of our work. On this page, we explain who we draft for, what goes into our quote, how the costs are built up and what we need to get started. The facts are set out here plainly, so the project leader can weigh them up.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
Who we provide technical drafting for
Our clients are engineering firms, architectural practices, contractors and manufacturers, and more broadly companies with in-house technical drafting work. The people at the table are managers, team leaders and owners, usually not the drafters themselves. The reason is almost always the same problem: capacity. Too little time, too few drafters, or a peak your own team cannot take on as well. At engineering firms, we often see the subject-matter experts getting bogged down in sheet work that requires no decisions. At manufacturers, it tends to be series of part drawings that come round again with every product change.
Contractors more often have an as-built file that needs finishing and that nobody on their own team wants to pick up. Architectural practices run into Revit models that have filled up over the years with families and templates nobody touches any more. Our clients are based in the Netherlands, and our focus is on the Netherlands too. We carry out the work entirely remotely from our own office, and clients are welcome to visit when that helps. We started this service because a client asked for it, and we have offered it as a permanent service ever since.
We have now completed more than twenty projects and hundreds of drawings for Firefly. What our clients have in common is that they want to offload the drafting without handing over control of their project. That is exactly the role we take on. We take over the sheet work, stick to their standard and leave the substantive decisions with the team that carries the project. Contact with the end client stays with them as well.
What the technical drafting quote includes
Our quote states, for each item, which drafting work we take on and what the client gets back. In 2D, that means floor plans, sections, elevations, details, schematic drawings and diagrams, set up in the drafting team's layer structure. In 3D, we deliver models of components or complete assemblies, with the 2D output needed from them. We list as-built drawings and revision rounds separately, because their scope depends heavily on the quality of the material supplied. We also specify the file formats, usually DXF, DWG, Revit formats or STEP.
Besides the drafting, we list the side tasks that take time and would otherwise remain invisible, such as setting up a template, cleaning up a family library or looking up an old paper drawing. We list those items separately, so the client can choose to do them himself. What is not in it, we do not do. Calculations, structural advice and permit documents are outside our remit, and we keep that boundary sharp. Our quote also sets out the rhythm, in other words whether we deliver per block and how often we speak.
With an urgent job we speak every two days; on a calmer project, weekly. Finally, it states who the point of contact is. Barry usually picks up a new request and Sam then takes over the technical side, so there is always a familiar face for the project leader to deal with. Anything that does not fit in the quote because it only emerges along the way, we report the moment we see it, not afterwards on the invoice.
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 side of technical drafting
We invoice by the hour or at a fixed price per project, and we agree together which option fits. For a sharply defined job, such as a fixed set of drawings based on complete material, a fixed project price is the obvious choice. For work whose scope only becomes clear once we are into it, hourly billing is fairer for both sides. A partly hand-drawn as-built file is a good example, because the time needed to work it out is hard to estimate in advance. We only bill pure working hours. If one of our people steps away for five minutes for a coffee, the clock stops. What further keeps costs down is preparation. The more complete the material supplied and the clearer the drawing conventions, the less time we spend investigating. Repetition also lowers costs, because we build a recurring component once and then use it everywhere.
Early feedback helps too, because a correction on the first block prevents a hundred corrections on the rest. On the other hand, nothing keeps running on our side between assignments. The client pays no ongoing payroll costs, no holiday pay and no idle time. We do not sell prepaid hour cards, nor do we offer monthly hour subscriptions. We only name a rate once we know what it is about, because a figure without a scope is worthless. In the conversation, however, we do indicate which approach worked out best on comparable assignments, so the project leader gets a feel for the order of magnitude.
Getting started after the quote
We can start as soon as we have enough information. In practice, that means the existing drawings or model, the client's drawing conventions, a reference file with the layer structure and title block, and clarity about the required level of detail. If some of that is missing, we do not sit idle but record our assumptions and put them forward.
That is also how we approached an as-built file in which the drawings had been printed incorrectly and were partly drawn by hand. That material was hard to read and messy. We worked it out ourselves rather than calling the client every day, and still delivered a clean set.
Once we have started, we deliver in stages. The first block goes back, the client gives feedback and we incorporate it into the rest of the set. Files go back and forth by email, and on larger projects we work with software the client can log in to and follow the project. We respond to a new request within 1 to 2 working days, after which we schedule a conversation to go through the project.
For urgent work, we add people to the team straight away. A short assignment is also fine, so the client can first judge our pace and accuracy before a large package follows. You can reach us by phone or via the contact form on this site. This is followed by a conversation in which we go through the project and point out what we still need to get started. That is all it takes to begin.
Frequently asked questions about requesting a technical drafting quote
Request your technical drafting quote
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.