It is common that civil engineer needs to prepare drawings. It is carried out after the design of structure or civil works has been completed. How to have a proper drawing numbering system in order to has better presentation? Below are some tips on drawing numbering system.

• Time control.

It is useful that a project starts with month and year. As for example, if an awarded project on say 12 April 2007 than your drawing number may 042007 and not 120402007, because it may become to complicate. On the other hand, you can select year as control item 2007. Initial drawing number will be 042007

• Client name control.

Let say, your client is ABC Company and with item 1; your drawing number will be ABC/042007.

• Engineering field control.

Say your project is building a unit of structural building. You may further add with ST. ST is abbreviate for structural. You can use other abbreviation as your preference. Then drawing number will be ABC/042007/ST. For civil works such as earthwork, you can use EW, water work use WT, sewer work use SW, drainage work use DR etc.

• Type of structural element control.

When you design the building structure, the structural elements may consist of pad footing foundation, column, beam, slab etc. You have to use a list of short words for the structural elements such as pad footing foundation-PF, column-COL, beam-BM and slab-SB. For instance your drawing is showing beam details, then your drawing number will be ABC/042007/ST/BM01 (first drawing), ABC/042007/ST/BM02 (second drawing) and continue with this notation. This type of arrangement is good for adding any new drawing into every section without disturbing the overall drawing number. As for example, you are using only one type of notation say ST for all structural elements, then your drawing number will be ABC/042007/ST/01, ABC/042007/ST/02, ABC/042007/ST/03

When or during the project in progress, there will be tendency of amendment happened. If you need to add one sheet of beam drawing into your project drawing number and the beam drawing numbers are in the range of ABC/042007/ST/03 to ABC/042007/ST/04. Total number of drawings says 10 numbers; last drawing number will be ABC/042007/ST/10. How to add a drawing after ABC/042007/ST/05? You have to add it after ABC/042007/ST/10 i.e. ABC/042007/ST/11. However, it will not in the sequence of beam drawing arrangement. If you have more break down as mention earlier, then it is easy to add a new drawing into each section and for the current case is ABC/042007/ST/BM03. It will not affect the presentation of drawings.

• Drawing amendment.

When there is an amendment on a particular sheet of drawing say drawing number is ABC/042007/ST/02. How will be the amendment to be shown on drawing number? One suggestion is using abc notation. ABC/042007/ST/02a is first amendment; ABC/042007/ST/02b is second amendment etc.

In short, the formula for drawing number will be

[name]/[time]/[engineering field]/[type of element][numbering][amendment].

When you follow the numbering system as mention, your project drawing numbering can be easily to be interpretation.