Customer profile
The team is a small construction project coordination unit embedded in a commercial or mixed-use development firm that regularly oversees elevator installation as part of building fit-out. The site engineer or project coordinator in this role sits between the elevator original equipment manufacturer — in this case, a Zardoya Otis installation package — and the general contractor on site. That position carries a specific responsibility: ensuring that every pre-installation condition the OEM requires of the client is understood, assigned, and verifiable before the installation crew arrives on site.
Projects of this type involve tight sequencing. The elevator shaft, pit, machine room, ventilation, electrical feeds, and structural supports must all be in place before the OEM's installation crew mobilises. The coordinator's job is to ensure none of these pre-conditions are missed — and that every party understands exactly what they are responsible for before work begins.
Problem
The coordination drawing arrived as a DXF file with a critical 15-item note block written entirely in Spanish. Positioned on the right side of the drawing, this note block defined the full scope of client and builder responsibilities: structural load requirements (800 kp, 1200 kp, 1875 kp, and 2800 kp), electrical specifications (220 V+T supply, maximum 5% voltage drop, compliance with EN81-1(98)), machine room conditions (ventilation clearances, ceiling hooks rated at 1200 kp each, metal door with padlock interlock on the power switch), and landing conditions (minimum 50 lux lighting at each floor level).
Extracting this information manually required opening the DXF in CAD software, navigating to the right-side note block by coordinate, reading each item in Spanish, and translating it by hand or through a separate tool — with no systematic check for completeness. That process was not only time-consuming but structurally unreliable.
When the coordinator performed a coordinate-filtered extraction of the right-side block, item 6 was entirely absent. The numbering jumped directly from item 5 to item 7 with no gap marker. Without an automatic flag, that kind of omission passes cleanly into the contractor checklist — and a checklist with a missing item is a liability document, not a compliance tool.
The drawing added another layer of complexity: it was a template, not a finalised project document. Dimension variables — HD, HW, CD, and CW — were placeholders, not confirmed values. Every variable reference had to be identified and marked as unconfirmed before the checklist could be handed off to the general contractor. A single placeholder treated as a real dimension could generate scope errors that would surface only during installation, at the worst possible moment.
Why now
The coordinator was working toward a contractor pre-mobilisation meeting — the checkpoint at which the general contractor formally commits to the builder-side scope before the elevator installation crew arrives on site. That meeting requires a complete, English-language, verified checklist of client responsibilities. Any delay in producing it pushes back the entire installation schedule, and the downstream costs of a late elevator — delayed certificate of occupancy, tenant move-in penalties, extended construction loan interest — accumulate quickly.
The template status of the drawing made the timeline pressure sharper. Before the contractor meeting, the coordinator needed to distinguish which items were ready for handoff and which still required input from the design team or the OEM. That distinction had to be made in the coordination document itself, not left to the general contractor to sort out on site. A rushed or incomplete translation at this stage would force a second coordination round, adding days the schedule did not have.
Why energent.ai
General translation tools cannot parse DXF geometry. They have no concept of coordinate space, note block structure, or the distinction between a drawing entity and a text annotation. A browser-based translation tool handed a DXF file cannot open it. A human translator handed the same file would need to open it in CAD software first, reproducing the manual extraction step that caused the problem in the first place.
Spreadsheets and BI dashboards are similarly ill-suited. They can hold a translated checklist once it exists, but they cannot produce one from a DXF source. The transformation from raw CAD geometry to structured text must happen somewhere — and it was precisely that step that was creating the bottleneck.
Hiring a bilingual CAD specialist on demand takes days. For a single coordination drawing where the output needed is a structured text checklist rather than a revised DXF, the cost-to-timeline ratio is unfavourable.
energent.ai addressed the problem differently. The agent loads DXF files directly, applies coordinate-space filtering to isolate specific note blocks, extracts structured text from CAD annotations, and compiles formatted Markdown deliverables — all in one session. Critically, it also surfaces anomalies automatically. When the coordinate-filtered extraction produced a jump from item 5 to item 7, the agent flagged the gap explicitly and recommended manual CAD verification rather than silently skipping the missing entry. That exception-surfacing behaviour — rather than silent omission — is what separates a reliable extraction tool from a merely fast one.
Workflow
Step 1 — File upload and parse. The coordinator uploaded the DXF file to energent.ai. The agent parsed the drawing geometry, identified the primary text blocks, and located the right-side client responsibility note block alongside the drawing legend and title block.
