Defense contractors work with electrical and systems drawings that carry handling requirements incompatible with standard cloud-based tools. OpenDrawing addresses this directly: the same automated BOM extraction, vendor quote validation, and proposal generation capabilities available in the cloud version can be deployed entirely within your infrastructure - no drawing data leaves your environment.
Vendor Quote Validation
When a defense contractor receives vendor quotes for electrical equipment or systems, validating those quotes against the design drawings is a labor-intensive process. An estimator or engineer reads the drawing, builds the expected component list, and compares it against what the vendor has quoted - looking for line items that are missing, incorrectly specified, or priced against the wrong configuration.
OpenDrawing automates the drawing-to-component-list step. The platform extracts the full component list from the design drawing, and that list becomes the validation baseline. Vendor quotes can be compared against the extracted BOM line-by-line, flagging discrepancies in quantities, specifications, or coverage. Quote validation that previously took a day of manual extraction and comparison takes an hour of review against a pre-populated baseline.
Automated Estimates and Proposal Generation
For defense contractors responding to RFPs, the drawing-to-estimate pipeline is the same problem faced by commercial contractors - just with higher stakes, tighter timelines, and stricter handling requirements. OpenDrawing extracts the full material list from design drawings, applies your parts catalog for cost mapping, and produces a priced BOM that feeds directly into your proposal pricing model.
For proposals that require a formatted cost volume with itemized material costs, the platform can generate the structured BOM output in formats compatible with standard government proposal templates - reducing the manual data entry between the drawing package and the cost estimate.
Deployment Options for Sensitive Programs
OpenDrawing offers two secure deployment paths for defense programs:
Air-gapped on-premises deployment installs the OpenDrawing platform entirely within your facility's infrastructure with no internet connectivity requirement. Drawing data never leaves your environment. Processing runs on your hardware. This deployment model supports programs with strict data handling requirements where any external data transfer is prohibited.
GovCloud and dedicated VPC deployments run OpenDrawing in an isolated cloud environment - AWS GovCloud or a customer-dedicated VPC - with no shared infrastructure. Data residency, access controls, and network isolation are configurable to program requirements. This path is suitable for programs that allow cloud processing within a controlled boundary.
Both deployment models support the full OpenDrawing feature set: drawing ingestion, symbol extraction, catalog matching, BOM generation, and output export. The deployment configuration is determined during the engagement setup phase based on program requirements.
Drawing Types Supported
OpenDrawing handles the electrical drawing types common in defense programs: system one-line diagrams, facility power distribution drawings, relay and protection panel schematics, wiring diagrams, and associated equipment and panel schedules. Both modern CAD-exported drawings and legacy paper-originated drawings from earlier program phases are supported.
Getting Started
Defense contractor engagements typically begin with a requirements conversation, given the deployment and handling considerations. Contact the OpenDrawing team to discuss program requirements, deployment options, and a scoped pilot on a sample of your drawings.