The Engineering organization of reasonable years standing, over a period of time generates number of drawings for its internal / external use. Earlier most of these drawings were generated on vegetable fiber based paper. These paper drawings, with passage of time, tend to become brittle and require protection from pests and rodents. Thus the storage of these drawings require a large space and regular upkeep and maintenance.

The development of computer applications and reduction in cost of high capacity storage media, like CDs, it has now become most economical to SCAN the drawings and store them on CDs. The advantages being:

- High number of drawings can be stored in very small space. (A recent project for scanning of 26,500 drawings resulted in the drawings from 35 drawings storage drawers to be stored on just 4 CDs)

- Locating a drawing becomes very easy due to associated program available.

- Standard plain paper printers or plotters can be used to take a physical plot of the drawing. (Thus no more smell of ammonia from printing or requirement of dark room equipment for development of microfilm prints.)

- The old drawings are captured in their present status, which can be cleaned and the "tape marks" removed to give them a new life. There is no danger of the Scanned drawings being "aged" or torn.

- Multiple copies can be created for storage at different location (a feature any Custodian of these drawings would like to have, in case of mis-happenings at one location, the drawings from other location can serve as a backup.)

- The scanned drawings can be made available over the network of computers, there would be no more waiting periods for the prints and Engineers / Draftspersons can be more productive.

- Scanned drawings can be incorporated in standard Drafting software available, to make use of the information in creating a new design.