Electrical Drawing Register, Best Practice

I look forward to the answers on this one.

In the construction sector I've not seen a specific standard dictating comprehensively which drawings are or are not supplied. Assorted standards do require particular drawings are provided specify pieces of information that need to be provided (e.g. BS7671), which is often easiest to communicate as a drawing, and some, generally industry-specific, standard do state XYZ drawing is required. But these are minimum criteria; I'm not aware of one providing a comprehensive list at least for the fields I work in and I'm not sure how it would work.

In practice it's generally left to a combination of contract (where a client has specified a particular set of documents in advance) and whatever is needed to communicate the design from the designer to the construction team... In practice as you say many firms end up with a standard suite to suit the type of project they work on and clients they work for, which makes life easier as everyone knows what to look for and where, and eccentricities are often more apparent, and this often evolves with time and experience. Industry expectations vary also (which can be fun when a client or contractor moves into a new sector).

For what it's worth, I am always wary of repeated information, because in my experience when it is there is a very real chance that documents go out of sync and its normally the wrong version that gets used. But the temptation to avoid this with a single monolithic drawing with everything in it should be resisted as it can be difficult to get the information out, and different people will be using the information for different tasks. Balance is required: Every piece of information in every drawing should be there for a reason lest it crowd out the important bits or even become a liability later; nothing should be unsaid or assumed that as a designer you may have an opinion on later, unless it is stated elsewhere in documents the relevant people have been referred to.

With an experienced CAD Tech this can often be managed (for example, separating the monolithic model from multiple layout sheets, (X-)referencing common content*, or using tools to automatically generate schedules), which often also saves a good deal of repeated work.

*Be mindful that vanilla AutoCAD and AutoCAD Electrical both use the phrase XREF but mean different things. Both are worth knowing about.

I look forward to the answers on this one.

In the construction sector I've not seen a specific standard dictating comprehensively which drawings are or are not supplied. Assorted standards do require particular drawings are provided specify pieces of information that need to be provided (e.g. BS7671), which is often easiest to communicate as a drawing, and some, generally industry-specific, standard do state XYZ drawing is required. But these are minimum criteria; I'm not aware of one providing a comprehensive list at least for the fields I work in and I'm not sure how it would work.

In practice it's generally left to a combination of contract (where a client has specified a particular set of documents in advance) and whatever is needed to communicate the design from the designer to the construction team... In practice as you say many firms end up with a standard suite to suit the type of project they work on and clients they work for, which makes life easier as everyone knows what to look for and where, and eccentricities are often more apparent, and this often evolves with time and experience. Industry expectations vary also (which can be fun when a client or contractor moves into a new sector).

For what it's worth, I am always wary of repeated information, because in my experience when it is there is a very real chance that documents go out of sync and its normally the wrong version that gets used. But the temptation to avoid this with a single monolithic drawing with everything in it should be resisted as it can be difficult to get the information out, and different people will be using the information for different tasks. Balance is required: Every piece of information in every drawing should be there for a reason lest it crowd out the important bits or even become a liability later; nothing should be unsaid or assumed that as a designer you may have an opinion on later, unless it is stated elsewhere in documents the relevant people have been referred to.

With an experienced CAD Tech this can often be managed (for example, separating the monolithic model from multiple layout sheets, (X-)referencing common content*, or using tools to automatically generate schedules), which often also saves a good deal of repeated work.

*Be mindful that vanilla AutoCAD and AutoCAD Electrical both use the phrase XREF but mean different things. Both are worth knowing about.