Mastering Shop Drawings in Construction

In this episode, Matt Brennan discusses the critical role of shop drawings in construction administration. He explains what shop drawings are, the process of reviewing them, how to mark them up, and the importance of samples and mockups. The conversation also covers the challenges posed by alternates, real-life examples from Matt's experience, and the significance of timely reviews. He emphasizes the need for mentorship and proactive management of shop drawing logs to ensure successful project outcomes.

Takeaways

• Shop drawings are essential for ensuring compliance with specifications.
• The review process involves multiple stakeholders and careful documentation.
• Marking up shop drawings requires attention to detail and collaboration.
• Samples and mockups help verify that materials meet design intent.
• Alternates can complicate projects and should be approached cautiously.
• Real-life examples illustrate the importance of thorough reviews.
• Timely reviews prevent delays and costly mistakes.
• Mentorship can provide valuable insights into the review process.
• Proactive management of shop drawing logs is crucial for project success.
• Effective communication with contractors is key to successful project execution.

Sound Bites
"What are shop drawings?"
"Your job is to ensure it's built as per specs."
"We never approve shop drawings."

Chapters
00:00 - Understanding Shop Drawings
03:00 - The Review Process
05:58 - Marking Up Shop Drawings
09:11 - Handling Samples and Mockups
11:49 - Alternates and Their Challenges
15:01 - Real-Life Examples and Best Practices
18:13 - Finalizing Reviews and Documentation
20:58 - The Importance of Timely Reviews
23:49 - Mentorship and Learning
26:57 - Conclusion and Key Takeaways

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Transcript

0:00

Shop drawings, shop drawings, shop drawings. What are they? How should we be reviewing them? And are we approving them? Let's find out. Welcome to What the RFI, the podcast about construction administration through the lens of an architect and project coordinator's perspective. So today we are going to talk about shop drawings. It is probably one of the first documents that landed onto your desk when you started a brand new CA job. So let's cover it. We've got a lot of it go over and kind of in summary, we're going to go over the basics, the process of reviewing them, how to mark up a shop drawing, alternates, my favorite topic, some life examples, my experience passed on to you. And last, what not to do. So let's cover the simple basics. First off, what is a shop drawing? Well, we did cover that in episode three, check it out. We went over kind of all the construction CA terms, but a explanation of a shop drawing is a document that the contractor is gonna provide you based on your specifications. When you design this building, not only drew the floor plans, but you also said, provided a set of specifications saying I want this. particular item in the building, bleachers, door hardware, floor finishes, mechanical items, the list goes on. And do you need what exactly type of, what type of shop drawings are you going to see? Am I going to see a screw shop drawing? No. Am I going to see a plywood sheet? No, because that's part of your specifications is going to state, you know, performance spec, you know, this type of grade and better, but there is going to be the very fancier items. Like I said, the bleachers, the door hardware, we're going to say, I want this type of door. I want this type of bleacher. I want this exact product. And that's really important to follow. And the contractor needs to follow that. And that's why the shop drawings are being provided to you so you can review it and go from there. Some of the bigger jobs, the more shop drawings. if we look at, take for example, hospital, there's a lot of proponents in there and there's a lot of equipment that goes in there. you're going to get a shop drawing for each of those pieces of equipment. Very critical. Unless it was being supplied by the owner, but it's probably all part of the contract. When I was doing a number of schools, on an average $30 million school, you'd probably get anywhere from 200 to 300 shop drawings. know, stuff like the bleachers, like we said, the games line shop drawing, lockers. Just think of everything that you can. You know, sometimes we would review the backer board drywall to make sure that it was meeting specs, right? And it was that critical. It's an honest conversation at the start of how much you want to review, but you kind of don't want to disregard it and say, it's okay, go ahead a contractor, because that's where things are going to get missed. Maybe the right color is not going to be selected or it's not the product that you wanted. So you want to have control through that process. And that's why shop drawings are very, very important. On simpler jobs, but not complex, you're still gonna have shop drawings. I did a number of daycares and even though you think, it's just a daycare, that's basically a little house. And you're right, it is. But still there was a number of items that I needed to go review and make sure that they were there. And again, the lockers to the doors, the colors, the finishes, et cetera. They had to be followed per the drawings and all the user groups that we met together throughout process. So. Essentially, a shop drawing is a final check before the product is ordered and that's kind of key. Your job as the CRP is to ensure that being built as per the specs and the contractors to follow the drawings and specs. But like I said, you're double checking and just making sure that follows through. So let's talk about