Small Project Design

Dear Small Project Practitioners,

Does anyone have a good rule of thumb regarding the time-to-effort equation when redlining drawings.  I have explained to my project architect that if she spends as much time redlining a print as it will take to make the corrections, then she may as well just make the corrections and shorthand the red-lines. While certainly the nature of the red-lines will determine how long it should take, I'm talking about the easy stuff like catching spelling errors, drawing labels, door/window tags, and similar coordination.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this matter.


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Andrew M Fethes AIA
Andrew Fethes Architects
Oradell NJ
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"It depends."  But I'm not Andrew is asking the right question.

It depends on whether the redlining effort is part of the training your project architect is providing to tech staff (interns or non-registration-path staff), or if it is correction of sloppy work.  If it is the former, then it is appropriate to combine her redlining effort with training on firm and industry standards, such as "here is how we tag doors and windows" or "here are the abbreviations we use on drawings" or "exterior wall metal studs use the Division 05 keynote, and interior partition metal studs use the Division 09 keynote, and here's why."  If the redlining work is for continuous correction of poor or incomplete tech staff work, that is another problem.  It may mean you need to reevaluate keeping the tech staff on your project teams.

It doesn't take 10 or 12 years of combined university education plus work experience to learn how to spell, tag windows and doors, and keynote materials.  If your tech staff cannot perform that level of work without the oversight and red lining of a project architect, then you are wasting your project architect's talents and time.  It is then truly more cost effective to eliminate the tech positions, which many firms do.  However, if you wish to grow your project architect's capabilities to manage larger teams and larger projects, as well as grow your firm's volume, then you need to establish technical standards, hire and train appropriate tech staff, and set expectations for the extent and quality of work that tech staff should be able to perform independent of input from the project architect.

I've seen large and small firms succeed and fail at this effort over the years.  Those firms willing to invest some effort in establishing a body of standards and systematize how those standards are maintained and communicated are able to utilize tech staff effectively.  Those who elect not to generally operate most profitably with no tech support for their PAs, with the resultant lower project size and volume capability.

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Philip Kabza AIA
Partner and Dir Technical Services
SpecGuy
Charlotte NC
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Stephen Sutton AIA
Tampa FL
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Corrections as you go may be largely true for individual drawings particularly with the typical editorial or technical or style changes. However, the higher purpose for redlining a complete or nearly complete set of drawings is to plan and execute an across the board coordination of features, details and overall technical quality. The redlineing process should always be part of a document quality control program. I have found coordination work to be best as a group exercise. More eyes on the work results in a sharper end product. On a drawing by drawing basis, I regard the quality of my technical/architectural staff, by their own error trapping methodology. No one "system" works under all conditions. But having a consistent quality control methodology greatly enhances a firm's reputation via the quality of their deliverables.

Recognized quality in professional services is priceless.

There's something to be said for going through the exercise a few times, even if you are doing the pickups yourself.  Next time there may be fewer redlines; it's sort of a "wow, look at all those things I had to correct" factor.

That said, spelling, door numbers, etc. can get by with just a circle instead of writing it all out.

Head of the firm when I started here had a collection of very short red pencils, all with the erasers worn off the end; at least we knew that what we were being asked to draw was exactly what was desired.  Another, whose mantra was the good old "now is the time to draw the line on the number of lines we draw", was unable to resist the urge to draw, in red, exactly what we were to draw with plastic lead on mylar.  He was faster at it than we were, though.

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Joel Niemi AIA
DYKEMAN
Everett WA
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PAs hate to touch originals, don'tcha know; likely aren't all that good with CAD.  Don't like to order their own prints, either.  Besides, the heavy purple robes get in the way of drafting or using the keyboard. They only keep red Col-erase pencils handy, anyway.
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Gary Collins AIA
Principal
G.R. Collins Plus Associates
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