Technical Drawing Software and What Construction Teams Need From It

• Technical drawings are the language of construction. Every decision about what gets built, how it gets built and to what standard is communicated through technical drawings. The site supervisor checking a structural detail. The subcontractor set out their work. The building inspector verifies compliance. All of them are working from technical drawings that need to be accurate, current and accessible.
• Technical drawing software that serves construction teams well produces drawings that communicate design intent clearly, manages revisions systematically and connects to the construction management process rather than sitting as a separate design function that hands off documents at defined stages and then has no further connection to how those documents are used.

What Construction Teams Need From Technical Drawing Software

• The requirements that construction teams have from technical drawing software reflect how drawings are used in construction rather than how they are created in design. Understanding this distinction matters because the software that serves design teams well is not always the software that produces drawings that serve construction teams well.
• Accuracy that translates to site. A technical drawing that cannot be set out accurately on site because the dimensions are inconsistent or because the drawing conventions are unfamiliar to site teams is not serving the construction function regardless of how well it was produced. The drawing that is geometrically precise in the software and dimensionally clear on the printed or digital sheet produces better construction outcomes than one that is complex and sophisticated but difficult to interpret under site conditions.
• Current revision accessibility from site. The drawing that the site supervisor accesses on a phone on site needs to be the current revision. Not the revision that was current when the drawing was downloaded to the device. Not the revision that was issued to the contractor three weeks ago. The current revision. Technical drawing software that connects to a drawing management system where version control is enforced produces this currency automatically. Software that produces drawings that are distributed as files without systematic version control does not.
• Coordination across disciplines. A structural drawing that is coordinated against the architectural drawing and the services drawings before issue prevents the clashes that cause expensive rework when they are discovered on site. Technical drawing software that supports multi-discipline coordination produces drawings that go to site with fewer unresolved conflicts.
• Traceability of design decisions. The drawing revision that changed a structural specification. The detail that was modified in response to a buildability comment from the contractor. The drawing that was updated to reflect a client instruction. The history of design decisions embedded in the drawing revision history provides the commercial evidence that matters when questions arise about what was built and why.

The Software Categories That Matter

• Technical drawing software for construction covers several distinct categories that serve different parts of the design and construction process.
• CAD software for two dimensional drawing production. AutoCAD is the most widely known but the category includes many alternatives. Two dimensional CAD produces the plan, section, elevation and detail drawings that communicate construction information in the format that site teams, subcontractors and building inspectors work from. Despite the growth of three dimensional modeling the reality of most construction projects is that two dimensional CAD drawings remain the primary communication medium for construction information on site.
• BIM authoring software for information rich three dimensional models. Revit is dominant at the professional end. ArchiCAD maintains a significant presence. These platforms produce models that contain information beyond geometry. Elements that know what they are. Quantities that can be extracted automatically. Coordination capability that identifies clashes between disciplines before construction begins. The two dimensional drawings that emerge from BIM models can be coordinated against the three dimensional model they came from in ways that pure two dimensional CAD cannot achieve.
• Structural analysis and detailing software. Tekla Structures for structural steel and concrete. Various analysis packages that size structural elements and produce the calculations that justify design decisions. These tools produce the structural drawings and calculations that define how buildings stand up and that form the basis for structural contractor tender packages and construction programmes.
• Services design software. CAD and BIM tools specific to mechanical, electrical and plumbing design. The coordination of services routes through structural zones. The sizing of ductwork, pipework and electrical containment. The drawings that define what gets installed and how it connects to form the building services systems.
• Site engineering software. Civil design tools that produce earthworks drawings, drainage layouts, road designs and utility layouts. These drawings define the ground engineering work that precedes above ground construction and that is critical to the programme on most construction projects.

