Advice on going paperless?
Advice on going paperless?
(OP)
I have been given the task of helping our department begin the process of going paperless (or nearly paperless) for engineering drawings. This is primarily driven by the fact that plotter/scanner rental, plotter supplies, and shipping drawings to our home office overseas is starting to get very expensive (we are spending close to $10,000/year for everything). We are planning on implementing a process where drawings will be generated by the CAD software, digitally approved and signed, and sent to the home office by secure file transfer. The problem we have is determining what to do for the following issues:
1. Currently we rent a plotter with large format scanner but we would like to get rid of it because support is lousy and its expensive to operate. Our plan was to purchase an inexpensive plotter for the rare occasions we will need to print a full size drawing. The issue is that we don't know what to do about a large format plotter.
2. Our Quality department currently uses paper drawings for inspection purposes and they are very reluctant to give this up, so I'm looking for ideas to help them do away with paper as much as possible without interfering with inspections.
3. Our younger engineers are content with doing drawing checks using 8.5"x11" or 11"x17" size paper, but the older engineers want everything printed full size (up to A0 in some case). Because of this, I'm looking for ideas to give the older engineers a paper-like experience for checking drawings without plotting everything in sight.
If anyone out there has ideas or tips for going paperless, I would be very happy to hear them.
1. Currently we rent a plotter with large format scanner but we would like to get rid of it because support is lousy and its expensive to operate. Our plan was to purchase an inexpensive plotter for the rare occasions we will need to print a full size drawing. The issue is that we don't know what to do about a large format plotter.
2. Our Quality department currently uses paper drawings for inspection purposes and they are very reluctant to give this up, so I'm looking for ideas to help them do away with paper as much as possible without interfering with inspections.
3. Our younger engineers are content with doing drawing checks using 8.5"x11" or 11"x17" size paper, but the older engineers want everything printed full size (up to A0 in some case). Because of this, I'm looking for ideas to give the older engineers a paper-like experience for checking drawings without plotting everything in sight.
If anyone out there has ideas or tips for going paperless, I would be very happy to hear them.





RE: Advice on going paperless?
If you are producing A0/E size drawings I strongly recommend keeping the ability to at least print hard copy C size drawings. E size drawing scaled to C is normally legible. We actually increased our drawing font size from around .12" to .15" to facilitate legibility of drawings printed at smaller scale but E drawings on 11*17 are still a strain.
Also how anyone can seriously check all but the simplest drawing on 8.5*11 is beyond me. It's not just the scale of the drawing but if you need to add any written comments/corrections etc. then it's difficult to fit them in.
(Some might wonder what the younger, and presumably inexperienced, engineers are even doing checking drawings - if by checking you mean really detail drawing check.)
I have twin 26" monitors on my PC and still struggle to properly review drawings on the screen, if I'm seriously reviewing a drawing I print hard copy. However it has massively reduced the number of reference prints I run off as I can generally have any reference drawing or data sheet etc. on one screen at reasonable scale while working CAD on the other screen.
Our CAD system has a view & mark up utility for data review etc. but we don't make much use of it, maybe we should more.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Advice on going paperless?
RE: Advice on going paperless?
We use this to review and mark up shop drawings.
It saves a lot of paper since we (whole project team) typically got 6 copies of the shop drawings to make sure everybody got a chance to review.
If somebody wants to print, they can print them whatever size they want.
RE: Advice on going paperless?
Our paper consumption went up by a factor of five, maybe ten.
After the transition, our paper supplier was restocking the pallet loads of paper at the printers at least twice a week.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Advice on going paperless?
One of my clients use Egnyte for their file storage/management/ distribution, and I think are happy with it.
RE: Advice on going paperless?
David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering
Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat
RE: Advice on going paperless?
First-- I'm not a salesman. I'm a building structural engineer and I've been using Bluebeam for six years. It's great for marking up shop drawings, making quick sketches and generally keeping the world from seeing my crummy handwriting. I try to do all my yellow marking in it. That way, I can save a soft copy for my records and tada! erase all my yellow highlighter marks in one click so its ready to go back to the contractor. No more copying redlines. Helps to have large (or duel monitors) of course, but that's a small price to pay.
If you're into Revit and other 3D modeling software, it's easy to make 3D PDFs...which you can then redline. Great to show coordination conflicts or discuss fussy steel connections with fabricators.
We are just starting to use their cloudbased Studio/Session features. So far, so good. Great for meetings and cross collaboration between offices. Great for site visits with an iPad. Simply take a photo and embed into a PDF of the job. No more "where was that again"'s.
I enjoy it so much-- I've purchased a copy for myself to use at home. Way cleaner than Adobe. Great program.
"We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us." -WSC
RE: Advice on going paperless?
When are they going to come out with 36" * 48" touch screens so we can markup an E size drawing?
RE: Advice on going paperless?
On #2 and #3, my suggestion may sound tongue in cheek but it's really not:
Big. Ass. Monitors.
For your QC guys, consider piping a projection TV up onto a white board. You could project at double the plot size easily, and they could mark it up with a marker, and snap a photo of their redlines with their camera phone. This is also useful for meetings.
Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com
RE: Advice on going paperless?
RE: Advice on going paperless?
Also: I think that E size drawings (36*48") need to be retired. They are such a pain in the neck, especially digitally.
RE: Advice on going paperless?
Maine EIT, Civil/Structural.
RE: Advice on going paperless?
Best to you,
Goober Dave
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RE: Advice on going paperless?