the process. So right away, the contractor is going to issue a set of shop drawings. Back in the day, this could have been faxed or even mailed to you, right? Very simple. Thankfully today we've got email and we can get the shop dry and delivered right to our inbox and we can start reviewing it. Now there is samples and those will be mailed because you and we'll talk about more samples a little bit later. Next step you would do is you would file it and log it. Please tell me you're logging it and if you haven't then check out my last episode as well. But, we talked about that last week was all about logging in episode five, very important to log and track this because as we start going down this rabbit hole, you're gonna see how messy it can get. So you're gonna get this shop drawing email to you from the contractor, you're gonna file it, you're gonna log it, your chances are you might throw a copy on your Windows server, you know, have your project folder labeled out. and then you're to have the CA folder and within that you're going to have RFIs and shop drawings and all that kind of stuff and then you're going to go within that shop drawing folder more and more level down the rabbit hole basically we'll call it. Yeah you're going to go in there you're going to log your information and then you're you know just to keep track of it ideally probably go into Excel and log it maybe there's some other kind of tracking software that you're out there I'm very curious. And like I said, for the number years, I used a program called Part 3 that would automatically track this for me and it just kind of automated the whole process. So at end of the day, it doesn't matter how you're tracking it, whether it's on your notepad or through an automated software, you want to be tracking it. And then the next test to this is we want to make sure the right people are getting the right shop drawing. And so let's take, for example, a mechanical rooftop unit. It's gonna come into my plate, my inbox. And at that point, hopefully they will see seed mechanicals. But the thing is, it's not just me reviewing the shop drying. Mechanicals gonna review this rooftop. Electricals gonna review this. Probably structural as well because it all ties in. Everyone has a responsibility. Structural for the weight, electrical for the connections to this rooftop unit. The rooftop itself is based on mechanical, what they specified and us as the architect, well, we are the CRP and therefore we're making sure this whole process is going together. So a shop drawing isn't just going to one person, it could be going to multiple people. And you're gonna see definitely that mechanical electrical relationship kind of flow throughout. Another good example we kind of keep saying is bleachers. So again, yeah, that's architectural, we're gonna review it, but hang on, they're electrified. I need my electrical. engineer to review that. So you're starting to get the trend of what it is you're going to have a look at it. And then the next question is review order. Okay, so there's two ways to talk about the order of these reviews is basically you'd get it by email, send it out to the first consultant. So again, if we did that rooftop unit, send it to the mechanical consultant, wait for him to finish review, he'll send it back to me. And then I can send it to my electrical to review it. And I probably would have sent it to Structural at beginning just to say, hey, are you okay with the roof loads, the loads from this equipment being on the roof, etc. So that is one way to do it. But there is other options out there. Because like there is like Bluebeam and like there's part three and that thing. So pros and cons to both. Well, one is that if you're sending it one by one, it's just part of that system that you've decided to go. But if you kind of find a program that can review every the shop drawing at the same time, again, another blue beam session, I haven't used it personally, but I've heard it kind of does something along the lines. Again, representing part three, I used it for many years where everyone can review the shop drawing at the same time. And the pros and cons is kind of nice is that it just you get quicker reviews. The traditional way by going emailing and sending it out to individuals. you're at the mercy of waiting for that individual finally fire back. And if they've gone on for holidays, it's stuck in the queue and there's nothing you can do. And the worst part is if the mechanical engineer reviewed this shock drain, he's like, yeah, it's good. And electrical reviews and goes, that's not the right electrical module. It's still as revised resubmit, right? And we're going to get into that. So those are the of the negatives of kind of doing that one straight away linear approach versus coming to a software approach where we can all review that shop drawing in real time. And if electrical reviews at first and says, hey, it's a revised and resubmit, we don't need to wait for anybody else. Just fire it back to the contractor. The other one, the other topic too is the samples. So we talked about that was another kind of process that we needed to have. So we require samples to review in conjunction to these shop drawings. So. So for example, very easy one, paint drawdowns. You've specified, want this color from Vengeful More, this blue, this purple, this pink, great. The contractor is gonna give you drawdowns of these actual paint samples, send it to your office, and then you can hold them up to your color decks. And most of the time they're fine, but I have had some colors that have been totally different tints, and because these paint drawdowns are the same, that this is what we're gonna paint your school