Step 2 — Coordinate-filtered extraction. The agent applied a coordinate filter to isolate the right-side note block from the rest of the drawing's text annotations. This produced a structured list of numbered items in their original Spanish, separated from dimension labels, title block text, and left-side legend content.
Step 3 — Anomaly detection. The extraction revealed that item 6 was absent — the list moved directly from item 5 to item 7. The agent flagged this explicitly, noting that the item might be absent, hidden, or positioned outside the filtered coordinate range, and recommended direct CAD inspection to confirm before the checklist was distributed.
Step 4 — Translation and tabulation. The agent translated all 14 recoverable items into English, preserving the original Spanish text in a side-by-side table. Numeric values were retained verbatim: structural loads of 800 kp, 1200 kp, 1875 kp, and 2800 kp; electrical requirements of 220 V+T and maximum 5% voltage drop; ceiling hook ratings of 1200 kp each; machine base slab guard height of 0.9 m if the slab sits more than 0.5 m above the machine-room floor; and minimum landing lighting of 50 lux.
| # | Extracted Spanish | English translation |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Un hueco liso con desplomes menores del 1/1000 y conforme al R.D.1314/97 y Norma EN81-1(98), (Capitulo 5), con ventilación permanente en su parte superior, superficie mínima 2,5 por 100 de la sección transversal del hueco. | A smooth elevator shaft with deviations less than 1/1000, compliant with R.D.1314/97 and EN81-1(98), Chapter 5, with permanent ventilation at the upper part. The ventilation area must be at least 2.5% of the shaft cross-section. |
| 2 | Un foso estanco y capaz de soportar las cargas indicadas en este plano. | A watertight pit capable of supporting the loads indicated on this drawing. |
| 3 | Los zunchos necesarios en el hueco para el anclaje de las fijaciones de las guías de cabina, contrapeso y las puertas. | The necessary structural bands/supports in the shaft for anchoring the guide fixings of the cabin, counterweight, and doors. |
| 4 | El recibido y remate de las puertas después de su colocación por Zardoya Otis S.A. | The making good / finishing around the doors after they are installed by Zardoya Otis S.A. |
| 5 | Un cuarto de máquinas, para uso exclusivo del ascensor, conforme al citado R.D., (Capitulo 6), de fácil acceso, bien iluminado, (200 lux mínimo), para evacuar 2000 kcal/h del equipo y el calor procedente del exterior, con el fin de conseguir una temperatura interior comprendida entre 5 °C y 40 °C. Dotado de una puerta metálica y cerradura, de apertura libre desde el interior. | A machine room exclusively for the elevator, compliant with the cited regulation, Chapter 6. It must be easily accessible, well lit, minimum 200 lux, ventilated to remove 2000 kcal/h from the equipment plus external heat, so the internal temperature stays between 5 °C and 40 °C. It must have a metal door with a lock, freely openable from the inside. |
| 6 | Not extracted from the right-side DXF text block. | Item 6 appears to be missing from the extracted right-side note block, or it may be absent/hidden in the drawing. The numbering jumps from 5 to 7 in the extracted text. |
| 7 | El hormigonado de la losa-base para la máquina, conforme a las medidas de este plano, y capaz de resistir las cargas indicadas. Si la losa-base de la máquina está a más de 0,5 m. sobre el resto de la superficie del cuarto de máquinas, se deberá prever una protección metálica desmontable de 0,9 m. de altura, así como escalera de acceso. | The concreting of the machine base slab according to the dimensions on this drawing, capable of resisting the indicated loads. If the machine base slab is more than 0.5 m above the rest of the machine-room floor, a removable metal guard/railing 0.9 m high must be provided, as well as an access ladder/stair. |
| 8 | Un gancho en el techo del cuarto de máquinas situado encima del mecanismo tractor y otro encima de la trampilla, si existe, para una carga de 1200 kp cada uno, debidamente señalizados. | One hook in the machine-room ceiling above the traction mechanism, and another above the hatch/trapdoor if one exists. Each must be rated for 1200 kp and properly marked. |
| 9 | Las acometidas de fuerza y alumbrado, con toma de tierra hasta el cuadro de maniobra, según esquema "B", conforme al MIBT y Norma EN81-1(98), admitiéndose una caída de tensión máxima del 5%. El interruptor de fuerza irá dotado de enclavamiento por candado. Junto al interruptor del alumbrado se instalará un enchufe (220 V+T). | Power and lighting feeds, with grounding to the control panel, according to diagram B, compliant with MIBT and EN81-1(98). Maximum allowed voltage drop is 5%. The power switch must have a padlock interlock. Next to the lighting switch, a socket must be installed: 220 V + earth. |
