Working Drawings Handbook
your data are stored as negatives and prints and carbon
copies of letters in filing cabinets. If they were destroyed
by fire it would be possible to recover most of the lost
information by getting copies back from the client,
colleagues, contractor, and so on. Possibly you had
backed-up to microfiche, and kept copies away from
the office.
With CAD everything is kept on disk. All your data are
concentrated in one place, the hard disk. This is very
efficient, but it does allow the possibility of losing
everything at once. No technology is perfect and can
and will fail eventually, often without warning. Full and
frequent back-up procedures are essential. Back-ups
should be kept away from the office, in a fire-proof
safe, or preferably both. All back-up media have a
limited life.
Production drawing programme
The production drawings, if properly structured so that a
predetermined amount of information is conveyed in
them, should be the simplest aspect of the architect’s
work to quantify in terms of time taken. Having
established the list of drawings, it is better for two of the
more experienced people to make independent
assessments of the time that should be taken over each
drawing and to compare notes afterwards. Factors of
personal optimism or pessimism may thus be
discounted, and a more realistic time allocation made.
But experience is everything, and an inquest after the
programme has been completed, with feedback of
the actual time taken over each drawing as against the
time budgeted for, is essential if future programmes
are to be timed more accurately.
Priorities
In framing the stage F programme certain priorities will
emerge. Clearly, the establishment of the basic set of
general arrangement plans is fundamental, for they will
form the basis for elementalisation of subsequent
general arrangement plans and of other consultants’
work. After that the priorities will probably be dictated
by the needs of the quantity surveyor. An elemental
format makes it easier to group the issue of drawings
into separate packages—e.g. internal joinery, finishes,
etc., but this is only helpful if the packages are
genuinely complete. Few quantity surveyors will object
to receiving information piecemeal, but an early issue
of the openings schedule with half the details it refers
to still incomplete, only leads to an abortive start being
made on the measurement. On the other hand, the fact
that drawings of the basic structure may be issued and
measured without having to wait for the finishes to be
added to the same sheet does allow a bigger overlap
of the production drawings and billing programmes.Drawings should be allocated to team members in the
form of a simple bar chart. By this means, everyone can
see his personal short-term and long-term targets (5.14).Introducing new methods
When Working Drawings Handbookfirst appeared in
1982 the concept of structured drawings was alien to
many drawing offices. Their number has now diminished,
but the following notes are intended for offices which
have still not taken the plunge.The introduction of structured drawings into an office
which hitherto has managed without them requires
some thought. There must be many offices which, whilst
agreeing in principle that their work could be improved
by rationalisation of their working drawing methods, are
reluctant to take the first step on what might prove to be
a seductively attractive slippery slope.As with dieting and exercise, the two important things
are to start today rather than tomorrow and not to be
put off by the prophecies of failure which will be made
by those around you. In this latter respect, one common
fallacy may be dispelled at the outset. You will be told