Engineering Drawing for Manufacture
by Brian Griffiths
• ISBN: 185718033X
• Pub. Date: February 2003
• Publisher: Elsevier Science & Technology Books
Introduction
In today's global economy, it is quite common for a component to
be designed in one country, manufactured in another and
assembled in yet another. The processes of manufacture and
assembly are based on the communication of engineering infor-
mation via drawing. These drawings follow rules laid down in
national and international standards and codes of practice. The
'highest' standards are the international ones since they allow
companies to operate in global markets. The organisation which is
responsible for the international rules is the International
Standards Organisation (ISO). There are hundreds of ISO stan-
dards on engineering drawing and the reason is that drawing is very
complicated and accurate transfer of information must be guar-
anteed. The information contained in an engineering drawing is
actually a legal specification, which contractor and subcontractor
agree to in a binding contract. The ISO standards are designed to
be independent of any one language and thus much symbology is
used to overcome a reliance on any language. Companies can only
operate efficiently if they can guarantee the correct transmission of
engineering design information for manufacturing and assembly.
This book is meant to be a short introduction to the subject of
engineering drawing for manufacture. It is only six chapters long
and each chapter has the thread of the ISO standards running
through it. It should be noted that standards are updated on a five-
year rolling programme and therefore students of engineering
drawing need to be aware of the latest standards because the
goalposts move regularly! Check that books based on standards are
less than five years old! A good example of the need to keep abreast
of developments is the decimal marker. It is now ISO practice to use
x
Engineering drawing for manufacture
a comma rath