Design and Drafting

Expert Design and Drafting Services

Take Your 2D Drawings to Precise 3D Models

Our design and drafting services are tailored to bring your concepts to life with precision and efficiency. From initial sketches to detailed 3D models and comprehensive 2D manufacturing drawings, we ensure your projects are realized to the highest standards.

Design and Drafting: How Does it Work?

The design and drafting process involves several structured steps to ensure that concepts are translated into practical, functional, and manufacturable products or systems. Here’s an overview of the typical workflow:

Problem Definition and Research: We identify the problem or need, conduct thorough research, and analyze existing solutions, materials, and technologies.
Concept Development: Next, we brainstorm potential solutions, evaluate their feasibility, and develop preliminary designs through rough sketches or models.
Design Specification: We define detailed functional, aesthetic, and performance requirements, along with constraints and evaluation criteria.
Customer Concept Review: Depending on customer needs, we will typically have a concept design review with the customer to ensure we are aligned with customer expectations prior to starting the detailed design.
Detailed Design and Analysis: The next step involves creating detailed 3D CAD models and performing simulations to predict behavior.
Design Review and Optimization: Next, we conduct reviews, refine the design based on feedback, and iterate until optimized.
Approval and Finalization: Next, we conduct a final review with the customer, obtain approval, and finalize the design.
Documentation and Drafting: After conducting reviews and finalizing the design, we produce detailed technical drawings, create a bill of materials (BOM), and ensure documentation adheres to industry standards and regulations.
Deliverables and/or Production Management: Depending on customer requirements, we will then submit the finalized technical drawings to the customer and/or start coordinating with our vendor network to begin the construction phase through our production management offering.

Benefits of Design and Drafting

Clear Communication: Design and drafting provide a visual representation of ideas and concepts, facilitating communication between engineers, clients, and stakeholders.
Error Minimization: Detailed drafting helps identify potential design flaws and errors early in the process, reducing the likelihood of costly mistakes during manufacturing or construction.
Practical Design Application: At Blue Collar, we pride ourselves on the fact that we are very hands-on during product builds. This means we gain invaluable insight into what the manufacturers and end users of a design will deal with. We are able to apply this insight into each and every design to optimize manufacturability and end user satisfaction.
Cost Reduction: By optimizing designs and materials through drafting, engineering teams can minimize waste and production costs, ultimately saving time and money.
Improved Quality: Thorough design and drafting processes result in higher-quality products or systems that meet performance requirements and exceed customer expectations.
Efficiency Enhancement: Well-planned designs streamline manufacturing processes, leading to increased efficiency, productivity, and shorter lead times.
Risk Mitigation: Through simulations and analysis during the drafting phase, engineers can identify and mitigate risks associated with product performance, safety, and regulatory compliance.
Innovation Encouragement: Design and drafting encourage creativity and innovation by providing a platform for exploring new ideas, technologies, and solutions to complex problems.
Standardization and Compliance: Drafting ensures that designs adhere to industry standards, regulations, and best practices, ensuring compliance and avoiding legal or regulatory issues.
Facilitated Collaboration: Design and drafting tools facilitate collaboration among multidisciplinary teams, allowing for seamless integration of ideas and expertise from different domains.
Documentation and Knowledge Preservation: Detailed drafting serves as a valuable reference for future projects, preserving institutional knowledge and enabling continuous improvement in design processes.

2D to 3D File Conversion

Many companies, especially those with a long history, have extensive archives of 2D drawings. At Blue Collar Engineering, we specialize in converting these 2D files into fully detailed 3D models. This not only modernizes your documentation but also enhances your ability to visualize and plan projects.

Additionally, we can recreate 2D manufacturing drawings from these 3D models, ensuring that your production plans are up-to-date and accurate. This service helps bridge the gap between traditional design methods and modern, efficient manufacturing processes, significantly improving your operational efficiency and project outcomes.

Leveraging Inventor and Content Center for Streamlined Design and Drafting

At Blue Collar, we harness the power of Inventor's Content Center to streamline design and drafting workflows. With access to a vast library of standardized components, we can quickly incorporate bolts, screws, structural steel shapes, and other essential parts into designs with ease, saving valuable time and eliminating the need for manually modeling those components.

By leveraging the functionality of the Content Center's industry-standard components, our designers are able to provide your designs faster and more efficiently.

Custom Content Center Creation

Blue Collar offers custom content center creation services for our customers. While the content center is good out of the box, customizing it to your company's standards elevates content center from good to great.

Key Aspects of Content Center

Standardized Components: The Content Center includes a vast array of pre-defined parts such as bolts, screws, nuts, washers, bearings, and other hardware. These components adhere to international standards like ISO, ANSI, DIN, and more.
Customization: We can customize the Content Center to include company-specific parts and standards, ensuring consistency and compliance with internal protocols.
Part Libraries: It provides access to both standard and customizable part libraries, which can be used to quickly insert commonly used components into designs.
Ease of Access: Components from the Content Center can be easily inserted into assemblies with drag-and-drop functionality, reducing design time.
Integration: The Content Center integrates seamlessly with Inventor’s design environment, allowing components to be automatically sized and placed based on design requirements.

Benefits of a Custom Content Center

Detailed Metadata: By creating a custom content center, we are able to include detailed metadata, which is useful for both design and BOM extraction for procurement processes. These include:
- Part numbers
- Standardized company descriptions
- Material specifications
- Manufacturer or vendor details
Productivity: Enhances productivity by allowing the user to use Inventor's design accelerator tools such as "frame generator" and "bolted connection".
Time Efficiency: Reduces the time required to model standard components from scratch.
Accuracy: Ensures the use of components that conform to industry standards, improving the quality and reliability of designs

3D Modeling with Complete 2D Manufacturing Drawings