QUESTION OF THE WEEK: Digital Blueprints

This Question of the Week comes from the Facilities Management Group on LinkedIn.

Do you currently have your blueprints/site plans/large format drawings in digital format? If so, how has it simplified your work process?

Marybeth Fasciano
The Quinlan Companies
Boston, MA

Share your feedback and suggestions in the LEAVE A COMMENT section below.


2 COMMENTS

  1. The blueprints for the building in which I am the electrician, 35 story hotel, were scanned and then placed on the computer. We then used a free file sharing program so that we could access them with smart phones and tablets. It is very easy to find exactly what circuit you want to repair, or to lock out a piece of machinery that way. With over 300 panels and 5 13.2 Kva substations on site there is no way I can remember what each circuit does. And if we need to add or modify the prints it is relatively easy to do as they are in pdf format.

    Hope this helps

  2. When I began my FM position 25 years ago the company I work for only had 81/2″ X 11″ hard copies of building drawings, and site maps. We had asbuilts of the buildings but many changes had taken place since the day they were built. I was able to find a guy that knew AutoCAD that was willing to work by the hour reasonably to measure all my facilities and then to draw them in AutoCAD. It has been a tremendous benefit! We still use them today. My group is not an expert in AutoCAD and we don’t try to be. Most of the time we simply use 81/2″ X 11″ pdf of the drawings. But when we work with engineers or architects they are happy to see we have the AutoCAD files. Now when we do major renovation or new construction we require the architect to give us the digital rights to all the construction files and drawings so we can keep everything up to date as we go.

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