Have you considered getting a tabloid (11×17") printer? You can set up your title blocks for this size, and systematically use B sized drawings. Lots of fabrication shops have printers like this. I am considering getting one for me here at home!
If you plan to stick with A0/E , I second KENAT's point about fonts. D and E drawings are fairly readable in B size if the fonts are 4mm or .15".
--
JHG
RE: Advice on going paperless?
Digital whiteboard? I want one of those hovering behind me around jobsites.
B+W Engineering and Design
Los Angeles Civil Engineer and Structural Engineer
http://bwengr.com
RE: Advice on going paperless?
I miss A3 a very great deal since my return to Canada. *pout*
RE: Advice on going paperless?
The vast majority of our content is digital already, but we have an impression that reading and reviewing drawings on a screen is harder for the reader than having a paper copy. I don't know about you, but I have reviewed my drawings on screen before printing them, printed them, and found all of my errors on the print copy. Something about the printed word I suspect.
If we go to big touch screens and digital reviewing software (like BlueBeam), will we still struggle with the fact that it's a screen view and not a printed word? Can anyone speak from experience?
RE: Advice on going paperless?
RE: Advice on going paperless?
Are you saying that just changing media changes perspective? I have found that to be the case. Even something as simple as a post in eng-tips.com if I hit the preview button I will find mistakes that I didn't see in the edit pane. If I then print out the post (which I've done a few times with long posts) I find other errors. Not sure what physical concepts are at work here, but it seems to work.
David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. —Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist
RE: Advice on going paperless?
RE: Advice on going paperless?
"definitive conclusions cannot be drawn." My personal experience is that mistakes persist to a noticeably higher degree when reviewing on the screen rather than paper. I have also noticed this in other people. Our secretary brought up the point that we are digital immigrants instead of digital natives, but I suspect the problem will remain.
RE: Advice on going paperless?
One comparison for me is flipping between drawings in paper vs PDF. If you have a general plan on sheet 5 and a details on sheet 105, 107, and 112, paper tends to be easier. If you have lots of hatching/detail, the graphics card has a little regeneration time, plus you have to zoom back into your spot on the drawings.
What do you guys think about reviewing 3D CAD models rather than PDF/paper? I have been getting more of that lately.
RE: Advice on going paperless?
I went to a customers office to review a drawing I had done for him, I walked into his office to find that he had the drawing piped from his computer to a 60" HDTV flat screen TV. Whilst this was not a touch screen TV, you could very definitely see the things that you missed in 8.5X11 format and the definition was very good too. I am now considering getting a large screen TV for a extra monitor.
B.E.
You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.
RE: Advice on going paperless?
When I was doing drawings regularly, I would self-check my drawings before making my first print. My goal was to catch all errors that I could on screen before handing a print over to my boss for checking. No matter what technique or effort I took to self-check on screen I would find the vast majority of my mistakes immediately after printing to paper. And the mistakes absolutely jumped out at me from the paper.
I personally suspect that it's the change in media that causes my brain to re-process it. Just like writing what you hear makes you remember it better. Maybe changing the CAD color scheme or font would have the same effect, I don't know. But if we don't crack this nut then going paperless on our job engineering could have significant design accuracy costs.
David
RE: Advice on going paperless?
As to checking 3D models as part of MBD I really don't know how people manage it. I'm not saying it can't be done but seems very difficult. In a drawing it's all laid out there for you, multi page drawings get a bit trickier but often not too bad on a well laid out drawing. However, with MBD having to dig in to different pre saved views and orientations etc. seems like a recipe for missing things.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Advice on going paperless?
RE: Advice on going paperless?
Large format drawings have their place. There is real world outside the design/drawing office.
RE: Advice on going paperless?
RE: Advice on going paperless?
Regards,
RE: Advice on going paperless?
RE: Advice on going paperless?
Regards,
RE: Advice on going paperless?
I agree that there's something magical about reviewing on paper. My brain just doesn't seem to take what I see on the screen quite as seriously.
We try to keep everything legible at 11x17. We rarely need to resort to D size, but when we do, we have an inkjet plotter.
RE: Advice on going paperless?
For whatever reason, its hard to convince the IT guys to spend the extra $150 each for decently sized (and high resolution) monitors when they are most definitely worth it.
I bought a 24" monitor in 2008 for $300 with 1920x1200. Still working at home today.
RE: Advice on going paperless?
RE: Advice on going paperless?
Just to note, the new versions of Windows have a half-decent searching ability where you can use AND, OR etc as well. However, Microsoft stupidly doesn't enable the indexer service on server OS's automatically. But, once it's enabled you can use Windows Explorer to search file names and content inside documents. You can see a highlighted preview using the content view and preview the document with the preview window. You can get up to date search results from a server with a terabyte of data in seconds.
RE: Advice on going paperless?
I heartily agree with both glass99 & zdas04.
I can stare at the screen for hours and never see the faux pas that seems to jump off the paper as soon as I plot the drawing and look at it.
This may stem from starting in the construction industry as a drafter in 1969 (AutoCAD - WTF is that?), diving into CAD at AutoCAD v1.6, obtaining my first P.E. license in 1990, my BSCE in 1992 and now working about 90% on the screen.
Much of my career was in manual drafting and real, paper drawings.
I think there's something about the change in media that helps to spot errors, at least for me. I continue to recommend that anyone producing drawings plot the drawing and look at carefully the next day.
When it comes to reference drawings, paper is far better than PDFs. Flipping back & forth between plan & section/details is so much quicker with paper.
Ralph
Structures Consulting
Northeast USA