SMARTDRAW IN ENGINEERING:

Detailed Diagrams for Permit Approval Process

Larry Horowitz is Owner & President of H & H Gas in Windsor, Ontario. H & H has been in business since 1947, when they started out selling chicken equipment to local farmers. From there, they branched into selling and installing propane for their customers' heating needs. H & H currently has 43 employees and services over 6,000 residential, commercial and agricultural accounts.

As owner, Larry's responsibilities span the organization—he is in charge of the HR functions, the Maintenance Department, Department of Transportation compliance for trucks and drivers, all the insurance matters, and everything else including the permit paperwork.

Regarding permits, Larry and his team use SmartDraw on a regular basis to create the diagrams and renderings necessary to facilitate the permit-approval process. For H & H's most recent installation, they created riser diagrams of the gas piping and a layout of a particular installation.

When using SmartDraw, Larry and his team start by selecting the appropriate SmartTemplate™ for block diagrams and the propane-related symbol library. SmartDraw has developed hundreds of SmartTemplates for every type of business graphic. Each SmartTemplate loads a diagram-specific Smart-Panel™ command set and the associated SmartHelp™ step-by-step instructions. They then take the submitted diagrams into the field with the installers to simplify laying out the jobs. H & H also draws layouts for installing the propane tanks and heaters for quotes to customers.

"I have no graphic design back-ground whatsoever," said Larry. "So before SmartDraw, we would actually sketch out the diagrams by hand to submit for the permit process. Now we use SmartDraw and the inspectors really appreciate the level of detail the program affords us."

"The bottom line is this: we use this program every single day and appreciate all the upgrades. Using the predefined graphics from the symbol libraries is so much easier than trying to draw each piece of the puzzle. After seeing the results I get with SmartDraw, all of my managers have started using the same program. I have also passed it on to some of my friendlier competitors."