To maintain a competitive edge, a company must leverage its information assets, which includes a tremendous amount of engineering documents. Tools and processes to efficiently manage, distribute and modify these assets are essential.

International Data Corporation and Document Management magazine estimate that there are more than eight billion drawings worldwide, of which fewer than 15 percent are in a Computer Aided Design (CAD) format. This leaves an astonishing 85 percent of drawings maintained in non-electronic format, mainly paper-based engineering archives. Considering that each successive stage in a product cycle - design, production, support services - uses substantially more documentation than the prior stage, the benefits of integrating this information grows exponentially. The need to capture, modify and distribute existing paper designs within the environment of today’s computing technology predates CAD technology itself.

This is where offshore outsourcing of CAD Conversion makes perfect business sense. Computers continue to play a crucial role in all design driven fields. CAD systems, databases, spreadsheets, word processors and related applications have all but replaced traditional paper documentation methods. Many companies are turning to scanning technology to quickly enter this information into their computer systems so it can be shared, organized and managed.

Scanning drawings to digital raster form is essential to realizing the benefits from the methods provided in this analysis. The justification for scanning to a raster image can be easily made by reviewing the value of document management, savings in facilities costs and improved document accessibility throughout the organization. The following benefits of offshore outsourcing of CAD Conversion imply that the ROI is accelerated and recovered by the companies within a few months: