Working drawing management
On the other hand, it is frustrating to realise that the
detail being worked out laboriously in one room on
project A is not going to end up significantly different
from the detail simultaneously being worked up across
the corridor for project B. There should be room
somewhere for a common-sense approach which does
not attempt too much.
In practice, few assembly details can be drawn so
‘neutrally’ as to render them directly reusable on more
than one project. The best that can be achieved in this
field is to collect together drawings for various projects
which embody solutions to recurring problems of
principle, making them available for reference rather
than direct reuse. The ease with which details drawn
with CAD from another project can be altered and
reused makes them ideal candidates for an office’s
standard vocabulary.
Component drawings are another matter, however, and
provided that the office is using a structured drawing
method it should be possible for each project to
contribute its quota of contractor-made components
(there is no point in redrawing proprietary items) to a
central library. Such components as doorsets, shelving,
cupboard fitments and external works items—bollards,
fencing, etc.—are suitable subjects for treatment.
The details, once selected for a standard library,
should sensibly be renumbered to ensure that when
reused on new projects they do not conflict with the
numbering sequence for that project. C(32)501, for
example, might well be the first drawing in a library of
internal joinery components, and would not conflict with
component details specific to the project and numbered
C(32)001, etc.
The use of CAD raises other issues. The ease with
which details stored electronically may be altered means
that assembly drawings too may more frequently form
part of a standard vocabulary.
Design team programme
It is essential for the work of the entire design team to
be integrated into a comprehensive programme, and
unless a specialist programmer forms part of the team
(and this is almost a sine qua nonfor any very large or
complex project) then the management role of team
coordinator falls to the architect. Of all the consultant
team an architect is probably best fitted by virtue of his
training and other duties to exercise the skills required,
and should take advantage of his position as team
leader to establish the appropriate procedures at the
outset (see the section Design team meeting).In setting down the programme on paper, it will be found
that a simple network is the best format, where the
dependencies of the various team members upon each
other may need to be shown. The format suggested in
an early (but still valid) edition of the RIBA Management
Handbook Guide on Resource Controlis a good way to
do it (5.5).Its complexity may be unnecessarily daunting for the
small- to medium-sized project however, particularly
when a non-technical client is involved (the method is
best suited to computer analysis and critical path
method which may not always be available). A simplified
version on which a time scale has been superimposed
will serve the same purpose in most cases (5.6).The point to be re-iterated is that every job, no matter
how small, benefits from thoughtful programming, and
the things to watch which are common to any method
you use are:Restrict the network to as few activities as you reasonably
can, paying particular attention to those activities whose
completion is a prerequisite for subsequent action by
others. The purpose of the network is to provide each
member of the team with basic management information.
(Each team member may well wish to develop, for their