Shop Drawing review protocol 1

[fogeyville]

I've been tasked to re-vamp our company's shop drawing Quality Assurance plan, and I feel the need to pick everyone's brain on a few gray areas. Any comments you wish to share will be appreciated.

1) Do any of you require a schedule of submittals be submitted for approval prior to reviewing any shop drawings? If so, what is the basis of rejection for the schedule?

2) Is it acceptable to stamp only the first sheet in a set of shop drawings, or are any of you stamping EVERY sheet like we currently are?

3) For specialty-engineered items such as Wood Trusses, metal stairs and Pre-engineered metal buildings where the submittal bears another engineer’s seal, are you processing these items any differently (i.e., stamping them “Reviewed” instead of approved, or not stamping them at all)?

4) Is it reasonable to reject the following submittal as non-conforming?: The Contractor has stamped the submittal, but their company stamp says “Reviewed” instead of “Approved”.

5) Is it reasonable to reject the following submittal as deficient?: Steel shop drawings with multiple clouds from the fabricator requesting dimensions to existing construction that the Contractor has not yet verified prior to forwarding the submittal to you. Similarly, clouds requesting dimensions of mechanical openings which the Contractor has not yet coordinated with his equipment supplier.

6) Are there any typical structural submittals that you specify as “Informational” submittals instead of the typical “Action” submittals? (I might guess that concrete formwork shop drawings would be one such item…)

7) What is the “going rate” for selling CAD files intended for the production of shop drawings?

8) After how many "Revise and Re-submits" do you start charging for Additional Services for reviewing the same incorrect submittal? (I'm thinking two...)

Thank you very much for your time.

Fogeyville

 

[cvg]

1) yes it is required, rejected if incomplete
2) stamp the first sheet
3) no submittals are stamped with the word "approved" - our attorneys frown on this word...
4) probably not reasonable
5) yes
8) you should be doing this T&M and charging for all time...

 

[fogeyville]

cvg:

Thank you for your responses.

I appreciate what you are saying about the word "approved", and it is an on-going dilemna here.

We are not currently using the word "approved", but from what I've been reading from some of the major professional liability insurance carriers' risk management literature, any words other than "rejected" or "revise and resubmit" are considered to mean "approved" in the eyes of the court, especially if your review duties are defined in your contract.

Also, most of the time, our contracts with our clients are based on AIA C-141, which DOES require us to "Review and Approve" submittals.

For these reasons, we are considering using "approved", but the debate rages on...

 

[jike]

1) No on small jobs, yes on large and/or complicated jobs. Reject schedule if incomplete or unrealistic but before you do this call contractor to discuss why it will be rejected.
2)Yes, but write on the first sheet which sheets this review covers. For example: sheets E1-E7, E9, 100-180, 191, 193
3)Reviewed. I suggest that you discuss exact wording with your insurance carrier.
4) No
5) Not approved, resubmit with requested dimensions.
6) Contractor procedures, means and methods, etc.
7) Owner may not like this. This is more an issue of liability than making money.
8)Charge after two reviews. Put these provisions in spec so the contractor cannot plead ignorance.

 

[dik]

1) Yes for larger projects
2) For large number of drawings, stamp the first sheet and reference the applicable sheets
3) We never approve anything...
4) General notes have specific requirements for review and I'll post these in a later message.
5) Yes, we require that the contractor reviews the shop drawing prior to submission. If we note several errors that the contractor hasn't caught, then we reject it with a terse comment that the contractor is required to review first. We often encounter shop drawings that the contractor hasn't likely looked at prior to submission.
6) Returned, not reviewed.
7) We don't normally charge for the drawings and provide them without titleblock and as 'paper' only.
8)Two sounds reasonable, and I'm not aware that we have charged additional for extra review. We have a similar issue with review of construction.

Dik

 

[JAE]

For many years we were all caught up in the "approved" vs. "reviewed" vs. "no exception taken" semantics.

Some attorneys stated to us what fogeyville suggested - the wording doesn't matter. Just as we are held to a standard of care (i.e. what another reasonable engineer would have done in our situation) - so also with shop drawing reviews - the standard is that you review them, check them for general conformance with your plans and details, and send them back with comments or no comments.

The stamp and language doesn't matter all that much unless you are rejecting them or asking for a revised submittal.

 

[cvg]

apparently, according to our risk management attorneys and insurance carriers the wording does matter.

 

[kslee1000]

I suggest to ask those lawyers to provide real court cases involving the word "APPROVED", the winning cases as well as the losing cases. Study them, and make your own decision. I remember our stamp have waiver terms, though I don't remember the exact words. Basically it states we "Approve" that the submittal has satisfactorily met guildline and principal of design, but the means and methods of construction...The stamp worked fine.

