WORKING DRAWINGS HANDBOOK, Fourth Edition

Working drawing management

Working drawing management

confidently that architects are individualists and will fight
tooth and nail against any suggestion of rationalised
drawing, standardised detailing or mathematically
oriented coding systems. This you will find to be untrue,
architects being as fundamentally lazy and anxious for
a trouble-free existence as anyone else. Experience
indicates that given a common-sense system which is
fundamentally easy to use, people will use it.

The sequence to take

However, take one step at a time. There are several
degrees of rationalisation and they should be introduced
in sequence:

 Standardise drawing size and format for all new
projects entering production drawing stage.

 Rationalise new projects into the general

arrangement, assembly, component, sub-component,

schedule format.

 Select one such project for the experimental

application of CI/SfB (or Uniclass) coding and let it

run through its production phase before attempting a

general application of the method. You will thus have

built up some office case law to assist in answering

the query ‘How do we code for this situation?’which

will arise on subsequent projects.

 Now that you have each project producing

component and assembly information in a common

format and within the context of a coding system

offering ease of retrieval, you are in a position, if you

so wish, to introduce standard solutions to various

aspects of your detailing.

5.14 A drawing office programme allocates individual team members appropriate work loads. The elemental
approach means that DC, for example, can follow the (3-) element right through, dealing with it in its general
arrangement, component and assembly aspects