Problem:

The Facilities department that manages the building needs to be able to produce construction drawings to complete small and large work orders in the building. The as-built drawing files contain all of the building features in a file for each floor of each building. The users are not CAD technicians, they are Engineers and Supervisors. The users need to be able to make a drawing of any location in the facility for these work orders. The facility consists of over 1,000,000 sq. ft. with three buildings and up to nine floors in the buildings. The users need to be able to modify and add items to complete the project drawings. The users also need to be able to plot out the drawings so they can be issued to the contractors to complete the construction of the project. The items that are added to the drawings need to be added according to the drawing and CAD standards. The project drawings would normally include 5 or 6 different drawing types. When the project was completed the drawings needed to put back into the as-built drawing files to maintain the up to date floor plans.

Create a Custom Program to Automate the Process of creating a drawing any where in the complex. Create a Custom Program to Automate the Process of putting the project drawings back into the as-built floor plans. Create Blocks and tools to allow the additional of walls, lights, ceilings etc on the correct layers, linetypes and text styles according to the drawing and CAD standards. Create a user interface that includes Pull Down menus, Toolbars, Shortcuts and Dialog boxes. Make the users job about worrying about the project design and not about what are the drawing and CAD standards and how do I do this.

Outcome:

The users with very little training were able to create and complete drawings on their own without the help of a CAD technician. The drawings were all created to the company standards with out the users having to think or worry about it.

Statistics:

There were ten (10) users of the customization. The project took seven (7) months to implement the drawing creation and completion part at a cost of $60,300. The remaining customization, allowing users to work to the company standards took an additional nine (9) months to complete at a cost of $24,500. The total project development was 930 hours and $84,800.