 

[abusementpark]

Who would you charge for the excessive resubmittals? The contractor? I guess it is his fault that his sub is incompetent.

 

[SlenderBeam]

I wonder what the stamp said on the Hyatt walkway drawings??

 

[asixth]

Stamp all sheets, review the design intent and make sure your stamp has a disclaimer on it.

 

[cvg]

kslee1000 - disagreeing with our risk management team on there shop drawing review policy is not an option. They make the policy, the employees must follow it. Frankly, I have no motivation to debate the issue with them - they are trying to protect me as well as the company from liability.

 

[DRC1]

For a Contactor's perspective:

1.) Schedule of submittals-It should depend on the job. What I find more useful, which I rarely see is a limit on the shop drawing review, that is where the contract says the will not review cetian drawings(such as rebar) until other drawings(such as penetration drawings) are recieved, or that enginineers not being omnicent, cant approve with out reviewing, so if you send in all the structural steel drawings and all the rebar drawings on the same day the two week turnaround may become 4. Simply put I would rather know (prior to bid) what your needs and expectations are and let my suppliers know so we can determine the best way to do it. On some jobs the shop drawings do not drive the job, but on others they are very critical path. Therefore we would also like to know what you expect for review time.

2.)Stamping One or Every Sheet - I would like to see every sheet stamped because that is what is used to set rebar, fabricate etc. Thus if each sheet is stamped you can be sure you are workig with the approved copy. Rebar for example is often bought by the GC and installed by the sub. The sub's foreman has no idea what happend during the approval process or how many revions there were. He just wants to be sure he has the approved copy.

3)Stamping specialty items- Someone needs to approve these (see(4)). If the items meet the intent of your design, then you should approve them. If you feel the review of the structural or code compliance is outside your area of practice - Which is probaly why it is a speacilty item anyway, Have the supplier provide a PE or LA stamp as approprite. Be sure this requirement is in the bid documents.Your approval should note that you relied on the manufacturers supplied stamp.

4) Reviewed vs. Approved - Everything should be stamped Approved. Most contracts tell the contractor the material will be approved, and it is the EOR's job to state the shop drawings are adequate. We had a job were the engineer would review but not approve drawings for a very expensive piece of the work. Our contact clearly entitled to us approved drawings and we would not proceed with out them. The Engineer refused for many months. Finally the owner approved them and directed us to proceede. We recovered a substatial sum in delay escalation and other costs. We understand the owner pursued this with the engineer. These costs were probably many many times what the design fees for the project was worth.

5) You should not have to review drawings thatare not complete. However, there may be questions that arise during the shop drawing process that may require clairification and may be easist to show on the shop drawing. This would be more of an "RFI" situation

6) If you do want informational only submittals, in the specs: a) be sure the specs are clear on what is to be purchased (5 Star grout) If someone submitts an "or equal" that needs to be approved. b) be clear that the submittal is only for information and the material can be ordered with out approval. c) Since the submittal does not require approval, be sure the spec is clear on waht you want for information, otherwise you may have a tough time getting it.

7)The drawings are provied to the owner for the benifit of the project. Personally I believe the drawings should be made available to the project team for the benifit of all? Do you guys charge the architect or HVAC engineer an additional fee for copies of the drawings? Why is the construction end different?

8) Thats a tricky question. First what doesthe contract between the owner and GC say? generally it is silent. second why is it being changed? Did somebody forget something or did something change? Finally there are lots of changes on projects and who is responsible can be a grey issue. You may want to simply reserve the right to reject a drawing after a cursory review when you see it is incomplete, such as in (5).

Just a perspective from the other side of the fence.
This time of year, nobody's grass is greener

 

[abusementpark]

Nice post DRC1.

8) There have been instances where we have produced exceptional drawings with enough detail to convey how everything was to be framed, yet when the steel shop drawings came in there were an abundance of errors on the drawings. It was plain to see that the errors were due to the steel supplier not carefully studying our drawings, in others words, it was sloppy work. I have seen how cumbersome situations like these are for the EOR and can lead to having to spend a great of time cleaning up the fabricator's miscues. I am not sure what the answer is, but there certainly needs to be some accountability to prevent steel fabricators from putting out unnecessarily sloppy shop drawings.

 

[strguy11]

Here is an interesting article I found regarding the review or approval of shop drawings. What I found interesting is the CONTRACTOR also is to approve the drawings as well.

http://www.bergersingerman.com/newsletter/NewsletterPDF/WertmanSept08.pdf

The AISC code of standard practices states the engineer is to APPROVE the shops.

 

[kslee1000]

strguy11:

Excellent article.
Yes, we require the GC to review and certify the shop drawings prepared by subs, info from third party vendors and/or suppliers. Usually it is covered under the transmittal letter.

