---
title: "Beyond Outsourcing: Real Integrators Share How They’re Expanding Engineering Capacity"
description: Hear how commercial integrators are using AV Design Labs to expand engineering capacity, improve workflows, reduce backlogs, and support growth.
---

[The Signal Chain](https://avdesignlabs.com/the-signal-chain)

# [Beyond Outsourcing: Real Integrators Share How They’re Expanding Engineering Capacity](https://avdesignlabs.com/the-signal-chain/real-stories-integrators-engineering-capacity)

 Written by [Sunil Botadra](https://avdesignlabs.com/the-signal-chain/author/sunil-botadra) | Oct 8, 2026, 2:35:38 PM

*Engineering bandwidth, drafting backlogs, hiring challenges and seasonal demand are familiar problems for integrators. Hear directly from AV professionals about how they’re approaching those challenges differently.*

Engineering bandwidth is a challenge almost every growing integrator encounters eventually.

Projects stack up. Drafting queues grow. Seasonal demand creates pressure. Hiring another engineer can take months, and once that engineer is hired, highly skilled technical talent can still end up spending significant time producing drawings, editing documentation and handling work that pulls them away from customers and system design.

When AV Design Labs recently asked customers what originally led them to seek outside engineering support, those themes surfaced repeatedly.

But their stories also revealed something bigger.

For many, the answer wasn't simply outsourcing more work. It was **rethinking how they use their internal engineering resources.**

## Giving Engineers Their Time Back

For several customers, the issue wasn't simply finding someone who could produce drawings. It was determining where their internal engineering talent could provide the most value.

Curt Matyjasik, Director of Engineering at IMS Technology Services, described the original challenge plainly: skilled engineers were spending valuable time doing drafting work.

Today, AV Design Labs allows those engineers to put more of their skill and knowledge toward supporting internal teams and customers instead of being heads down in drawing packages. That aligns directly with AVDL's broader approach to providing [scalable drafting, engineering, and programming support](https://avdesignlabs.com/) that helps integrators extend capacity without overloading internal teams.

Dalton Parker, Director of Sales & Marketing at ClearVista, described a similar shift.

ClearVista initially partnered with AV Design Labs to extend its engineering capacity and allow engineers to spend more time designing solutions, working directly with customers and solving technical challenges instead of producing drafting packages.

That experience led to an important realization.

**Engineering capacity isn't always about adding headcount. It's about putting the right people on the right work.**

IMS Technology has seen the same benefit, reporting that additional drafting capacity frees its engineers to provide more support to field personnel, project management and the rest of the organization.

## Turning a Bottleneck into a Strength

Documentation can easily become a pinch point between sales, engineering, operations and installation.

That challenge is one of the reasons AVDL created [The Signal Chain](https://avdesignlabs.com/the-signal-chain/why-we-launched-the-signal-chain), which focuses on practical issues such as documentation standards, engineering workflows, handoffs, scalability, and project execution.

For Red Thread, scalable drafting support has helped turn that traditional bottleneck into a strength.

“We have been with AVDL since its inception,” said **Jonathan Kiley, Engineering Supervisor at Red Thread**. “They continually meet the mark providing a consistent, quality drawing package and their ability to scale with seasonal needs has been instrumental in meeting project timelines and demands.”

ClearVista has experienced a similar improvement in turnaround. Parker said drafting packages that previously could take weeks are now typically completed within days of project creation.

That change has improved communication between departments, reduced internal friction and accelerated project handoffs.

**James Wasem, Audio Visual Solutions Engineer at Pye Barker Fire & Safety**, also pointed to significantly improved drafting turnaround times, consistent documentation standards and prompt revisions. The result is more time for internal engineers to concentrate on design, scope support and drawing review.

## Scaling Without Sacrificing Consistency

The ability to add capacity matters only if quality remains consistent.

Mason Technologies stated that AV Design Labs has helped the company scale for more than six years while maintaining consistent quality, formatting and project timelines. The company also highlighted flexibility, reliability and ease of engagement as important parts of the relationship.

Proverbs 356 Legacy similarly cited quality of work, industry knowledge, communication, consistency and urgency as key benefits, particularly for a smaller business that needed additional manpower and engineering expertise.

For both organizations, outside resources weren't simply filling hours. They were creating room for the internal business to focus elsewhere.

That philosophy is central to [AV Design Labs' approach](https://avdesignlabs.com/about-us), which is built around operating as an extension of the integrator's team and helping firms scale through practical, trade-fluent support.

## An Extension of the Engineering Team

A common concern about outsourcing technical work is that an outside partner will introduce another process to manage.

Several customers described the opposite experience.

“One of the biggest differentiators is how seamlessly AV Design Labs integrates into our existing workflow,” Parker said. Rather than changing ClearVista's processes around an outside resource, AVDL adapted to the company's tools and workflows.

Kiley pointed to another important differentiator: firsthand AV industry experience.

That familiarity with integrator workflows, systems and documentation standards can reduce the amount of translation required between an internal engineering team and an outside resource.

Matyjasik summed up the relationship another way. The more information and communication his team provides, the more AV Design Labs becomes simply **part of the process**.

## Rethinking What Outsourcing Means

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from these customer experiences is that integrators may need to reconsider the word "outsourcing" altogether.

Wasem acknowledged that he was initially reluctant to outsource services that felt like core engineering responsibilities. After working through the process across numerous projects, he said his organization is now in a better position to serve its clients with AVDL's support.

Parker offered similar advice to other integrators: Stop thinking about outsourced drafting and start thinking about **additional engineering capacity**.

For integration firms facing hiring challenges, growing backlogs or engineers spending too much time on documentation, that distinction can change the conversation.

The goal isn't to replace your engineering team.

It's to give them more capacity to do what they do best.

**Could your engineering team use additional capacity?** [Schedule a 30-minute consultation with AV Design Labs](https://avdesignlabs.com/contact) to talk about your drafting, programming or engineering needs.

[View full post](https://avdesignlabs.com/the-signal-chain/real-stories-integrators-engineering-capacity)

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