to, okay? So that's a good example of a sample. Millwork, again, you might get that actual birch plywood sent to you just to make sure that is the right millwork. It's up to you how much, you know, how many samples you want of this. Do you need a door frame? No, absolutely not. That's just a waste and you don't need it. I always got a good chuckle about it when I got a curtain wall sample. I physically got the mullions and everything and I didn't need to see that. I know what they look, I know what the product literature is. Depending on the contractor, they may send it to you. In saying that, sometimes we would get a big piece of corrugated metal. Again, I know what corrugated metal looks like I've seen on buildings. I can probably look out my window and see a piece of corrugated. Sometimes they would send it to you. And then the big pain in the butt is what do do with it afterwards? So try and return it to site. Try not to waste it in that sense, but just those are the challenges. Another good example of getting examples is a glulam block. good because the grain and the stain and everything like there is some power there is some positives to getting those samples and you want to make sure because you definitely don't want to have all these glue lambs being placed on the building and then get stained the wrong color it's not a simple fix afterwards so you are going to get that again what do do with that sample well we use those glue lambs to basically prompt up our monitors and all throughout the the office had these monitors on these glue lamb products and it was quite fun Another good sample would be glass. So many times this has been revised and resubmitted where it doesn't, it's not the right glass. And I actually, once I got the right glass in my office, I kept it and made sure I did not throw that sample out because it was something I could always compare and show and bring to site if needed. Cause it was a very special glass that I, an OptiGray that I would always use. The next thing is mockups. What is a mockup? Well, architectural exposed concrete. You may want to make sure that we're on the same level before they do all this massive pour of concrete that we're talking the same type of architectural concrete walls, exposed concrete. I want to see it. Maybe it's exposed polished concrete on the floor. Again, I want to kind of a mockup sample to make sure we're on the same page before they start laying, you know, that 2000 square feet of it or whatever the case is. Millwork. Chances are they're gonna do a little mock-up of unit just for the sliders and the drawers, even though you've done all the details, but they'll provide a unit, make sure everyone's happy. And these are great examples because again, with those millwork mock-ups, I've seen little errors and the way they've done their connections or just the way the drawers, and it's very easy to fix at that point because it's the first unit, then they're gonna make 5,000 of these cabinet drawers. So mock-ups are very important just to make sure everyone's on the same page. Another good example is I had this overhead door that went in the T-bar at a school. Very cool detail, but we wanted to make sure there was a mock-up before we approved everything, reviewed and so on and got it into that place. And then the last thing too, with kind of just how the process is there, sometimes we have third-party reviewers. And what I mean by that is like we may have AMAC standards, which is like a group that reviews the millwork and they have a whole kind of govern your agency that they have to be certified as per AMAC. You may have a door hardware consultant as well that they're going to jump in and help you review all the door hardware that they kind of specified. So kind of like a third party consultant to help review. So you have to take an account and look at what the project has and who you've hired out. We've talked about the process, kind of getting to this point, contractors sent you the shop drawing, you've done your due diligence, you know who needs to see it. And now how do we mark it up? What is the process to get this from start to finish? So like I said, the contractor sent it to us, we sent it to mechanical, we waited, then we go send it to electrical and structural is on our side. And we've gotten three different reviews, four different reviews, what are the cases, the good. And hopefully, like I said earlier, they marked up the same shop drawing, the one document. Otherwise, you might now have to take all those three PDFs and start combining and going through it. Hopefully that's not the case. Hopefully everyone marked it up. Hence why software might be the way to go. So we talked about those methods through it, but like I said, for a typical markup of a shop drawing, you would be using some kind of, you're receiving a PDF document. And it would take any PDFs, you would be using Adobe. Acrobat to mark those up, Bluebeam and like I said, part three had a number of markup tools that I could use as well. So there's no right or wrong method. It's just how you want to kind of, it's just about time and making sure that, you know, again, if you are marking up three separate documents, again, the challenge is that you might miss in a critical page that Electrical noted this area needs to be revised. And if that doesn't get copied over, you are in trouble. Okay. So once you've kind of received all the documents from the consultants, it's your turn. So at this point, grab your specs, grab your drawings, lay them out on the table and start going through it and review this in conjunction with the shop drawing. So let's go through some physical examples here. So glazing, kind of said it earlier about