 

[cvg]

in my experience, too often the GC does little or no review of shop drawings before shipping them off to the engineer for "review". This saves them time and money if the information is complete and accurate. However, it costs everybody more if it has to be returned, multiple times for corrections. In these cases, the engineer should not waste a lot of time and simply send it back requesting a re-submittal. At that point, it would be appropriate to call up the GC and ask him nicely to get his act together before submitting another incomplete or poor submittal.

 

[dik]

From my drawing notes:

SHOP DRAWINGS AND SAMPLES

REFER TO GENERAL NOTES FOR PARTS OF THE WORK THAT REQUIRE SHOP DWGS. ALLOW 2 WEEKS FOR SHOP DRAWING REVIEW FOR EACH COMPONENT U/N

SUBMIT SHOP DWGS WELL IN ADVANCE OF DELIVERY SHOWING OR TIME REQUIRED FOR FABRICATION IN DETAILS: MATERIAL, DESIGN, FASTENING, CONSTRUCTION AND FINISH

SUBMIT SHOP DWGS TO THE [CONSULTANT | ENGINEER]

THE CONTRACTOR SHALL SUBMIT SHOP DWGS PRIOR TO FABRICATION FOR THE [CONSULTANT | ENGINEER]'S REVIEW. UNLESS NOTED OTHERWISE, SUBMIT SHOP DWGS AS FOLLOWS:
1 SET OF DWGS ON REPRODUCIBLE VELLUM
1 SET OF DWGS IN DIGITAL FORMAT
2 SETS OF PRINTS MADE FROM THE REPRODUCIBLE VELLUM

PRIOR TO REVIEW BY OUR OFFICE, SHOP DWGS MUST BE REVIEWED AND COORDINATED BY THE CONTRACTOR. THEY MUST BEAR A REVIEW STAMP, DATE AND SIGNATURE SIGNIFYING HIS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT THAT HIS RESPONSIBILITIES INCLUDE:
-DIMENSIONS WHICH SHALL BE CONFIRMED AND CORRELATED WITH JOB SITE CONDITIONS,
-INFORMATION THAT PERTAINS SOLELY TO FABRICATION PROCESSES, MEANS, METHODS, TECHNIQUES, SEQUENCES AND PROCEDURES OF CONSTRUCTION,
-SAFETY PRECAUTIONS AND PROGRAMS IN CONNECTION WITH THE WORK,
-COORDINATION OF THE WORK WITH THAT OF ALL OTHER TRADES, AND
SATISFACTORY PERFORMANCE OF THE WORK

SHOP DWGS NOT BEARING A REVIEW STAMP IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE ABOVE WILL BE RETURNED MARKED 'NOT REVIEWED'

SHOP DWGS SHALL BE SUBMITTED AS THEY ARE PREPARED. UNLESS PRIOR ARRANGEMENTS ARE MADE, DUE TO SCHEDULING DEMANDS, ETC. THE [CONSULTANT | ENGINEER] CANNOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR DELAYS CAUSED BY THE RECEIPT A LARGE NUMBER OF SHOP DWGS IN A SHORT TIME PERIOD

Use/Abuse and modify as required.

Dik

 

[JAE]

DRC1 - your quote:

it is the EOR's job to state the shop drawings are adequate

I would suggest that the issue isn't whether the EOR has a role in looking at shop drawings and returning them with some type of statement.

The issue is really - what is the statement the EOR is making?

In my view as a structural engineer, the shop drawing "approval" by the EOR accomplishes a few things:

1. Confirms that the fabricator (or whoever prepared the shop drawings) has correctly interpreted the contract documents.
[blue]It does not confirm that every little bolt and dimension is correct, only that by this review, there is evidence that communication is happening.[/blue]

2. Confirms that the EOR has reviewed the drawings and approved them. [blue]It documents that the review occurred and that they are "released" for incorporation into the project.[/blue]

This review process by the EOR does NOT relieve the shop drawing preparer (i.e. fabricator, material supplier) of the responsibility for the accuracy of the dimensions, the fit up of the parts, or of meeting the contract document's other specified requirements.

So the EOR isn't necessarily stating that they are "adequate" (adequate for what?). What the EOR is saying is something like this:

[red]"I've reviewed the shop drawings and from this review it appears that these drawings do indicate that the contract documents are being correctly interpreted.

I know this because I've checked numerous typical and not-so-typical details, connections, material specifications, and complex dimensional areas to determine if proper communication is occurring.

If the drawings indicated that mis-communication is occurring, then I've so noted these areas as inconsistent with the contract documents. It is the shop drawing preparer's responsibility to utilize these noted inconsistencies and comprehensively check all other areas where this mis-communication might be applied incorrectly.

This is not an exhaustive check of every detail on the drawings, but rather a check to verify if the contract documents are being correctly interpreted." [/red]

The above is (I believe) taken generally from and consistent with AISC's Code of Standard Practice.