Your Best Engineers Shouldn’t Be Spending Their Time Looking for Missing Notes

A note missing from a drawing. A piece of equipment with different ratings across two schedules. A detail that doesn’t match between sheets.

Individually, these issues may seem small. But finding them takes time. And when a team is reviewing hundreds of sheets across a project, that time quickly adds up.

For MEP engineering firms, quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) are essential. But not every part of the review process requires the same level of engineering expertise.

Some checks rely on professional judgment and an understanding of the design. Others involve repeatedly searching for information, cross-checking schedules against drawings and making sure details are consistent across a set.

The question is whether experienced engineers should have to spend so much of their time carrying out those repetitive checks when automation could help.

The hidden cost of manual QA/QC

Manual drawing review is demanding work. Engineers need to understand the design, interpret technical information, check coordination and identify potential issues before they create problems downstream.

But there are several costs associated with carrying out every check manually.

1. Experienced engineers spend time on repetitive checks

Your most experienced engineers bring years of knowledge to a project. They understand how systems fit together, how design decisions affect other disciplines and where a potential issue deserves closer attention.

Yet manual QA/QC can require them to spend significant time scanning sheets, searching for details and checking information repeated across a drawing set.

That work matters. But it competes with the higher-value work that depends on their experience: interpreting findings, evaluating their impact and deciding what needs to happen next.

2. Large drawing sets create more opportunities for issues to be overlooked

As drawing sets grow, keeping track of every note, reference and detail becomes harder.

Reviewers need to move between sheets, maintain context and remember what they have already checked. Repeating these tasks across hundreds of sheets takes time and concentration.

The challenge isn’t that engineers don’t know what to look for. It’s that carrying out the same checks consistently across a large volume of information is difficult and time-consuming.

3. Review time has an opportunity cost

Time spent on repetitive checking is time that cannot be spent elsewhere.

For engineering firms, that trade-off matters. Teams have project deadlines, competing priorities and finite capacity. When experienced people spend more time working through routine checks, they have less time available for design interpretation, coordination and resolving issues.

The cost isn’t just the hours spent reviewing. It’s also what those hours could have been used to accomplish.

That doesn’t mean manual review is unnecessary. It means firms should look carefully at which parts of the process genuinely require engineering expertise and which could be supported by automation.

Automation can support the checks without replacing the engineer

Automation offers a practical way to approach this problem.

Rather than asking engineers to manually search every sheet for every potential issue, automated drawing checks can help identify inconsistencies and bring items requiring attention to the reviewer’s attention.

For MEP drawing sets, examples include:

• Missing keyed notes or information expected on a sheet.
• Equipment ratings that don’t match between schedules and drawings.
• Breaker and circuit sizing inconsistencies.
• Equipment or devices appearing in one schedule but missing from the corresponding drawings.
• References and information that don’t align across sheets.

RedMark automates these types of documentation checks across drawing sets, marking findings directly on the relevant sheets so engineers can investigate them.

Importantly, an automated finding isn’t necessarily a design error. It may need context, clarification or further investigation. Engineers remain responsible for interpreting the finding, determining whether it matters and deciding what action to take.

Automation supports the process. Engineering judgment remains central to the outcome.

Give engineers more time for the work that requires their expertise

A more effective QA/QC process separates repetitive checking from professional interpretation wherever possible.

Automation can help carry out supported checks consistently and bring potential issues to the reviewer’s attention.

Engineers can then focus on the questions that require their experience:

• Does this finding represent a genuine issue?
• What is its significance for the design?
• Does it affect coordination with another discipline?
• What needs to change, and who needs to be involved?
• Is the drawing set ready to move forward?

These are the decisions where engineering expertise makes the difference.

The objective isn’t to remove people from quality control. It’s to make better use of their time and attention.

What to look for when introducing automated drawing checks

Not every automated checking tool works in the same way. Engineering firms evaluating their options should consider a few practical questions.

What can it actually check?
Understand which types of notes, details and inconsistencies the tool is designed to identify. Don’t assume automation can catch every issue in every drawing.

Can reviewers understand and validate the findings?
Engineers need enough context to investigate a flagged item and determine whether it requires action. Findings should be traceable to the relevant information on the drawing.

Does it fit the existing workflow?
A tool should support the way teams review drawing sets, not introduce unnecessary friction or create another disconnected process.

Does it preserve engineering oversight?
Automated checks should help teams identify potential issues while leaving interpretation and final decisions with qualified professionals.

Can the team measure its value?
Start with a defined review task. Compare the time required, the usefulness of the findings and the effort needed to validate them. Use actual results from the team’s workflow to determine where automation makes a difference.

The best starting point is a specific, repeatable task where the team can clearly evaluate whether automated checking improves the review process.

A better use of engineering expertise

Manual QA/QC will remain an important part of engineering. Drawing sets need careful review, and no automated system should be treated as a substitute for professional judgment.

But the process can evolve.

When repetitive checks are supported by automation, engineers can spend less time searching for potential issues and more time understanding what those issues mean.

That’s the opportunity RedMark is working towards: helping MEP engineering teams check drawing sets more consistently, surface potential documentation issues and give engineers more time to focus on the findings that need their expertise.

Your best engineers should be making engineering decisions, not spending their day looking for missing notes.