samples, get a sample of that glazing. Is this the right glass? And this is really critical because you want to make sure that the sample they send you look at the tags, make sure it follows. What did you ask for? What was the tint? What was the color? What was the UV ray? All these things you need to take a look and your specifications are going to have this in detail and your drawings may have a finished schedule that actually calls this up. So that's where you're going to have to do that. And like I said, is this the right glass? Really look at it because once you review the shop during send it back Contractors going to order it and when they order it they're gonna order a lot of it and if you Made a mistake on the shop drawing. It is really hard to fix it You know from a mining financials and we'll cover this a little bit later Doors another good one did the door hardware consultant get a copy? They should be looking at that because we'll look at the frames of the doors and the size and the width and if you know is there a fire rating and all those kind of things but the door hardware consultant is going to go look through every you know piece of hardware you know this is a more single mortise set right this type of hinge right this is a type of door stop it sounds thrilling but it has to be done okay and like I said kind of I mentioned fire rating making sure that that door has the right required fire rating that you note on the plan so not only just kind of you're looking at the door schedule and hopefully got the fight rating noted there, but make sure you're going back to the code plans. So you've got to review all this in conjunction at the same time. We've beaten this one up kind of to death here is the rooftop unit. Again, mechanical electrical need review it. Typical architectural note, refer to mechanical electrical review. We would never review mechanical rooftop units. Same thing for steel, refer to the structural review, right? When you... say you're reviewing it, then you're kind of taking on that responsibility of looking at that shop trying, even though a steel is a good one, because like when I reviewed steel, I wanted to make sure I wasn't having any beam conflicts, but I wasn't reviewing the size of the steel. would, you know, again, and respect to is it clashing with a duct work or is it clashing with a window that I did? And that would happen. Sometimes I'd have a big cross brace right in there. And then the steel dealer missed that out. But then the other day that that review would come from the structural engineer by itself and we would just maybe attach some comments to it saying refer to the review, refer to the architectural comments throughout the drawings, something along that lines. Okay. So you're looking at the shop drawing like, I, you know, whether it's a bleacher or something like that lines and you are marking it up, mark it up in the PDFs, right? And annotate it, right? And add those comments. And once you've done that, those comments to it, here comes the final question on your side. Has this shop drying been reviewed, reviewed as noted, revised and resubmit or not reviewed? We never approve shop drying. So just make that very clear. We never approve shop drying. So out of those kind of four items, take a look at your markups. Did you bleed all over the shop dryings? Okay, you did. Is it really, really bad? It is. Well, maybe a revised and resubmit is in good order. Maybe they didn't follow the specifications and this doesn't even match the right bleachers that you specified for the job. Well, that's revised resubmit. Don't even waste your time. Don't even start looking at all the data because it doesn't meet manufacturers, okay? But say that did meet specs, right? And there was a couple errors, right? You know, a couple of things, just two or three. Well, then you would note it as reviewed as noted saying, hey, it's not perfect. But I don't need to revise and resubmit. You don't need to give this one back to me. Because again, if you give it back to me, I got to go through this whole process again. And it's just another shop drawing that I probably could get away with just a few notes. That's reviewed as noted. And then of course, the main one that we're trying to strive for is reviewed. I've reviewed the shop drawings, good to go. Go and order it. Not reviewed or maybe this is for record. That would just be, like I said, from an architectural point, we wouldn't review a rooftop unit. Or maybe it's... Yeah, just a document that you just say not reviewed and it's just not reviewed, right? It depends. It's kind of a gray area. I'm trying to think of a good example. I'll think of something later, I bet you, but let's keep going. So once you've kind of, you've marked it with shop drawing, you've put that reviewed stamp, your stamp on there. And ideally you want to have kind of like a transmittal cover page. Again, going on to Microsoft Word, you'd duplicate the last Word file from the previous shop drawing, shop drawing three, and then you'd copying the shop drawing for and then you put it in there who is involving who's the distributors list, etc. List goes on and you eventually kind of come up to that point. Again, when I was using some part three, it would automatically make cover pages. So it just took that time away and it do pretty much the same thing. But as a cover page is just saying what it is, what job it is, just make it nice and fancy, putting it all together. And then once you've got that cover page and you've your markups and you've combined all the markups and everything, you are basically going to flatten this PDF and package it off and send it off to the contractor so he can start to take the next steps with