Case study: engineering, Perth
How a Perth Engineering Firm Delivered 45% More Drawing Packages a Month
A Perth engineering consultancy added a dedicated offshore CAD drafting team in the Philippines, lifting output from 200 to 290 drawing packages a month and cutting drafting turnaround from 10 to 7 working days.
Combined Perth and offshore team, before and after
- More drawing packages
- 45%
- Average turnaround, down from 10
- 7 days
- Saved each year
- A$90,000
A Perth engineering consultancy lifted its drafting output by 45%, from 200 to 290 drawing packages a month, and cut average drafting turnaround by 30%. Its offshore CAD team costs A$8,500 a month against A$16,000 for equivalent local capacity, saving A$90,000 a year.
The firm's project pipeline was growing faster than its in-house drafting capacity. Engineers were absorbing redline updates and routine CAD work, and revision queues were stretching delivery timelines.
The firm set up a dedicated CAD drafting team in the Philippines through Offshore 24/7. Drawing production moved offshore. Design decisions, specifications and final approval stayed in Perth.
The challenge: project growth outpaced drafting capacity
The consultancy's work depended on accurate drawings, timely revisions and consistent documentation. As its project pipeline grew, drafting became the constraint.
Local engineers were spending time on redline updates, drawing corrections and routine CAD tasks. That work competed with design development, technical reviews and project coordination.
Revisions compounded the problem. Client feedback, updated specifications, site information and review comments all generated more drafting, and when several projects needed changes at once, the queue backed up.
Adding permanent drafting staff meant recruitment, onboarding and employment costs. The firm needed more production capacity while keeping technical control, drawing consistency and accountability with its Perth engineers.
The solution: an offshore CAD team, with engineering authority kept in Perth
Offshore 24/7 set up a dedicated drafting team in the Philippines to handle production, not engineering. The Perth team continued to define requirements, supply technical inputs, review deliverables and approve drawings for release.
The offshore team took on
- Preparing and updating technical drawings to the firm's templates, standards and layer conventions
- Incorporating documented redline markups and revision instructions
- Preparing, organising and formatting drawing sets for internal review
- Maintaining drawing registers, revision tracking and file organisation
- Working through defined drafting queues during peak project demand
- Escalating incomplete inputs and technical questions before they affected production
The Perth team kept
- Design decisions and technical specifications
- Compliance with standards and contractual requirements
- Engineering review and technical verification
- Final drawing approval and release
- Task allocation by project priority and complexity
Standards aligned before production
The firm reviewed its drawing types, software, file structures, naming conventions and revision procedures. It then separated tasks needing engineering judgement from those that could follow approved instructions.
A controlled ramp-up
Early assignments were clearly defined drawings and revisions, checked by the local team, with feedback used to cut recurring errors. Once quality was consistent, the offshore team took a larger share of eligible work, and the firm tracked output, turnaround, revision quality and review effort.
The results: 45% more drawing packages a month
The combined team now completes 290 drawing packages a month, up from 200: a 45% increase in drafting output.
| Measure | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drawing packages completed per month | 200 | 290 | +90 |
Output increase = (290 − 200) ÷ 200 × 100 = 45%
Drawings also reached engineering review sooner. Average drafting turnaround, from complete inputs to submission for review, fell from 10 to 7 working days: a 30% improvement.
The extra capacity costs less than hiring locally.
| Cost measure | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Local drafting staff | A$16,000 | A$192,000 |
| Offshore CAD team | A$8,500 | A$102,000 |
| Saving | A$7,500 | A$90,000 |
The local figure covers salaries, recruitment, onboarding and other employment costs for equivalent drafting staff. The offshore figure includes Offshore 24/7 service fees, CAD workstations and onboarding. Both deliver the same level of drafting capacity.
Cost saving = (A$16,000 − A$8,500) ÷ A$16,000 × 100 = 47%
Our engineers were losing hours every week to redlines and drawing corrections. With the offshore team handling production, revisions come back faster and our engineers are back on design and review.
Results vary with drawing complexity, project volume, role, scope of work and local salary benchmarks.
How the firm protected drawing quality and project information
More output only counts if every drawing is accurate and review-ready, so the firm kept tight controls in place:
- Documented drafting standards: templates, layers, naming conventions, file structures and revision protocols
- Complete markups, reference drawings and acceptance criteria with every task
- Version control with a single source of truth for every drawing
- Structured quality checks on accuracy, dimensions, annotations and standards compliance
- Role-based permissions, approved file-transfer methods and confidentiality obligations
- Design decisions, technical verification and final approval kept with qualified Perth engineers
Firms working on projects bound by specific Australian Standards or contractual confidentiality terms should confirm the drafting workflow meets them before work moves offshore.
Is an offshore CAD team right for your engineering firm?
The setup works best when a firm has:
- A growing backlog of drawings or revisions across concurrent projects
- Documented drafting standards and complete technical inputs
- A reliable engineering review process for offshore deliverables
Read more about offshore CAD drafters and offshore staffing for engineering firms.
See what an offshore CAD team could add to your drafting capacity
If drafting demand is growing faster than your team, start with a review of your drawing workload. We'll identify which drafting tasks suit offshore support and what extra capacity they could deliver.
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