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Anyone involved in the production and management of issue controlled drawings will be able to associate with the top five problems identified through research conducted by CAD document management specialists Document Flow, namely: a long approval process time, confusion as to whether the digital or hard copy is the master, compromised quality system, archiving of hard copies and expensive downstream process such as microfilm or scanning.
The core problem is that anyone can add CAD text initials or 'dumb' bitmap signatures to approval boxes with the additional complication that a drawing can be modified while still appearing to be approved.
To address these needs for AutoCAD users, CADsign has been developed to embed secure digital signatures directly into drawing files.
A one off enrolment process is conducted to register users and appropriate approval rights into the system.
Although this software can be located on any CAD station, it is often in a secure location such as with corporate servers.
Authentication can be by password or preferably by biometric recognition of finger or thumb scans.
These are associated with signatures digitised on a tablet that is only needed at the time of enrolment.
These signatures subsequently appear on the drawing sheets as secure non-editable ARX objects, exactly replicating the appearance of a physically signed hard copy.
Authenticator software is installed on AutoCAD workstations of users authorised to approve and sign-off design drawings.
The password or a finger or thumb scanning mouse or keyboard is then used to validate a user, allowing them to digitally embed their signature within the AutoCAD 2000 and above drawing.