it. Ideally, you should flatten this because you want your markups to be all part of that PDF package. Again, having a blue beam process like that, you know, review system. I'm not sure how it works, but I would imagine it'd be something similar to that. And then the last thing, like I said, was part three was another way where you could basically send it through it. The system would automatically send it to the right people. It would flatten the PDF and then it would archive it all at the same time in one shot. that's it. And then last, you finish this item, you got it back out to the contractor. Well done. Log it. Just log it. Put it in logs, say when you got everything from everybody, it's in, it's out, it's green, it's checked off your list. Great. Get on to the next. five, six shop drawings that are still in your court. So that's kind of this typical process. Now let's get into kind of some fun scenarios. Alternates, I hate alternates. I really, really do. And you've heard me say that over this podcast as well. Here's why. You've spent all this time designing this building. You've said exactly how you want it designed. You want the BMW, but... contractor wants to give you the Honda Civic sometimes, or they price the actual Honda Civic to give you the BMW, right? An alternate is basically when you go out for tender and you close tender and saying, I want this Kohler toilet done. And the contract comes says, well, I'll give you an American standard toilet. I don't want that. I want the Kohler toilet. I, we budget the price for the Kohler toilet. You're going to give us that, right? Well, I didn't, you know, maybe the contractor didn't realize that and he missed that. So in a case like that, you know, would I accept the alternate if it was a big scenario or something? Maybe, maybe not, but it's something to discuss. But where things get really ugly. And here's kind of my three strikes route scenario is you spent all this time designing it and now with supplier, the contract does not want to follow your design. So that's strike one. The alternate has something that is different. And let me explain it. Basketball hoop. There's no more rise proponents. That's strike two. And three. It's not the same quality as we said earlier, the BMW versus Honda Civic, strike three. And I think the, the basketball hoop is a good example because sometimes you go, Hey, this this, this basketball matches. That's right. It's basketball, basketball. Who didn't think about that? But hang on the one I expect that I spent the time in designing. It had a motorized hoop to it. It allowed me to go to different heights. This new alternate didn't have it. We install it. We look, we find it there. It we find it's too late now. The hoops already installed. I can't go get the other one. It was a special order because of the reality of it. And yes, the contractor is to follow specs. Specs rule. They can't totally deviate and try and sneak one under you. But when you get into those scenarios just too late, what do you do? So that's why one of the reasons why I don't like alternates. You're going to get screwed. Same thing if you change the mechanical unit and the powers change. Well, if that's happened, And then when the guys get on site, they go, my goodness, this alternate here doesn't meet the power. We've already dry walled. Well, no problem. We'll rip it out. We'll provide the new wiring. Well, who's paying for it? Is the contractor paying for it? Well, you kind of brought, he put him in a tough spot. He's going to come after you because you didn't catch it. And it becomes a gray area. And that's again, why an alternate is not my favorite topic. And if you are in this process where you do get an alternate and you go, you know what, we are going to approve this alternate. We will review the shop during approve the alternate. But here's some comments to kind of, you know, add to your initial cover page there and your review. So alternate approved as per comments. Any electrical or mechanical upgrades are the responsibility of the contractor. No extras will be applied in lieu of this alternate. Putting some language like that starts to cover you and protect you that if you did just miss that one little thing, like I said, it was a breaker size or something like that, and we're all human beings, are we gonna be at fault for it later when it shows up in sight? And I think, it just, this puts another due diligence on the contractor just to make sure that he's doing his homework, he's reviewing the specs and seeing what is the complications of approving this alternate. And alternates, like I said, they're not bad, but you just got to look at every angle to make sure that they're right. You've got to really review this spec now, this shop trying, excuse me, with your specs. Does it meet everything? Is it the same warranty? We understand they're manufacturing. mean, does it meet the same testing? Are you getting a lesser of a product by going with this alternate? And sometimes you will be. And sometimes it's cheaper. And that's why the contractors are even entertaining it because he can make a few dollars because he banked, you know,$50 for this item, this item only costs $20. Well, he's gonna be pocketing a little bit and have that little bit. So it's up to you, be cautious with alternates. You have to do your homework to make sure that it actually works. So some life examples. My experience passed on to you. So another good fun one is door jams, right? Doors. So you get the door hardware and the doors and everything. So again, the door hardware consultant, that's pretty straightforward because I want this type of closer, this type of handle, et cetera. And the contractor in the shop drawings