Drawing has two aspects in terms of the manufacturing process: one is an assembling drawing to assemble a product; another is processing diagram or working diagram mainly describing how to process parts . In both cases, it is indispensable to include all information necessary to manufacture the product in these drawings so that everyone can assemble or process it.

Such drawings are used as a basic data of bill of materials, a core function of production control system. In terms of the information system of production control, the "drawing" refers to the Master Drawing as an engineering data. The master drawing has drawing number, version number, relating-item number, engineering change number, and other information, and is used as a release of drawing to give work instructions.

Related term: Engineering Data