Scaffold Eng: Nail on the head mate.
I feel the same about generic drawings but don't really voice my opinion as good friends of mine who run their own design companies decide to sell them, I'd rather just not say anything unless I'm asked by my clients....
We don't sell generic designs and never will. That said, if you get a design for a loading bay say for a specific site, then you plan to use it again (erected in an identical way) on another site, then we will only charge the time it takes to amend the original design. This is usually just a couple of hours max. This way our clients have bespoke designs for every job but don't pay the full amount for each one. Same applies to all scaffolds, if a client has built something similar before and lots of bits can be transferred over, then there is cost savings to be made. Yes calcs are new, thats a given.
I personally think we have to offer this kind of money saving option to our clients, if they win more work, we win more work: we're in it together.
We do a similar things with site surveys and training staff to gather information themselves were possible.... all this stuff adds up!!
Sorry, I digressed somewhat there.
Ben