would say, tell me that make, confirm the door sizes, the widths and everything, which is fine. Cause I would go through the, making sure, cause some doors were bigger than others. Maybe a janitor door was, you know, three and a half feet, making sure the fire ratings. But I would have the contractor come to me and say, what's the jam thickness? I would never review it. I would always say contractor confirm that on site. And the reason being is maybe structural was out there on site and said, hey, put another piece of plywood there or maybe the contractor did something. Maybe they used a different size stud. I don't know, right? I don't, I'm not going to go out there and review every jam and make sure that is. Or maybe the contractor did have a shear wall in his drawings and I missed it, right? You know, I just didn't have that noted there and they build that on site. And I said, yeah, that jam is going to fit just a standard 2x6, you know, like a 6 inch stud wall with two layers of 5-8 type X on either side. Great, but then there's an extra half inch or whatever. You can't fix it afterwards. The door jams come and that's responsibility. So I would always encourage that particular one to be part of the contractor to take note. Bleachers. When you get your bleacher shop drawings or your game shop, game lines shop drawing. reveal them exactly the same time, draw on the plants, make sure there's nothing worse if that bleacher came out to a point and actually crossed some of the games lines. And do the same thing in conjunction with your basketball hoops, making sure that they're in line, because they all tie together. So even though these are three separate shot drawings sometimes, you need to review each one. And you've got to kind of sometimes even push the contractor and say, me these shot drawings all at the same time, because it's really important that I catch all three of them. If I miss one, it could be devastating in the big run. We talked about glazing. I find that was never falling in specs, especially if you went with a more particular type of glass to put that thing. And most of all, put your foot down. Hold true to what the owner and you designed together, right? You want to make sure that the building's been filled. And if you're not liking what you're seeing with these shop drawings, if it's not the right product, then put your foot down. If they can't get it in time, There's always a, you know, call the manufacturer, get on the phone and say, I'm going to call and say, I can't get your product. What is, is this true? And I've had cases where that's not true. They say, can send you something out tomorrow. How much do you need? is this cool? Yeah, we've been having some conversation with the contractor and it sounds like they didn't budget. If your gut tells you something, go out and talk to the manufacturers. They're there to help you. They want, they're going to work with both sides. And yeah, they're always coming into your office doing lunch and learns. And here, they want to make sure that you get the right product too. That's what you specified and that's what they've been working with you on the sidelines. So if something seems off, call the manufacturers as well. So, and last, what not to do. What is being reviewed here is what is going to be ordered. So if you're doing this super fast, don't mess it up because the reality is, like I said, glass, you reviewed it and it was like, yeah, that looks good. That looks like the right glass. and it wasn't, you're in trouble. That glass is going to show up on site. It's going to be installed. You're going to look at the labels and now it's a fight to get it changed. It's a lot. That's a big ticket item. Same thing with cladding. If you just over-reviewed the shop drawings and it wasn't even the right color, these things are really important. That's where you got to take your time, do diligence, have your focus and get it right. Make sure it matches everything. Even sometimes go for a big... Big shop drying, like I said, with lots of steel or, like I said, the cladding, steer cladding. You know, do your initial pass, go for a coffee, get it for a walk, clear your eyes, clear your head, come back, do a final and make sure and then send it off. Because like I said, nothing worse if you review it and then it is wrong, right? They're going to hold you accountable to it. They're going to make you pay for it. And I am being the contractor in that case. Like I said, with that review, don't rush it. Don't rush that shop drying. The contractor may want it back like as soon as possible, maybe even tomorrow in a couple days and you're going, you need more time. Steel shop drawings can be like 600 pages and they'll want it in a few days, but you know, that's where the structural engineer is going to say, not a chance, right? Even millwork can be a very daunting task. It's some big packages. And again, you got to go through all the details and make sure it's all right. And if you need more time, communication. communicate that to the contractor saying, look, I got your shop drawing, thank you, but we need more time to review it and I'll give it by this time, any issues, what's the pinch points and go from there. If the contractor is giving you these shop drawings in early, early days, then it shouldn't be a problem to of stretch one or, know, a week here and there or something like that depends on the type of shop drawing it is, but it's typically coming in and they want to get it ordered because they understand that this thing is a 12 month lead time, whatever the case is. And that's a good segue into review times. Don't let a consultant hold you back, because this could result into a delay. Even