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Hamish Visser

04 / 15ToolsData Automation / Quality Assurance2026

Drawing Checker Tool

Title block QA that most UK contractors still do by hand, done in FME instead. A 462-drawing package is read, validated against project-specific rules and reported pass or fail with error detail, in 2.8 seconds.

FME

AutomationOngoing

Organisation
Taylor Woodrow
Role
Digital Engineer
Year
2026
Kind
Automation
Sector
Document Control / QA
Status
Ongoing

Background

Most UK construction firms still perform drawing title block checks entirely by hand. It is tedious, it is error-prone at scale, and it consumes document control resource on work that is purely rule-based.

What I built

A two-stage FME tool. The first stage reads PDF drawings and extracts title block data. The second validates that data against configurable, project-specific rule sets using FME's transformation capabilities.

Output is an Excel report listing pass or fail status and error detail per drawing.

01 Input

  • Drawing pack

    PDF drawing package, 462 drawings in the reference run

02 Stage one

  • Extract

    Title block data read from each PDF

03 Stage two

  • Rule set

    Configurable project-specific rules, swapped per project against a shared tool core

  • Validate

    Extracted title block data checked against the rule set

04 Report

  • Document control

    Excel report, pass or fail with error detail per drawing

Two stages, one shared tool core, swappable rule sets

Outcome

A package of 462 drawings is checked in 2.8 seconds.

The saving that matters is not the 2.8 seconds. It is that the check becomes cheap enough to run on every issue rather than on a sample, so a title block error is found before the pack leaves rather than by the person receiving it. The document control time it releases is the part that shows up in a fee.

Where it goes next

Currently in testing, around 40 percent complete, being trialled against previously hand-checked drawing packages to validate accuracy. Next steps are broadening compatibility across drawing packages and embedding outputs into existing QA workflows. Designed with a shared tool core and swappable rule sets so it scales across projects.

Tools and disciplines

Built with

FME

Discipline

Data AutomationQuality Assurance