WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE ENGINEER FINISHES THE DRAWING? | Sabrina Baillie
Every engineering firm has a role most people never think about. At Goldfish & Bay, it's Sabrina's.
A drawing isn't finished when the engineer stops working on it. It's finished when it has been checked, recorded and issued. As our Document Control Manager, Sabrina leads the team that does that, and every drawing we issue passes through them.
Between issues, a set of drawings can pass through many hands. Small edits creep in, and some only show up once the sheets are printed. Before anything goes out, Sabrina's team checks it against the last issue and confirms the revision history makes sense: right sequence, right dates, nothing missing.
The line they hold hardest is the construction issue. Once a drawing is issued for construction, it never returns to an earlier revision type, so it only goes when the design has been coordinated and checked. On regulated buildings in NSW, such as apartments and aged care, it must also go out with a design compliance declaration from a registered design practitioner. If a report the package relies on is missing, a fire engineering report for example, the issue is held until the project manager confirms how to proceed.
Then there's the record. Every document we issue lands in one dated folder, nothing is deleted, and every message runs through a shared inbox, so no project depends on one person's memory. When another party has chased us for a drawing they said was missing, that record showed exactly what went out, when, and where the gap was.
Sabrina's team aren't engineers, but they are very good at noticing when something doesn't add up. When it doesn't, they stop and find out why. Her view is that miscommunication starts when the person explaining a change doesn't understand it, and with her name on every issue, she makes sure she does.
For our clients, that means the drawing on site is the right one, and the answer to any question about it is already on file.
Thanks for walking us through it, Sabrina. Your answers have been filed in the right folder.