yourself, again, you, the contractor needs these shop rings back. Usually in our specs would call for like a 10 day, 10 business day response time. And in doing that, that was kind of like you're, you're round your range. If you can get it sooner, that's better. But if you start exceeding that 10 business days, you're taking 30 days to review the shop drawings, it's going to hurt the project. It really is because eventually it's going to, depending when the contractor gave that shop drawing to you, he may be on the verge where he's losing out his time, right? And again, it's not always the contract might be a subcontractor has given him the shop drawing. So it's really important to try and get these reviews done as soon as possible. And if there's anything like it's revised resubmit, the sooner better. again, that rooftop unit, if it's the wrong unit, let's identify that right away and get that back to the contractor so he can go back to the sub, get the right unit and then we can review it the second time. There's nothing worse than us waiting for a consultant and sending his desk for three weeks and then we find out it's revised resubmit. Well, that's too bad. That could have been probably easy to correct it. And in saying this too, the contractor is to be reviewing these shop drawings before he sends it to you as the architect and the CRP and so on, but it doesn't always happen. Again, they're human just like us. Because these review times, if you're not reviewing it in a timely manner, that's where it is going to come back and bite you with a possible delay claim. The contractor, when they start getting behind, they may issue for a delay. And that delay claim, they'll specifically pull up shop drawings that took so much time to review. This took X amount of days, this took so many days. We couldn't order the doors in time. They're going to say what they need to do. And if it's truth, then it's truth, right? And that's why your logs are so critical. We need to have your information correct. So when the contractor does say, the design team's holding us back, we've got, please give me an example, this RFI. Well, hey, you got in two days. My log says this. That's why the logs are really important to kind of hold you accountable with RFIs and shop drawings and so on. Wrapping this up in summary, are you ready to review a shop drawing? How do you feel? It can be a daunting task. No, no ifs or buts. It's very important. You want to make sure, but just take your time. Look at the specs, look at the drawings and look at the shop drawing. And if it matches everything and it's checking out, then it's probably good to go. You know, mentorship is key. Find someone that's been doing this for years. They'll know the little tricks of the trades, right? Just to make sure, hey, did you look at this? Hey, that door jam, don't review those. I want you to make sure that contractor is reviewing those. Put a note in there, right? Put it on the responsibility of them. Use that mentorship guideline, right? And talk and work with your teammates for sure. Because again, a bad review of a shop drawing can result in some very ugly messes down the road, okay? And... This will eventually lead into maintenance manuals. So everything of all these shop drawings that we're doing and putting together, eventually this is going to be put into a big book saying this is what was put together for the building. Another one is a shop drawing log. So the contractor is supposed to give you a shop drawing log saying, hey, here's all my shop drawings I'm going to be giving you. These are the dates and the times, but the reality is I only got one in my whole career there. So I didn't really see a lot of that. And if I did, got, it was totally outdated by the time I got it. So rather than leave it to the contractor in doing this, why don't you do it and be proactive for them? And there is software out there that can scan your specs and can provide a shop drawing log. And it's pretty slick with the whole AI technology. And that just changes the game because it puts you back in control and saying, hey, contractor, here's all the shop drawings I need. There's nothing worse sitting at a site meeting six months down the road going, what are we missing? What we haven't reviewed? my goodness, we have not reviewed the Bleacher shop drawings. The school is going to open up in three months. The bleachers take 10 months to produce. What do we do? Well, we're just going to open it up with a condition. I can see that there is no bleachers and we'll have to review it when they come back and we'll have to shut down school at some point or do it in evenings or weekends or whatever. If you can take a handle and get a whole keep these shop drawing logs at bay and control them and make sure and really be proactive to push the contractor, it's going to help the whole project entirely. Everyone's winning the project winning. the owner's winning and you're going to be the hero at end of the day. So big importance, big importance to that. So that kind of concludes the days of a shop drawing, how you review it, the whole process, the little tips and tricks. And those are just some of the scenarios. Shoot me a note on LinkedIn, connect with me and send me your questions. We can do a follow up to the shop drawings and kind of the challenges. Because yeah, like I said, I just cover a couple of examples, but as you know, and we talked, there's a lot of shop drawings per project. and that's just the way it is. And again, whether it's this consultant or this consultant or it's a group effort and that's the case. So until next time, architects keep designing and contractors keep making those blueprints reality and we'll see you on the next one.