What are the Resourcing Benefits of Outsourcing Architectural CAD Drafting Services?

architectural CAD drafting services

When did people become Resources?

In offices, would be our guess! Decades ago, as industrialization led to corporatization, ‘guys’ had moved to ‘factory workers’, and the office workers were the ‘white collared workers’. Over the years they became ‘staff’ (as opposed to Boss), evolved to personnel. Over the years, management, complexity and the need to motivate people, personnel were now Managers, Assistant Managers, CAD Technicians, Customer Care Executives, Business Analysts and many more.  A further egalitarian and motivational thought viewed these ‘staff’ as ‘Human Assets or Resources’.

In the context of architectural CAD drafting services, these ‘resources’ were broadly:

• Drafters
• CAD Technicians
• Supervisors
• Quality Assurance Officers
• Managers
• Designers

We pay dollars, we get work. What’s this about ‘Resourcing Benefits’?

The fee paid to an architectural CAD drafting services firm gets justified by the work delivered.  In that context, these benefits, categorized as ‘resourcing’, are actually a bonus:

• Special Skills: An architect’s firm may not find it viable to employ people with skills that are note needed all year round, for example, skills in:
• A particular project type, say, healthcare or colleges
• A particular software, say, Navisworks, ArchiCAD, Primevera
• A particular technicality, say kitchen design, modular furniture retrofits, wiring diagrams
• Regional expertise, say, knowledge or access to the construction technology or permit laws or even representation in a particular country or state

Up scaling: Apart from the critical mass that an architect’s studio size needs, a project may need an increase in staff that a seasoned architect knows will not be permanent.  And any increase in headcount over 30% involves major costs in:

• Investments in infrastructure, sometimes a totally new space
• Investments in new management systems.
• Cost of process slow down and lost man hours due to these changes

Hence, tapping the resources of an architectural CAD drafting services firm, apart from giving freedom from all these concerns above, also gives the benefit of being able to upscale in a very short period of time

• Downsizing: The new age term ‘Right-sizing’ does not, unfortunately, reduce the feelings a firm goes through when they have to let some of their own go. Design creates an emotional bond. Downsizing can happen for various reasons:
• Economy: an easy whipping horse. But the fact is, even when making AEC as a career choice, one knows how the economy would affect this industry as compared to, say, a career in commodities, apparel or software. But, yes, AEC having a secondary and even tertiary level of economic dependence makes it an easy hit in a recession
• Cash reserves: a risk taking self-funded growth can erode reserves and surplus, which were meant for a rainy day
• Lack of vision or experience
• A gamble gone wrong: a large project the company sustained on gets stopped, stalled or the firm simply gets fired

Hiring an architectural CAD drafting services firm spares the architect the economic, emotional and legal troubles that go with downsizing

Understood. So Outsourcing helps the firm. Does it help the staff in any way?

Interesting question! Our next Blog looks at exactly this: Does the staff benefit from Architectural CAD Drafting Services?