So much of what we do as systems designers relies on our knowledge and experience of the products we design with.  A great amount of focus is placed on general product knowledge that well designed output is overlooked.  What I mean by well designed output is the attention to the little things in a drawing like typography, line width, uniform drawing titles, and even the title block itself.  The mastery of these little details can take an average looking, but technically sound, design and transform it into almost art. 

What I do before I start designing any system is make sure all of the little details have been addressed, then I am free to focus on the applications integration.

How do I address the little details?

I automate a self produced standard and constantly tweak it to make it better.  I will guide you through creating a set of design standards as well as how to automate the little details.

First I will start with the file names and sheet numbers beginning with drawing sheet numbers.  I have to admit I am partial to the 2-3 format for sheet numbers.  2-3 refers to the number of alpha – numeric characters in the sheet number and looks similar to this: SS-101.

Let’s take a closer look at this format.  The two leading alpha characters indicate the discipline the drawing is illustrating.  For example “SS” can stand for “Special Systems”.  The numeric characters are a little more complicated.  The first number is the series number and the second two represent the order of appearance in the set. So “101” would be the first drawing in the 100 series.

Going back to the “SS-101” we now know that we are looking at the first drawing in the 100 series of the Special Systems.  Sheet numbers can get more complex but I really don’t see why.  I believe this is an area where more isn’t better.

The discipline and series creation is entirely up to you but to aid in your standard creation endeavors, here is what I use.

IS = Intrusion Detection Systems

CS = CCTV Surveillance Systems

AS = Access Control Systems

SS = Special System (Intercom, Mass Notification, Sound, ect.)

FS = Fire Detection Systems

000 = Cover Page

100 = System Device Plan

200 = Risers

300 = Point Wiring Details

400 = Installation / Mounting Details

500 = Conduit Plan

Now the file names.  There is now right way for naming the electronic copies we keep; however, there is a wrong way.  The wrong way is any way that requires a PHD to decrypt the file name or is over 9 character without spaces or 22 characters.  Why 9 and 32? Because windows will only show the first nine characters of a file name without spaces in icon view and 22 characters total for the same view.  Why am I worried about the icon view?  Because this is the view that is least tolerant to long file names. 

To clean this up I follow three rules.

1. assign a job number to every job
2. Keep all the drawing of a series in the same file
3. Include the sheet series in the file name. 

My filenames end up looking like “CS-100 123456”.  If you haven’t figured it out, the “123456” is the job number.  This way, no matter who comes after me to access the file they know exactly what it contains and who it’s for.  If there is a revision to be made, I simply add “-r#” to the end of the filename.