Average Drafting Time in Autocad

[Anonymous]

Hi, I'm trying to know if my drafting time in AutoCad is slow, average or fast. I'm usually more used to working with Revit, but I was recently hired by another architect to help her with some of her projects and she only knows how to use AutoCad so she asked me to use it for drafting too. I'm under the impression I'm not upto her standards in drafting speed, but I've never had that issue before in any of my previous jobs. So I want to know how much time would it take for other architects to do some of the work I've been doing with her, I know it's a broad question but to set an example heres the following question:

How much estimated time will it take you to draw in AutoCad a 400 sq ft (1 story with a mezzanine) restaurant, with windows, doors, fully furnished with specialty equipment for a commercial kitchen (you have to draw the blocks with the specific measurements), annotations, lineweights, levels and dimensions? You'd have to draw 2 floor plans and 4 section cuts, all quite detailed except for the 2nd floor plan.

[pendean]

Why don't you ask your architect what her expectations are for your time to handle such a task and you two have a frank discussion about deliverables and schedules?

[Anonymous]

As you may already know, drafting speed is only one aspect of the equation. There is much to be said about quality of work, and speed should come at a later point.

I've always had an interest though in my time involvement in the design and detailing of various projects. I had even maintained a pencil and paper log for various projects when board drafting. When I got started with CAD (specifically AutoCAD). I've written a couple of articles about it and included them on my blog. If you're interested you can read them here:  Part 1 , Part 2 

But getting back to your question it's not so easy to make comparisons. I was asked at one time to create a test for job candidates by a recruiter. I made up a drawing which I created from scratch and timed myself. It took me about 25 minutes and I figured if someone could replicate the drawing with instructions within 30 minutes they would make a good prospect. one person aced it and completed the drawing within the allotted time. Another person was still struggling after 45 minutes and had barely got anything right - it was pretty horrible.

So maybe to see where you stand you might publish your basic floor plan to a PDF and ask that some forum members give it a try and time themselves. There's a lot of people here that enjoy a challenge.

You might also consider trying my CadTempo time tracking software to keep an accurate eye on your drafting work. It will tell you exactly the amount of editing time you spend on each drawing. It also maintains several other logs that will give you an idea on your efficiency and measure any improvement over time.

[BrianBenton]

There is more to this type of question then "how long will it take you to draw this?" I can't answer that question. If all I am doing is drawing then I can draw most things very quickly. However, will you be required to think? That takes time. Will you be required to design? That adds time. Are you setting up drawing sheets or just a model/base file? How much information are you provided with? If all then you are just drawing and you should go fast. But if you have to figure out what to draw, how to draw it, how it works, etc. then that takes time; time that is used without any actual drawing taking place. 

[Anonymous]

Well said Brian.

[Anonymous]

Brilliant answer.

[cadffm]

🙄

[jggerth]

40 years ago, the large engineering outfit I worked for did a timesheet analysis, covering multiple years, and determined that the typical drafting time for a project was 40 hours per sheet.  After CAD was widespread, they redid that study, (probably around the era of AutoCAD R12-R14).  Same result.  Although the work _should_ have been done faster after their massive capital expenditures, it wasn't.  The reasoning was that more and more frequent iterations were happening, with digital erasing rather than burning through mylar with the electric erasers.

I think we ended up with better design, at least I hope we did.

edit (sp)

[pkolarik]

Whoa.... 40 hours per sheet still with cad? Back about 25 years ago we had figured 8 hours per sheet with cad (architectural discipline).

[jggerth]

IIRC that forty included _all_ time on the project, not just design/drafting