The Current System

When a technician or engineer needs to consult a blueprint for a piece of machinery or electrical system, he goes to the Engineering Department's master filing room. There he finds three very large file cabinets that are full of drawings which date back to the early 1970s.

Due to the vast amount and variety of the drawings, the filing system is complex and difficult to learn.

A drawing search begins with the drawing title index (see picture above). Inside this index, the drawings' titles are given along with the corresponding number. The job titles and numbers are hand written and are difficult to read. In all, each drawing has a nine digit number which can be broken into the following segments.

1. Each drawing is assigned a number corresponding to the plant. CertainTeed has forty-one different plants and the assigned number for Athens is 8. This is the first digit in the file number.
2. Drawings are then categorized into three types;

• electrical (1)
• mechanical (3)
• structural prints (5)

1. Within these categories, the drawings are divided into shop order numbers. These are the areas in the factory that have a specific function in the manufacturing process. There are ninety-nine shop order numbers. For example, shop 41 is the Glass Furnace.
2. Individual drawings are then given a four digit number to differentiate within the shop.

Drawing number 08-1-41-2310 corresponds to Athens Plant (08), Electrical Category(1), Glass Furnace shop order (41), and drawing number within the shop (2310).