The Coordination Challenge That Drawing Software Must Address

• Construction buildings are three dimensional objects designed by teams using a combination of the software categories above without always coordinating the outputs of those different tools as rigorously as the physical coordination of the building requires.
• The structural beam that runs through the space where the ductwork was designed to go. The electrical containment that conflicts with the drainage run. The column that the architectural layout did not account for. These coordination failures are more common than they should be and they are almost always the result of different disciplines designing in isolation rather than coordinating against each other’s current information.
• Technical drawing software that supports coordination reduces these failures. BIM authoring tools that combine models from different disciplines and identify clashes. Referencing workflows in two dimensional CAD that allow one discipline’s drawings to be viewed alongside another’s during design. Issue tracking tools that log coordination conflicts and manage their resolution. These capabilities address the coordination challenge directly rather than leaving it to be discovered when the physical elements that conflict cannot both be installed in the same space.
• The programme implications of coordination failures discovered during design compared to during construction are significant. A clash identified in a drawing review costs the time of the review and the redesign. The same clash discovered when both elements cannot be installed costs the redesign plus the rework of whatever was already installed plus the programme delay while the solution is designed and implemented.

How Technical Drawing Software Connects to Construction Management

• The connection between technical drawing software and construction management determines whether the drawings that design software produces serve the construction process or exist as a separate set of documents that construction teams manage alongside the actual project management.
• Drawing management integration. The technical drawing software that connects to a drawing management system where version control, transmittal management and field access are properly handled produces a construction process where current drawings are always accessible to the people who need them. The software that produces files that are then managed through email distribution and shared drives produces a construction process where version confusion and inaccessible information create recurring problems.
• Programme connection. Drawings that are connected to the programme activities that depend on them surface their implications for the programme when they are revised. A structural drawing that changes the form of a foundation which is currently being constructed. A detail that modifies a specification which affects materials already on order. These connections between drawing revisions and programme activities are managed through manual attention when the drawing software and the programme management operate without connection. They are managed automatically when the connection exists.
• Commercial record. The drawing revision history that records what was current at each point in the project is the commercial evidence that supports extension of time claims, variation claims and final account positions. Technical drawing software that maintains this history as a systematic record rather than relying on email date stamps and download histories produces stronger commercial evidence than ad hoc drawing management.

The Field Access That Technical Drawing Software Must Support

• Technical drawing software that produces drawings that are not accessible to the field team in real site conditions is missing the most important use case for construction drawings.
• The site supervisor who needs to check a detail before proceeding with a complex junction. The subcontractor who needs to verify their set out against the current drawing before excavating. The inspector who needs to compare what was built against the current drawing during an inspection. All of these require drawing access in the field, in real site conditions, from whatever device is available.
• This field access requirement does not change what technical drawing software needs to produce. It changes how the drawings that software produces need to be managed and distributed. The PDF that is accessible from a phone through a drawing management system with offline capability serves the field team. The DWG file on a server that requires CAD software to open does not.
• The connection between technical drawing software and the drawing management system that provides field access is therefore as important as the quality of the drawings the software produces. Technical drawing software in isolation from proper drawing management serves the design function. Technical drawing software connected to proper drawing management serves both the design function and the construction function.
• EZY PMP is a platform built for construction businesses that want their drawing management connected to their project management. Providing the field access, version control and programmed connection that makes technical drawings genuinely useful to the construction team rather than just the design team. Designed for the realities of construction where drawings need to be current, accessible and connected to how the project is managed rather than existing as a separate document set that the construction team manages alongside the actual project.

Questions Worth Asking

How do we ensure that the technical drawings produced by our design software are accessible to field teams in real site conditions? 

• Establish a drawing management system that receives drawings from the design software, enforces version control and provides mobile access with offline capability. The field access requirement is a drawing management requirement rather than a drawing production requirement. The design software produces the drawings. The management system makes them accessible.

How do we coordinate drawings from different disciplines without requiring all disciplines to use the same software? 

• Establish a coordination process that operates on the output of different discipline software rather than requiring consistent software across disciplines. Combined PDF reviews. BIM coordination workflows that accept models in standard exchange formats. Issue tracking that logs conflicts regardless of which software produced the drawings that revealed them.

How do we maintain the drawing revision history as a useful commercial record rather than just an administrative archive? 

• Ensure that the drawing management system captures the purpose of each revision alongside the revision date and the revision number. What changed. Why did it changed. Who instructed the change. These details in the revision record produce commercial evidence that dates and revision numbers alone do not provide.