How to take your Fabrication Activities to the Next Level!

Regardless of whether it's worked in the past (and occasionally continues to do so), the days of going by informal hand-drawn sketches for fabrication projects are over for any company worth its salt.?There are simply too many chances for mistakes, confusion, and potential safety hazards to rely on informal drawings, no matter how experienced the designer. Digital generation and control of CAD drawings is the way of the future and there are many benefits to formally digitizing your backlog. But first, what exactly should fabricators digitize? Well, Valens Project Consulting is here to tell you exactly how we will take your operations to the next level!

What items would be a good idea to have converted to CAD?

Many fabricators, especially small shop owners, pride themselves in having a backlog spanning years, even decades. While this is definitely a great achievement, filing and pulling up specific drawings from eight and a half years ago can be a challenge. Often, these drawings are on raggedy, dirty papers and one can never be sure if the right revision has been pulled up... or even if there was ever more than one revision! Also, formal blueprints may exist, but they may have been developed by a firm or on a software package that's not around anymore, so for starters, here are a few necessities to bring up to date:

• Convert hand-drawn sketches or scans into CAD (2D or 3D)
• Convert 2D prints into 3D components
• All fabrication drawings along with notes should be digitized
• All manufacturing drawings, including BOMs, should be digitized
• Any images of past projects with no formal drawings should be converted into CAD

Advantages of outsourcing your CAD

While keeping a close eye on your CAD team is an initial reaction for many, it opens the possibility for meddling in the process and give in to micromanaging. As the British inspirational speaker has said: "A boss who micromanages is like a coach who wants to get in the game. Leaders guide and support and then sit back to cheer from the sidelines." So sit back and trust that your organization will benefit from:

1 High-Quality Services

A company that relies on the expectation of accurate and reliable results knows that it has a lot to lose if inadequate deliverables are submitted. Rest assured that accuracy is their main goal.

2 Timely Deliveries

Besides attention to quality, a company responsible for your CAD knows that time is money. Outsourcing can help you enjoy increased customer satisfaction and your customers will remain loyal to your organization.

3 Reduced Costs

Companies that attempt everything in-house have much higher training, research, development, marketing, and distribution expenses, all of which must be passed on to customers. Third-party cost structures and economies of scale can give your firm a key competitive advantage.

4 Expert Skilled Services

In many organizations, especially smaller companies, employees are forced to wear different hats at different times according to the situation. By outsourcing CAD services, you're guaranteed to get results from individuals who are not jack-of-all-trades, but rather, experts that stick to the same duties day in and day out.

5 Little Investment in Software and Tools

You often only need reading versions of software, such a .dwg reader, as opposed to the whole software package, which are quite pricey. And a lot of the times, there are free versions of these readers online that allow you to mark up a file as necessary.

6 Adherence to Industry Codes and Standards

By relying on a third-party, you're expecting them to communicate in clear, concise industry terminology that everyone through the chain of command down to your customer's customer can understand. When doing things in-house, some interesting terminology can creep up!

7 Enjoy the Latest Ideas and Technologies

Renders are a relatively new feature of advanced CAD packages and are definitely a luxury that was not very common 20 and even 10 years ago. Along with other built-in features of higher end software packages (such as FEA capabilities), one never knows what additional services you can delight your customer with, so keep an open mind when hearing about the latest and greatest bells and whistles a third-party CAD company may suggest.

A picture is worth a thousand words

All the above benefits should be taken in the context that a company exists to make money, so if you're siting in front of a decision maker that is not entirely versed in interpreting complex assembly drawings, 3D models can paint the picture clearly and seal the deal... after all, what is easiest to interpret by most people, a bunch of black and white drawings or something like the image below?

The choice is simple!

Various of the above images are used by permission from S&S Metal Fabrication, https://schneidersimpson.com/, with the support of Valens Project Consulting