Anyone looking for a steel construction drafting office rarely does so with time to spare. The trigger is almost always a lead time that no longer fits the capacity of their own drawing office. An order has come in, the schedule is slipping and nobody is free to take on the drafting.
That is why we scale up per project. With our large, variable team we scale with each project, from one drafter for a small job to as many people as a large project needs, and there is no recruitment process involved because the team is already in place.
When something is urgent, we add people to the running job straight away. We draft and model but do not do engineering, so the structural principles and drawing conventions come from you. What we take over is the execution: drawing up, updating revisions and recording the as-built situation. Below you can read how that scaling works in practice and how it differs from other ways of buying in capacity.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
Scaling up capacity with a steel construction drafting office
The question on the table is almost never whether the drafting can be done, but whether it will be finished on time. That is where an in-house drawing office differs from a steel construction drafting office that supplies capacity. An internal team is sized for average workload, not for a peak. We, on the other hand, are sized for someone else's peak. In concrete terms, we can start a job small and scale up from our large, variable team with as many drafters as are needed. Those people are already on the team, so nobody has to be recruited or trained in our way of working.
How many people make sense depends on how divisible the work is. A series of similar sheets can be spread across several drafters without consistency suffering. Work that is tightly interlinked we prefer to keep with a small crew, because coordination then costs more than it delivers. We make that call together with you before the first drafter starts. If someone drops out through illness or holiday, we replace them and the work carries on.
That is one of the sharpest differences from capacity built up within your own organisation, where an absence leaves a gap that cannot be filled at short notice. Because every piece of work here passes through several people, a running job never rests with just one person. A handover therefore takes hours, not weeks. We record the staffing on the project at any given time in our consultations with you.
A steel construction drafting office compared with a freelancer or a permanent drafter
There are roughly three ways to buy in drafting capacity, and they differ considerably. The first is hiring a freelancer. That works for a clearly defined job needing one pair of hands, but it does not scale as volume grows, and illness or holiday brings the work to a standstill. A freelancer also generally checks their own work. The second way is taking someone on permanently.
That makes sense when demand proves structural, but recruitment takes time and a new employee has to be trained while the peak is happening now. On top of that, payroll costs continue when volume drops, and that risk lies entirely with you. The third way is bringing in a steel construction drafting office that comes with a complete team. We do not supply a single drafter but a crew that moves with you, with internal checks and cover for absences. You pay no ongoing payroll costs and are not tied to prepaid hour bundles or a monthly hours subscription.
We only log genuine working hours, so time not spent on your project does not appear on the timesheet. That makes the comparison with an employee of your own fairer than it first seems, because an in-house drafter does not turn every paid hour into a drafting hour either. What we are not is a substitute for your own technical knowledge. That stays within your organisation; we carry out what has been agreed and stick to the standard you provide. If you are torn between these three routes, it usually helps to look at the temporary peak and the structural demand separately.
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.
Collaboration and consultation during the project
With us you have one fixed line of contact rather than a different face every week. Barry, our project manager, is the first point of contact for a new request and takes stock of what is involved. As soon as the discussion turns to the technical approach, Sam, our team leader, takes over that part. He leads the CAD team, is responsible for the technical side and project supervision, and still works as an engineer himself. As a result, a meeting is about the drawing rather than about passing on messages. The rhythm varies per project. When the schedule is under pressure, we speak every two days. On a calmer project, weekly is enough. There is also daily contact by email and phone, and we either visit you or you come to our office.
The work itself is done remotely, entirely from our own office, but that does not make consultation scarce. On larger projects we offer software you can log into to follow progress. That saves status questions, because you can see for yourself which parts are finished. For standalone AutoCAD jobs we stick to delivery by email, because a separate environment adds nothing for a limited number of sheets. We deliver in parts, gather feedback, adjust and carry on. That way you keep steering throughout the project, instead of receiving a set at the end that cannot be changed without costing time. We decide together at the start of the project which form of consultation suits you.
Getting started with a steel construction drafting office
To get started we first need a conversation and then material. In that conversation we go through the work that is waiting, which date is fixed and which drawing conventions apply. We then receive the details and usually existing drawings that need revising. Anything that records the conventions is useful: the layer structure, the title blocks in use, file naming and a sample sheet that can serve as a reference.
If that is missing, we derive it from the material supplied and present our conclusions to you for confirmation. We would rather make one good call than five about individual points. We respond to a new request within 1 to 2 working days.
As soon as we have enough information, the first work can start, and the first partial delivery deliberately follows early. That first delivery is the test, because it shows whether the layout, interpretation and level of detail are right. A short job is fine, and many clients start that way to judge our speed and accuracy before handing over a larger package. We work in our own environment with our own licences, so no access or workstation needs to be arranged.
Intellectual property in what we produce belongs to you and the source files are always included. We have not signed a non-disclosure agreement so far because nobody has asked for one, but we are open to it. You can reach us by phone or through the contact form on the site, after which we arrange a conversation to go through the work as a whole.
Frequently asked questions about our steel construction drafting office
Hand your steel 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.