P1 - describe the requirements of national and international standards and conventions relating to
engineering drawing practice.
It’s useful to produce drawings to recognized standards. Standards use certain letters, symbols, and
short forms to convey the message in a clear, unambiguous way to avoid confusion of a third party such as
the customer or component supplier, regarding the meaning of these symbols, notations, etc. Making a
standardized format for drawings ensures it’s easy for everyone to understand it. It’s easy and quick to find the
title block, notes, tolerances, etc.
People who read engineering drawings, including but not limited to engineers are accustomed to the meaning and
location of certain symbols, dimensions, etc. presented in a conventional way. Standards compile all these
expectations and assumptions into sets. This ensures that all engineering drawings are clear and easy to read.
Ambiguous drawings are unacceptable in many situations because they might lead to mistakes which in turn might
make up for a health and safety hazard or product being manufactured not meeting the expectations of the client
and resulting in loss of revenue. It is even possible the drawing might have to be re-drawn which will result in the
product being delayed and will take up the time of the engineering team who could be completing other projects
in that time. Alternatively, without a standardized way of depicting and labeling features and elements, it might
take longer for the drawing to be understood which will also be a waste of time and resources. This will also delay
the manufacturing stage as well as might negatively impact the reputation of the company involved. All of these
factors will impact customer satisfaction too.
In summary, using recognized standards makes communication across all stages of product development and
manufacturing easier.
Producing drawings to recognized standards ensures their consistency in presentation, content, layout, and
formatting even if they were produced by different engineers in different parts of the world. Standards standardize
everything from symbols to line thickness and print size. This eliminates situations where a design is printed and
because of the sizes or colours used for the lines it’s not visible or easy to read.
Standards also allow customers and companies the freedom to assign different engineers to the same project. For
example, if each engineer is tasked with drawing different components or elements and they all follow the same
standards, all of the designs will be understandable by everyone on the team and assembling the components
together won’t be an issue.
This, in turn, reduces the chances of the components being manufactured and turning out to be faulty (for
example wrong directions). This would of course result in loss of profit.
Furthermore, standards make things easier for inspection departments because drawings coming from various
engineers will be consistent and easy to read. This will greatly decrease the chance of mistakes being made during
inspection as well as reduce the time it takes to inspect all of the designs because the department can devise a
specific method that works well and will work for all of the drawings because of their uniformity. This will increase
the profits of the company and the people responsible for the inspections won’t have to work unnecessarily long
hours.
Another example that shows how important using recognized standards is, that a question from one specific
contractor or team concerning a certain detail, will apply to all, and thus there won’t be many questions originating
from different drawing types or layouts being used.
Sometimes, standardization has to go beyond national or international boundaries. For example, the USA still often
uses the metric system, whilst Europe almost entirely shifted to the metric system. Sometimes, certain projects
engineering drawing practice.
It’s useful to produce drawings to recognized standards. Standards use certain letters, symbols, and
short forms to convey the message in a clear, unambiguous way to avoid confusion of a third party such as
the customer or component supplier, regarding the meaning of these symbols, notations, etc. Making a
standardized format for drawings ensures it’s easy for everyone to understand it. It’s easy and quick to find the
title block, notes, tolerances, etc.
People who read engineering drawings, including but not limited to engineers are accustomed to the meaning and
location of certain symbols, dimensions, etc. presented in a conventional way. Standards compile all these
expectations and assumptions into sets. This ensures that all engineering drawings are clear and easy to read.
Ambiguous drawings are unacceptable in many situations because they might lead to mistakes which in turn might
make up for a health and safety hazard or product being manufactured not meeting the expectations of the client
and resulting in loss of revenue. It is even possible the drawing might have to be re-drawn which will result in the
product being delayed and will take up the time of the engineering team who could be completing other projects
in that time. Alternatively, without a standardized way of depicting and labeling features and elements, it might
take longer for the drawing to be understood which will also be a waste of time and resources. This will also delay
the manufacturing stage as well as might negatively impact the reputation of the company involved. All of these
factors will impact customer satisfaction too.
In summary, using recognized standards makes communication across all stages of product development and
manufacturing easier.
Producing drawings to recognized standards ensures their consistency in presentation, content, layout, and
formatting even if they were produced by different engineers in different parts of the world. Standards standardize
everything from symbols to line thickness and print size. This eliminates situations where a design is printed and
because of the sizes or colours used for the lines it’s not visible or easy to read.
Standards also allow customers and companies the freedom to assign different engineers to the same project. For
example, if each engineer is tasked with drawing different components or elements and they all follow the same
standards, all of the designs will be understandable by everyone on the team and assembling the components
together won’t be an issue.
This, in turn, reduces the chances of the components being manufactured and turning out to be faulty (for
example wrong directions). This would of course result in loss of profit.
Furthermore, standards make things easier for inspection departments because drawings coming from various
engineers will be consistent and easy to read. This will greatly decrease the chance of mistakes being made during
inspection as well as reduce the time it takes to inspect all of the designs because the department can devise a
specific method that works well and will work for all of the drawings because of their uniformity. This will increase
the profits of the company and the people responsible for the inspections won’t have to work unnecessarily long
hours.
Another example that shows how important using recognized standards is, that a question from one specific
contractor or team concerning a certain detail, will apply to all, and thus there won’t be many questions originating
from different drawing types or layouts being used.
Sometimes, standardization has to go beyond national or international boundaries. For example, the USA still often
uses the metric system, whilst Europe almost entirely shifted to the metric system. Sometimes, certain projects
