‘Shop’ drawings for the construction industry seem to fall between two stools. Should we be following the engineering/manufacturing standards or the building construction standards?
Thankfully the adoption of the ISO Standards by the BSI means that much of the drawing ‘vocabulary’ (i.e. line weights, line types e.t.c) are the same for both.
If you are producing shop drawings exclusively, then you should probably follow ‘BS 8888:2008 Technical product specification’. If you are producing general arrangement or layout drawings you may want to refer to ‘BS EN ISO 7519:1997 Technical drawing – Construction drawings – General principles of presentation’.
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Neither of these standards are complete, they serve as references to the rest of the standards that apply. Some standards, such as ‘BS EN ISO 128-20:2001 Technical drawings. General principles of presentation. Basic conventions for lines’, applies to all industries.
If you are unsure which standard takes precedence the best thing to do is to confer with your colleagues and try at least to make sure that the drawings coming out of your office are consistent with one another.
Even the BSI themselves admit that the standards won’t cover every eventuality, as this extract from the National foreword implies:
‘The British Standard does not purport to include all the necessary provisions of a contract. Users of the British Standard are responsible for their correct application.
Compliance with a British Standard does not of itself confer immunity from legal obligations.’