Engineering design best practice

I run a small engineering firm that engineers and supplies conveyor equipment. The guts of our systems are mechanically very well defined and easy to design. However, we also completely design and supply the structure that supports the mechanical equipment. The structural engineering requires more care and time, as each of our systems is unique. We then ultimately have to also produce layout drawings of the structure to share with our fabricator. From this, shop details are then produced so the fabricator can cut and weld the steel.

We've been doing 95% of our work in 2D AutoCad, but I know the shop detail guys convert all our work into a 3D model, then tear in back down into individual parts, so it seems logical to me that it would be way more efficient for us to do our work in 3D to begin with.

The question I want to ask this community is whether anyone else has transitioned from what we're doing, to something better, and what software you used to do so.

It's probably worthwhile to mention also that I am very much against AutoDesk's subscription model, whereby they expect a continuous stream of income from me for minimal gain to my team. I was on the maintenance model back when they had that, and the only change I ever saw during that time was the addition of annoying visual effects, while known bugs continued to persist. We are currently locked in on the last perpetual license version, and I am far more inclined to go to something like FreeCAD or software from pretty much any other company who does not force this model on me.

Thanks for your help everyone!