1. CAD Conversion

2. Scanning and Editing a Raster Image

3. Manually Maintaining Drawings on Paper

CAD conversion offers significant advantages over other methods, such as cost saving, increased drawing value, and improved overall drawing management efficiency.

Reduce the Cost of Revisions.

Revisions done in CAD may be 2-8 times faster than the same revision done by manual methods. Conversion allows the user to take advantage of these savings even when working with old paper drawings.

Cost of revision may be further reduced by shortening the time between CAD revisions. Converting drawings to fully vectorized files increases the ease of editing.

"… 80% of all new designs are based on old drawings."

Add Value to Drawings.

Once the drawing is in CAD format, the uses for it increase dramatically. For instance, intelligent CAD files can be used with cost estimating software, facilities management applications such as area calculation and inventory tracking as well as engineering design and analysis software or numerically controlled machining in manufacturing.

Intelligent CAD drawings can also significantly reduce the time required to extract data from the drawings and enter it into databases which are used for such things as maintenance and material control, project management, quality assurance attributes with symbols from a vectorized drawing.

Reduce Drawing Life Cycle Cost

Since conversion is a one-time cost, the second and third revisions to a drawing produce even greater saving, reducing the overall cost of maintaining a drawing throughout its useful life. This saving also results in earlier payback for conversion projects.

Create a Standard Filing System

Establishing CAD as the standard filing procedure will decrease the amount of engineering time spent looking for drawings, and also the number of lost drawings. A standard CD-ROM can store more than a thousand drawings.

The Document Management advantage.

Once files are in electronic format, document management can be used to further increase and enhance productivity. Options range from a simple file storage system with limited revision tracking to a system that securely controls viewing, editing, and distribution of all engineering-related information.

Many organizations are required to comply with standards and regulations that virtually necessitate electronic document management. According to the British Standards Institute, 47 percent of ISO certification failure is due to poor documentation control.

Obtain a Competitive Advantage

Converting drawings to CAD allows a firm to project a consistent, progressive, and high quality image to their clients by eliminating the use of outdated manual drafting methods. CAD is recognized as the industry standard in technical drafting and can now be used for drawings, which were created before CAD.

Maintain a Consistent Level of Quality for all Your Projects

Begin the commitment of quality at the very first stage of any project; even those projects utilizing old and tattered paper drawings. With CAD conversion, company standards such as text fonts, line weights and other drafting standards are enforced. CAD drawings offer a much higher and more consistent level of quality.

The Hidden Costs of Paper

Manual methods of handling, storing, and maintaining paper drawings are difficult, time-consuming, and costly since most information is still in paper form. The following are some of the most obvious problems with maintaining paper archives:

· Paper drawings, mylar, blueprints, and other media are susceptible to aging and damage over time.

· Manual-based revisions are costly, particularly with drawings requiring frequent updates.

· Paper is slow to distribute. It takes longer to copy and distribute a single piece of paper than it takes to distribute or reproduce several documents electronically.

· You may be fully modernized, with a full suite of CAD software, but what about your contractors, subcontractors, and business partners? Many transactions between companies are inefficiently conducted with manual archives even when the originals may have been CAD files.

· Paper is cumbersome. It is often hard to find specific information in specific documents. Electronic searching is more efficient and faster.

· Paper is restricted in format. It is limited to graphics and text, while electronic documents can contain hyperlinks, audio, and video.

· Paper is static. It can be out of date even before it is distributed because of lengthy release cycles. The added concern of who has the most recent revision exacerbates this problem.

· Facilities costs for the storage and maintenance of paper archives can be substantial. Justifying a document management system can be based on significant reductions in facility costs alone.

· Paper gets lost. It is estimated that five to seven percent of technical assets are lost or misfiled using manual procedures for handling paper drawings.