Most engineering firms rely heavily on Computer-Aided Design (CAD) files to conduct daily business. However, these large digital documents can be notoriously hard to manage.

While CAD offers a lot of flexibility in technical design, producing them can be time-consuming. Typically, firms manage these files by naming them and storing them in shared drives, but as the number of files increase—and they are shared across locations and among colleagues — they can become corrupted, lost, or even accidentally overwritten.

Sending these large files via email can be hard to do and many projects require hundreds (or even thousands) of versions of one document, making them difficult to track and store. Additionally, these documents often contain critical data which needs to be adequately protected. 

Ultimately, managing CAD files is a complex task that requires careful consideration. 

Fortunately, specific document management solutions for CAD files exist to help overcome these obstacles and provide significant advantages for your engineering firm. 

How Document Management for CAD Files Can Bring More Efficiency to Your Engineering Work Environment

The challenges associated with this task include large file sizes, complex projects with multiple files, changes and versions, and security concerns. These issues can be difficult to manage without the right tools and techniques—making document management solutions (DMS) critical to many firms.

Multiple Benefits for Engineers

Document management for CAD files can be a powerful tool for improving collaboration—increasing productivity and efficiency—and allowing the fast, accurate tracking of changes and revisions.

By leveraging document management systems, CAD users can easily access, store, organize and share their design documents with colleagues in real time. This helps to eliminate manual processes such as paper-based file sharing or the problems posed by emailing large files back and forth.

Additionally, document management systems provide an easy way to track changes and revisions in the design process which can help to ensure the accuracy of the final product—and a higher level of project performance.

For many engineering firms, proper document management is a critical component of the company’s functional operability. It allows engineers to store, manage, and access their CAD files—and the data within them—in a secure and organized manner. This managed storage helps organizations reduce the risk of errors and data loss, as well as improve compliance with regulations and standards.

Firms also save time using DMS by streamlining their processes and reducing manual labor associated with document management tasks—ensuring that documents are secure, up-to-date, and compliant with industry standards.

Best Practices to Note

If your firm decides to use a DMS to improve workflows, secure documents, and maximize efficiency, it is important to have a strategy—or series of strategies—in place to ensure that all files are organized and easily accessible. To make sure this happens, there are certain best practices that should be followed such as:

•  Implementing naming conventions
• Defining clear workflows
• Using revision control features
• Leveraging cloud-based solutions for better security and a single point of storage
• Defining and implementing backup and disaster recovery plans

By following these best practices, companies can ensure that their document management system is efficient and secure.

Trust Blue Technologies to Help You Gain Efficiency in Managing Your CAD Files

At Blue Technologies, we take a customized approach to document management, allowing us to deliver a tailored solution that directly addresses any challenges or needs that your team is facing. This is especially important in an engineering environment, where requirements may change as regulations evolve and shifts in the marketplace require more efficiency to remain competitive.

It is even more important for engineers who are struggling to manage cumbersome CAD files using outdated manual filing strategies. Using a DMS to manage CAD files can help your firm promote better, more efficient collaboration among teams, business partners, and clients as well as keep data properly secured for optimal compliance with regulatory standards.

Blue Technologies’ DMS are intentionally created with these benefits in mind. Our team maintains a focus on strict compliance with industry standards while streamlining workflows and reducing the costs that are associated with inefficiencies in operations. 

Bring efficiency and security to the table when choosing how to manage your CAD files. Contact a Blue Technologies consultant today and explore how our suite of document management solutions can help.