Shop Drawing Review Question

[SteelPE]

I am the EOR of a project that is currently in the shop drawing review phase. The project is a design-build contract where the project team was selected by the contractor. I am not working for the architect, I am working for the contractor.

During the shop drawing review process the fabricator began issuing RFI’s for his portion of the project. I did my best to answer the RFI’s but there were some questions that the architect needed to answer (involving dimensions and elevations). I returned the RFI’s to the contractor within a few days.

A few weeks later the fabricator issues a set of E plans for review. I don’t like reviewing shop drawings but I set aside the time to go through them. They were returned to the contractor within a week. These shop drawing contained all of the same questions from the RFI’s and a few more additional questions. I was curious as to why the RFI’s were not incorporated into the drawings. The drawings were returned with a box labeled "reviewed with comments" not revised and resubmit.

Now after I spoke to the fabricator and the contractor, I have determined that the architect never responded to the RFI’s until a week after I reviewed the E plans…. And that the E plans I reviewed was actually the way of the fabricator forcing the answers from the design team. So a whole other set of shop drawing is impending.

How would you handle a situation like this? Would you review the E plans again or just put a big mark on them saying “See previous set”? Would you just invoice for the extra time to review the plans?

 

[CBEngi]

I feel like this would have a lot to do with your contract and working relationship with the contractor. Generally, when I'm writing a proposal I like to say "one time shop drawing review". Normally I don't make an issue of reviewing shop drawings twice, but if its obvious the contractor is using us to basically create his shop drawing then I would reach out for additional fees.

With regards to this specific case (assuming its not overly time consuming to review). I would likely just review the drawings and mention in the email that if this happens again we would be looking for additional fees. At this point (again assuming is a hour or two of your time) is it really worth chasing the contractor for a few hundred bucks.

Hope this helps.

 

[SteelPE]

CBEngi,

I understand where you are coming from. I don't have a shop drawing review clause in my contract so I can't enforce anything using that tool.

On this job the architect has given me erroneous information and hasn't been able to give straight answers throughout the project causing more work on my end (how hard is it to tell me where a grid line is or how think you want the 4' high masonry wall to be). I spoke to the contractor about the issue and he was unaware that another set of drawings was coming from the fabricator.

In terms of time, it took 6 hours to review the E plans. I'm really not interested in spending another 6 hours reviewing them again.

 

[structSU10]

for a second pass through shop drawings, I only check with respect to things I had commented on previously that needed to be changed. All other accepted pieces should not have changed and don't require review. The revisions on the shop drawings should be clouded / marked in some way and that is all that should be looked at a second go round.

We allow for up to 3 total reviews ( initial plus up to 2 resubs) of the same issue before asking for additional money.

 

[JLNJ]

I definitely have used the "see comments on previous submittal" note.

In this age of electronic transmission, you can shoot a copy of the return comments to the architect with a note saying that you reviewed the portions for which you are responsible but he needs to provide answers for the other outstanding issues.

This way you are being a team player by facilitating the coordination while at the same time putting the architect on notice for the outstanding RFI items.

 

[Agent666]

I usually tell the contractor that I've check a few drawings again on the first resubmission to get a feel for whether or not the previously raised items have been adequately addressed, but specifically note that all have not been re-reviewed (contractors responsibility).

If things are found I return and ask them to resubmit again but do no further checking except to note a few things I might have found.

In reality I view incomplete checking of shop drawings as a rod for the engineers back. Contractor will screw something up, you're the only person who is going to fix it either before or after. My preference is to fix it before it becomes an issue. If it's pretty clear the contractor is not providing the level of review required, raise it as early as possible with the client/principle so you can come to some agreement regarding the change of scope. Additionally make it clear the level of review you are providing as part of your contract.