Background:

For a medium to large casework project, we usually have 30-80 shop drawing layouts. We have 4-7 days to make changes to the entire set each revisions. Revising a few width or replace cabinet is simple. But many cases we have to add new layout or change all the cabinet height due to ceiling height differences. So the biggest problem we have is finite amount of time. Our drafting team is 50% to twice as slow using Microvellum compared to drafting with CAD. Many cases, we don’t have the model in MV so we have to draw in CAD before the design is confirmed. We also can’t do material count with work orders if our team is revising on MV file at the same time. Timing/scheduling is hard since we have a small team handling multiple projects. Small projects don’t have these problems.

As team lead, I have use CAD to draft and use Microvellum to do work orders to make project processes faster. All cabinet types are placed in one layout in MV and we update quantity before running work orders. For me, this is a more fluid workflow and flexible. Although I have a clear idea of the workflow, I'd like to get advice from fellow Microvellum users/experts.

What do you think about my method? Do you prefer separating drafting/design with CAD and fabrication/engineering with Microvellum? What is the drawback of separating the two processes and how to mitigate possible risk?