Hi all,

It seems that every company I visit treats 2D drawings differently.

Some create full drawings, some include only minimal dimensions and some just send STEP files to their manufacturers and complain afterwards.

I usually don't really enjoy making drawings, but I clearly see the advantage of creating them. Manufacturers I visited still print every drawing that they receive because they can add notes and transfer information between people and departments.

That's why I was wondering what you, SolidWorks gurus of the universe, consider the best approach in this. I have learned a lot already from the Your best tricks topic, I hope the same will happen here.

To give the topic a little bit of structure, I made a list of questions:

1. What, in your view, are the main advantages and disadvantages of drawings?
2. Does your company use (make/ produce from) drawings?
3. Do you make the drawings of the parts that you designed, or does someone else do that?
4. Do you create drawings for in-house production or for clients?
5. Do you see 2D drawings being used in ten years time?
6. What would be the next step? STEP models and dimXpert?