As an audiovisual systems integrator, have you ever wished you could grow your internal CAD resources, but only when business heats up in the summer? Or maybe you’d love to outsource on a regular basis but are afraid of getting sub-par work.  Heck, maybe you just wished your drawings looked more professional!  Let me introduce you to The CAD House, the best solution I’ve ever seen to these problems.

As a Sr. AV Systems Engineer, being a bit of a control freak is part of the job description.  So when I started w/ CCS California in 2010 I was naturally skeptical about this outsourced CAD vendor they were already working with called The CAD House (heretofore simply referred to as “TCH”).  Since then, I have been more than pleasantly surprised with the level of quality, timeliness, and value TCH has provided us, so I thought I’d share my secret with you.

For the record, I DO know my way around AutoCAD, Visio and the like. I could do all our system drawings and AV infrastructure mark-ups myself. But that doesn’t mean I should. TCH rates are much less than my internal cost to CCS, and if you play a technical role in your company I’d wager the same is true for you. Also, they bury me in terms of speed. So partnering w/ TCH frees my time to do things that only I can do: designing complex systems, configuring audio DSPs, commissioning systems, etc.

To summarize, here are seven reasons I love The CAD House and how they could make you look like a genius, too.

1. Sweet Spot: Competitive pricing of a sub-contractor coupled with the high-quality of an internal team member!
2. Cloud-based: Online collaboration via Basecamp makes sure the whole team is always copied on messages and new file uploads.
3. Cost: Hourly pricing that will rival your internal cost for CAD staff (and beat the pants off the cost of using your engineer to do the same work)!
4. Speed: I consider myself pretty good at AV CAD, but TCH runs circles around me. I typically see small to medium-sized projects get turned around within a week, but they’ll reliably deliver on whatever “need by” date they coordinate with you.
5. Buy in Bulk (optional): Pre-paid time blocks lower your cost per hour and allow you to engage on new projects without cutting a PO every time. TCH sends a summary report each month of hours used per project.
6. Multi-talented: They don’t just do “single-lines,” but AV infrastructure plan views (e.g., floor and ceiling), wall elevations, cable pull lists, and even 3D CAD and renderings!
7. Experience: With over 20 years of combined experience in AV, folks at TCH know what they’re talking about and how an AV system integration project flows.

To get the the most out of your partnership with TCH, keep this tip in mind: The more info. you give them, the quicker and more accurate your 1st draft drawings will be. So even though they can create great-looking CAD drawings from your frenetic “Napkin CAD” sketch, you’ll get stellar results by giving them a clean paper or Visio sketch along with a corresponding equipment list.

 Question: How much time could you reclaim by trusting your drawings to a provider like TCH?  Let me know what you think by scrolling down.