Drawing Updates, Revisions & "Releases"

[dogleg43]

This is not really an AutoCAD question but one on updating drawings.

We do mainly electrical control drawings and I'm used to putting revision # in the title block with a brief description and date of the change. Then somewhere on the drawing a numbered revision triangle would be shown near the changes with a revision cloud circling the change.

Now my company wants to also put a "Submittal Release" number in the drawing title block also (or a Shop Release #, or an Installation Release #.)

So here's my question, if we've already done an Installation Release Ver. 1 and I make one update to one drawing then should I update the entire set of drawings to "Installation Release Ver. 2 and issue a completely new set of drawings? I'm just an old dog trying to keep up and am not familiar with Release #'s.

 

[Sparweb]

You're right, this is way beyond the scope of an "AutoCAD" question. I think the answer to your question is "Yes", since any change to the drawing will be worthless if it is not communicated to the shop floor and distinguished in some way from the previous version. However, why did you not call the updated drawing a "revision"? Any change to a drawing usually implies a revision. If the one drawing that's been changed is part of a larger package, then the means of controlling the distribution of the rest of these drawings may or not be in your control - out of sheer economy I would prefer not to re-issue the rest of the drawings, but that may not be up to me.

The system that I think you're asking about goes beyond the content of the drawing. Management may want you involved in that or they may keep you in your silo (depending on your company's "culture"). If this is going to work, there has to be some way for the person in the shop to recognize that a drawing is out of date and/or replace the out of date drawing at once when a change is made. This system has to continue to work after the drawing was released and even as the work is in progress. This implies a tracking system or a database of some sort that controls the release or version of the drawing that the worker uses. It may also imply that a person becomes responsible to monitoring the status of all drawings that have been issued to the shop. There could also be a "round-up" of paper drawings at the end of each shop shift and a redistribution of drawings at the start of the next. That's pretty abrupt, in practice, so more subtle computerized tracking systems are more efficient, even when paper drawings are still in use.

Whatever system gets created, I don't know of a good "cookbook", although I'm sure there have been books written about it by some distinguished MBA's. On incremental changes, such as the one you've asked about, the trouble will mostly be with things such the new title block, getting draughtsmen to change their habits, and ensuring that the correct version is tracked and entered on the print.



STF

 

[dogleg43]

SparWeb, thanks for your detailed reply. We are a small company and one of the other engineers was adamant about using the term "release" when referring to a set of drawings. As is often the case when doing things by committee there is some give and take. I didn't then and still do not understand this term but he likes it so I'm going along with it. I was able to get a concession from him to start everything with version or release 1.0 instead of 0.0. Also the first page is page 01 instead of 00. Never could understand why someone would want to start counting 0, and yes I do understand binary, and other numbering systems.

Thanks again for your reply.

 

[dbill74]

So here's my question, if we've already done an Installation Release Ver. 1 and I make one update to one drawing then should I update the entire set of drawings to "Installation Release Ver. 2 and issue a completely new set of drawings? I'm just an old dog trying to keep up and am not familiar with Release #'s.

That's a question you need to ask your managers/engineers. To avoid confusion, for a project/job that started using Revision #s, you should continue to use that title block/nomenclature for that project/job. Save the new nomenclature for new projects/jobs.