| 10 | A partir del comienzo del montaje la corriente necesaria para las herramientas de trabajo y los ensayos de puesta a punto del ascensor. | From the start of installation, the client must provide the electrical power needed for work tools and elevator commissioning/testing. |
| 11 | Las protecciones provisionales en los accesos al hueco durante el período de montaje. | Temporary protections/barriers at shaft access openings during the installation period. |
| 12 | Un local cerrado y apto para el depósito de los elementos del ascensor a partir de su llegada a obra. | A closed and suitable room/storage area for storing elevator components once they arrive on site. |
| 13 | Instalación de linea telefónica hasta el cuarto de máquinas para la comunicación con la central OTIS. | Installation of a telephone line to the machine room for communication with the OTIS central/service center. |
| 14 | Alumbrado de rellanos mínimo 50 lux. | Landing/floor-level lighting of at least 50 lux. |
| 15 | Todos los trabajos necesarios que específicamente no se consideren en este contrato como por cuenta de Zardoya Otis S.A. | All necessary works that are not specifically considered in this contract as being the responsibility of Zardoya Otis S.A. |
Step 5 — Deliverable assembly. The agent compiled a final Markdown package — elevator_dwg_final_package.md — containing four components: a plain-English onboarding guide to the drawing, the full Spanish/English translation table, an eight-point attention checklist covering every item requiring professional review or manual verification, and a reference to the source DXF file.
Step 6 — Handoff flags. The agent marked which items required further action before contractor distribution: item 6 (manual CAD verification required), structural loads (qualified structural engineer review), electrical specifications (licensed electrical professional review), and all dimension variables — HD, HW, CD, CW — (confirmation against actual project conditions before use in any binding scope document).
Results
The session produced a structured deliverable ready for coordinator review and conditional contractor distribution:
- 14 of 15 items extracted and translated from the Spanish-language note block in a single session.
- 1 anomaly surfaced automatically: item 6 was flagged as missing from the coordinate-filtered extraction rather than silently omitted, preserving the integrity of the output.
- All critical specifications captured: four structural load thresholds (800 kp, 1200 kp, 1875 kp, 2800 kp), electrical supply and voltage drop requirements, EN81-1(98) compliance reference, ceiling hook ratings, machine room guard rail height, and minimum 50 lux landing lighting.
- Template status documented: dimension variables (HD, HW, CD, CW) were identified and flagged as unconfirmed, preventing placeholder values from entering the contractor scope document.
- Contractor handoff checklist produced: the Markdown package was structured for immediate conditional distribution, with professional review requirements clearly marked against the relevant items.
The qualitative shift was in reliability. The coordinator received a structured, cross-referenced output with explicit gaps clearly labelled — rather than a self-produced translation that could contain silent omissions and carry hidden liability into the contractor relationship.
Proof
"The drawing had been sitting in our project folder for two days because nobody on the team reads technical Spanish well enough to work through a 15-item compliance note block in a DXF," the project coordinator noted. "What we got back wasn't just a translation — it was a checklist we could actually hand to the contractor, with the gaps clearly marked. The missing item 6 flag alone saved us from sending out an incomplete document."
The final deliverable — elevator_dwg_final_package.md — is a self-contained Markdown package that includes the Spanish/English translation table, the eight-point attention checklist, and the source DXF file reference. It was produced from a single file upload in one session, without the coordinator needing to open CAD software, coordinate a translation handoff, or manually audit the note block for completeness.
Trust note
The output of this session is a working draft, not a final compliance document. Item 6 in the client responsibility checklist was not recoverable from the coordinate-filtered extraction and must be verified by opening the source DXF in CAD software and inspecting the right-side note block directly before the checklist is distributed. Structural load values (800 kp, 1200 kp, 1875 kp, 2800 kp) require review by a qualified structural engineer before being incorporated into project specifications or contractor scope documents. Electrical notes — including voltage drop tolerance, grounding requirements, and EN81-1(98) compliance — require review by a licensed electrical professional. Because the drawing is a template, all dimension variables (HD, HW, CD, CW) must be confirmed against actual project conditions before the checklist is used for contractor handoff or included in any binding project documentation.