If a project is to run smoothly and be completed on time, all crew leaders or supervisors must coordinate their work efforts and cooperate with one another as one big team. Most surveying operations are performed to guide the work done by other construction crews. You must therefore work closely with other crew leaders to ensure that your surveys are timely and do not delay the overall project. Cooperation with other supervisors will eliminate many problems that would otherwise arise when you are coordinating work efforts. In effect, you are merging your ideas and efforts to make the project run smoothly. Cooperation is also essential to your success as a drafting supervisor. Consult the Builder crew supervisor on design problems and construction methods. Spending too much time on unnecessary details could delay the job if the Builders are awaiting the drawings to start the job. So right from the start, get into the habit of cooperating with other supervisors, and you will soon gain their respect as well as the respect of your superiors and your crew members.

Maintaining file records, or simply "filing," is one job an EA needs to learn fast and well. When you are transferred to a new unit or command, chances are good that you will be involved in organizing and keeping track of a variety of engineering drawings normally found in the drafting and reproduction section. Your biggest challenge in filing is to make it possible for any single drawing (sheet), as well as the record pertaining to that particular drawing, to be readily located. Since most filing cabinets or protected stowage receptacles are limited in space, you may develop an ingenious approach to a highly organized filing system.

You must keep in mind that each engineering drawing is commonly identifiable by a drawing number assigned by the agency (such as NAVFACENGCOM) that made the drawing. The first major file breakdown for drawings, then, is a breakdown into separate files for the different agencies that have supplied the drawings. Within each agency file, the most convenient way to file drawings and prints is by the numerical sequence of drawing numbers.

Original drawings and sepia copies are filed flat-NEVER folded. For large size originals, use shallow-drawer file cabinets of the type shown in figure 16-3. Smaller size drawings are generally

stowed on edge in the standard deep-drawer-type cabinet, as shown in figure 16-4. Each drawer is divided into compartments by stationary partitions, and in each compartment there is a "compressor spring" to keep the drawings on edge and in a compressed stack.