In 2020, the U.S. construction industry was valued at about 1.36 trillion. Architects and designers specify billions of building products in these construction projects, which means getting specified is excellent for any building product manufacturer's bottom line. If you want to get your building products specified, you must ensure they offer value. Your products should also fit into the AEC's design and specifications needs.

One of the most effective ways for your products to get a specifier's attention is to draft those products into high-quality 2D CAD drawings. This way, your products have a higher chance of making it to the designers list of specified products. Let's go through the reasons why CAD drawings can help you get your products noticed, specified, and sold.

1. CAD Drawings Communicate Necessary Product Information to Designers

A drawing is worth a thousand words. Developing a building product involves many steps, CAD drawings should be a part of the final deliverable. In a construction project, these drawings must be accurate. With a high-quality CAD drawing, you can easily communicate design specifications, including: layout, diagram, dimensions, and product annotation, to architects and designers.

2. Designers Can Add Your Building Products to Their Project Plans

A CAD drawing allows your products to easily integrate into a building's blueprints and design plan. In most cases, this ease of use stems from designers usually creating their blueprints with pre-developed CAD drawings. Designers can then see how your products fit into their designs and if they need to make changes. When changes are necessary, CAD makes it easy to adjust the product to blueprints without redoing the entire project.

3. CAD Drawings Are Required in All Building Projects and Planning Processes

CAD development started in the 1960s. Ever since, computer-aided design has changed the way engineers, architects, and designers work. 2D CAD development has replaced manual drafting in the AEC industry thanks to its ease of use, generous storage, and convenient file sharing. It also allows the architects and designers to see the design from all angles, spotting and fixing any design and structural problems before they happen. With the prevalence of CAD, these professionals expect your building products to be in the format that product specifiers use. This format is 2D CAD.

4. Architects Find CAD Content Easy to Download and Use

CAD file formats come in many types depending on the software. There are many different CAD formats available, such as: DWG, DWF, DXF, GIF, VWX and PDF. Making CAD files available in many formats makes them accessible to more architects and designers. This ease of use serves the architects, designers, and other people involved in the project and get's your product specified more often which ultimately, drives more sales.

5. High-Quality CAD Allows for a Quick Design-Build Turnaround

With high-quality CAD drawings, creating excellent building products becomes much easier. CAD lets you see the bumps in your project and enables you to fix them before the manufacturing phase. It also facilitates communication between everyone involved in the project and lets your specifiers make adjustments to the materials. These adjustments may be necessary because of the restrictions and conditions of the project. With solid drawings, specifications, and the right platform, architects can create a design smoothly and building product manufacturers, like you can reach the right audience and get specified early in the design process.
It’s clear that CAD has become a permanent part of the AEC industry. And by having 2D CAD drawings of your building products, your chance to get specified increases.

Sell more of your products to architects and designers by providing them with high-quality CAD drawings developed and published for AEC design professionals to specify into their projects. Get in touch with us today to learn more.