Honestly, I almost lost a $15k client over a simple layer naming mess in a set of commercial site plans.

This was for a new strip mall in Dayton. I was rushing to get the final PDFs out before a Friday deadline. I sent them off, thought I was done. Monday morning, the lead contractor calls me, furious. The grading contractor couldn't isolate the utility layers because my naming convention used spaces and special characters their old CAD software couldn't parse. Their whole earthmoving schedule got pushed back a day. I had to drop everything, go back into every single XREF, and rename all the utility layers to a simple 'U_xxxx' format, then re-plot and re-send. Took me 4 hours to fix. Now I have a pre-submission checklist that includes 'dumb layer names for old software compatibility'. Anyone else have a specific layer naming rule they stick to for avoiding this kind of disaster?

2 comments

2 Comments

sandra6934d ago

Ugh, why do old systems always mess up the simple stuff?

margaret994d ago

My work still uses a database from 2003 and honestly, it gets the job done most days. Calling it a "mess up" feels a bit strong for a slow search or a weird font. These systems were built for different needs, not to be fast by today's standards. We just expect everything to work instantly now.