When you upload a PDF drawing along with your part’s 3D CAD model, Fictiv’s advanced quoting algorithms can automatically synthesize the information in that drawing to provide an instant quote for your part.

Certain drawings, however, contain aspects that block our algorithms from being able to accurately provide an instant quote. This requires our team of manufacturing experts to review your drawings manually, a process which typically takes about an hour to complete.

This article details these blockers so that you can revise your drawings and leverage the full benefits of Fictiv’s quoting platform.

Your drawing contains content that triggers a manual review

The most common reason for the manual review requirement is that your drawing contains specific language indicating a manufacturing process that our platform is unable to instantly quote. It’s important to note that these processes aren’t necessarily outside of our capabilities; they just require human attention so that we can provide you with the most accurate quote possible. Language that falls into this category includes:

  • McMaster (or other references to specific stock material)
  • Knurling
  • Heat treatment (or stock being hardened or pre-hardened)
  • References to non-standard threads or inserts
  • Tolerances tighter than +/- 0.008mm (0.0003″)

Beyond this list of specific language, there are other miscellaneous types of content that can cause a drawing to be flagged by our system for manual review:

  • Japanese text
  • Callouts for dowels or pins that do not clearly state whether you want us to install the hardware
  • Callouts for thread sizes that do not match the hole diameters in the CAD model
  • Callouts for threads that do not have corresponding holes in the CAD model
  • Manufacturing details for multiple parts rather than a single part
  • Assembly requirements
  • PDFs containing 5+ pages

Issues with selectable text

Drawings that do not contain selectable text are not eligible to be instantly quoted. This is because the algorithms we employ to read PDF files rely on selectable text in order to detect your various callouts. Whether or not a drawing contains selectable text is typically determined during the PDF export process in your 3D modeling software.