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Design automation for offsite and modular manufacturers

Your design rules, written once. Every order drawn from them.

We put the way your team designs a building into software. Choose the size, openings and finishes, and your rules produce the panel layout, manufacturing drawings, cut lists and bill of materials. Your designers check the output instead of drawing it.

Book a free assessment Watch the 5 minute walkthrough
Captions on screen, no sound needed. Example client: Lundell, light gauge steel houses.
Who builds it

Digital by Design is the software team at by Design: architects and engineers who design buildings for factories. Some recent factory work, client names withheld.

01 / How it usually works

Every order is drawn by hand. Every change goes round again.

Your buildings are a product. You know the sizes, the panels and the options. But each order still gets drawn from scratch, and each change a customer asks for goes back through sales, design and pricing.

  1. Customer asks for a bigger windowday 1
  2. Sales passes on the note+ 1 to 2 days
  3. Designer redraws the set+ the queue
  4. Someone checks it and reprices+ 2 to 3 days
  5. The customer has moved onweeks later

Your designers are the bottleneck

Skilled people spend their week redrawing buildings they have drawn a hundred times. The work only they can do waits behind it.

Mistakes come from retyping

Every time a size is copied from a sketch to a drawing to a cut list, it can be copied wrong. The factory finds out when a panel doesn't fit.

Customers don't wait

Someone ready to buy today wants to see their building today. A quote that takes weeks loses to the firm that answers first.

02 / What design automation does

Your rules, in software. Your designers sign it off.

Design automation takes the rules your team already works to and writes them into software. Someone chooses the options: a customer on your website, your sales team on a call, or one of your own designers. The software then sets out the frame, splits it into panels and draws each one, the way your best designer would, on every order.

The usual way
  1. Customer emails a sketch
  2. Designer draws it from scratch
  3. Someone types the sizes into a cut list
  4. Every change starts the loop again
With design automation
  1. Size, openings, doors and finishes are chosen on screen
  2. Your rules check every choice as it is made, and the cost updates
  3. The frame is set out and split into panels your factory makes
  4. Drawings, cut lists and the bill of materials come out together, from the same model

Your designers still sign it off. They just stop redrawing the same building.

03 / The walkthrough, step by step

From a choice of options to a package the factory can build.

The film follows one house for Lundell, a light gauge steel panel maker. Each step below links to its part of the film.

  1. A two storey house on screen with a brick slip ground floor and charred timber cladding above, next to a live cost of £71,121 split by wall panels, cassettes, boards, windows, finish and delivery
    Step 1

    Choose the building and see the cost move

    Width, depth, storeys, openings, windows, doors and finishes. Openings snap to the stud grid. The price updates with every change, split into the parts you price today.

    • 121.9 m²floor area
    • £71,121indicative cost
    • Floor span within the RY300 limit
    • Openings on the 600 mm stud grid
    • Wall panels within 6.0 m for transport
  2. The house shown as an exploded steel frame, split into 32 panels, with the panel schedule listing walls, floor cassettes, gables and roof cassettes
    Step 2

    Split into the panels your factory makes

    The house breaks down into wall panels, floor cassettes, gables and roof cassettes. The rules set out the studs and openings, schedule the cut lengths, and check each panel for transport and lifting.

    • 32panels
    • 4.42 tof steel
  3. A drawing register beside a grid of manufacturing drawings, one sheet for each wall, gable and cassette, captioned: every panel gets its own sheet
    Step 3

    Draw every panel, in one run

    Each panel gets its own manufacturing drawing, listed in a drawing register. Walls, gables and cassettes come out together and download as a PDF set.

    • 32drawings, one a panel
  4. A bill of materials listing steel sections by gauge, cut length, quantity and weight, with CSV, Excel and Send to factory buttons
    Step 4

    Send the bill of materials to the factory

    Steel sections with cut lengths, quantities and weights, then boards and insulation, windows and doors, finishes and fixings. Export it to CSV or Excel, or send it to the factory from the same screen.

    • 433cut members
    • 7windows
    • 2doors
04 / Your rules

Write down how your building works. Once.

Every product has rules: the module, where an opening can go, how far a floor can span, how long a panel can be before it won't fit on a lorry. Your team knows them. We sit with them, write them down and build them into the software.

From then on, only a building you can make can be chosen, and every option is priced the way you price it. When a rule changes, it changes in one place and every new order follows it.

Example rule setLight gauge steel house
Grid
Openings on the 600 mm stud gridstuds either side set out by the rule
Spans
Floor span within the RY300 limitchecked as the plan changes
Storeys
One or tworoof and gables redraw to suit
Panels
Wall panels no longer than 6.0 msplit before they leave the factory
Finishes
Brick slip, render, larch, charred timber or fibre cementchosen per floor
Pricing
Your own ratesby element, the way you price today

From the walkthrough. Your rules and figures will be your own.

05 / What comes out

One set of choices in. Everything the factory needs out.

Every output comes from the same model, so the drawings, the cut list and the price always agree with each other.

  1. In: the choices

    Size, storeys, openings, windows, doors and finishes, chosen by a customer, a salesperson or your designer.

  2. In: your rules

    Module, spans, panel limits and the details your team already works to.

  3. In: your rates

    Materials, labour, delivery and install, priced by element the way you price now.

  4. Out
    • Panel schedule every wall, cassette and gable
    • Manufacturing drawings one sheet a panel, PDF set
    • Cut lists by section and gauge
    • Bill of materials CSV or Excel
    • Cost live, by element

Want to know what your range would produce? Book a free assessment

Nobody draws any of this. The rules place every piece.

06 / Questions

Before you book a call

Is this a configurator?

The screen your customer or sales team uses works like one. Behind it sit your design rules, which produce the drawings and schedules your factory builds from as well as the price.

Does it replace our designers?

No. They own the rules, and they check and release what the software produces. It takes the repeat drawing off them.

Which products suit it?

A range with known sizes and options: garden rooms, modular and panelised homes, lodges, and light gauge steel or timber frame systems. One-off buildings suit it less, and we'll tell you if that's yours.

What happens when our range changes?

The rule changes in one place and every new order follows it. We keep the software current as your range changes.

Where does it run?

In a web browser: on your website for customers, in the showroom, on a sales call, or at your designers' desks.

How is it priced?

In stages. Each stage is priced and agreed before it starts, and you see it working at the end of each one. The first conversation is free.

07 / How we work

Start with a conversation. Build in stages you control.

Every product is different, so we don't sell a box. We start by looking at yours, and you decide at each stage whether to go on.

  1. 1

    Free assessment

    A call about your range, how you draw and quote today, and where design automation would save time.

    Free, 45 minutes
  2. 2

    Workshop

    A day with your designers and your own drawings. We write down the rules and agree what the first version does.

    At your factory
  3. 3

    Build in stages

    Each stage is priced and agreed before it starts. You see it working at the end of every one.

    No open-ended spend
  4. 4

    Live with your team

    Your sales team, customers and designers use it. Your designers check and release. We keep it current as your range changes.

    Yours to run
08 / Book a free assessment

Would design automation pay back for your range? We'll give you a straight answer.

Freeno charge and no obligation
45 minutesonline, or at your factory if you're near us
A straight answerif it won't pay back for you, we'll say so
Call 0151 708 6121
Email info@by-design.group

We reply within one working day with times that suit you.