Designing consistency into every project

In a busy engineering firm, no single project fails because of a misnamed drawing file. But across nearly 2,000 projects and dozens of teams, small inconsistencies add up.

A drawing placed in the wrong folder. An external reference attached where it should be overlaid. A sheet set that takes a senior engineer the better part of a Friday to build by hand. Individually, these are minor frustrations. At scale, they quietly drain thousands of hours and introduce coordination issues that can follow a project long after setup is complete.

WithersRavenel, a multidisciplinary engineering firm based in the United States, began to recognize this pattern as project volume increased. Teams were setting up projects differently, sheet sets were built from scratch, and parcel labeling often had to be redone as designs evolved. These weren’t isolated issues; they were systemic.

The impact became especially clear on complex, multi-phase projects. Time was lost simply navigating files and aligning teams on structure. Projects built without consistent standards were more prone to XREF conflicts, duplication, and, in some cases, file instability. In contrast, teams that followed a consistent structure experienced fewer issues, faster publishing times, and smoother collaboration.

Over several months, the team mapped how projects were set up across disciplines. They identified where workflows aligned, where they diverged, and where individual preferences had become barriers to consistency. The result was a set of firmwide standards covering:

• File naming and folder structures

• Layer naming and properties

• Drawing templates

• External reference (XREF) conventions

• Sheet organization and appearance

This effort led to a standardized layer library with more than 4,000 entries. Any engineer, on any project, can now immediately understand how drawings are structured.

Getting there required both technical rigor and cultural alignment.

“When someone pushed back on a standard, we asked whether it was a necessity or a preference,” says Ellington. “If it was necessary, we adapted. If it wasn’t, we held the line.”

Adoption wasn’t immediate. Some engineers were hesitant to change long-standing workflows. But as soon as the benefits became clear, that resistance began to fade.

The Residential Development team was among the first to see the impact. Project setup, which had routinely taken several days due to inconsistent approaches, now takes minutes. The Design and Planning group, including landscape architects and engineers, contributed discipline-specific standards that were integrated into the firmwide framework. This allowed teams to maintain specialized workflows while improving consistency across projects.

With a consistent foundation in place, WithersRavenel began building automation on top of its standards using Autodesk Civil 3D and Dynamo.

Because every project now follows the same structure, automation can be applied reliably across the firm. Work that was once manual and project-specific has become repeatable and scalable. Dynamo adds another layer of capability, connecting directly to project geometry, layer structures, and file relationships.

Key workflows include:

Project setup: Project creation once happened incrementally, with different team members creating drawings and references as needed. This often led to inconsistent naming, misplaced files, and coordination challenges. Today, an automated tool generates all folders, drawings, sheet structures, and XREFs instantly and correctly from the start.

Sheet set creation: Building sheet sets manually required importing layouts, renaming sheets, and maintaining numbering by hand. On large projects, this could take hours and errors often surfaced late in the process. Automated tools now handle this end to end, detecting layouts, applying standardized naming, and updating sheet sets without requiring a full rebuild.

Parcel labeling: Design changes often require parcel labels to be updated across multiple sheets. Previously, this meant hours of manual rework. Automated workflows now ensure that labels stay synchronized as designs evolve.

Layer configuration: With thousands of standardized layers in place, automated tools can apply consistent properties such as visibility, color, and linetype across entire projects in minutes, eliminating the need for manual adjustments.

Across approximately 900 CAD-based projects each year, the cumulative impact of WithersRavenel’s approach is significant.

The firm estimates it saves more than 22,000 engineering hours annually. That is equivalent to freeing up more than ten full-time engineers from repetitive, low-value work. In financial terms, it represents approximately $3 million in annual value based on typical billing rates.

But the real impact goes beyond time savings.

By eliminating manual setup and reducing coordination overhead, WithersRavenel has fundamentally changed how its engineers spend their time. Instead of building projects from scratch, teams can focus on design, problem-solving, and delivering better outcomes for clients.

“When we save 30 hours on project setup, that’s 30 hours we can put back into the design,” says Tillett. “It’s time we can spend improving the project instead of just getting it ready.”

This shift has translated into measurable improvements in both efficiency and capacity. Some teams have increased productivity by as much as 20–30%, while also supporting a higher volume of projects without adding complexity.

Consistency has also improved the client experience. Deliverables are easier to navigate, and municipal reviewers, especially in markets where WithersRavenel frequently works, become familiar with the firm’s standards. That familiarity helps streamline review and approval processes.

“When reviewers know what they’re looking at, it builds confidence,” says Ellington. “It helps move projects forward more smoothly.”

For WithersRavenel, standards are not just about efficiency. They provide a stable, scalable foundation for long-term success.

Projects are easier to maintain. Teams collaborate more effectively. New workflows can be developed more quickly because they build on an established structure.

The firm continues to expand its automation capabilities, building new workflows on the same foundation. Next on the roadmap is integrating data shortcuts into the project setup process to support consistent Civil 3D object naming and strengthen the reliability of upstream project data.

Consistency enables scale.