Yes, I am. I'm trying to find common issues that architects face from contractors in hopes to find a solution or better way to avoid these pains between these two teams in the future.

example:

Contractor: "How far apart are the control joints in the concrete?" 

Designer: "Did you look at the typical detail on sheet yadda yadda yadda?" 

Contractor; "ummmm No"

....or contractors that just build the thing without looking at the drawings or getting on the phone with the designer?

We are implementing a section in our consultants contracts that if MEP systems and components are not modeled in Revit in there actual location then we back charge the consultant for the time it takes to model them correctly in our drawings. Things like mech equipment, ducting, pipes, fixtures, ect.

interesting

Chad, I love that clause. I’ll try to work something along those lines next large BiM project.

I hear the MEP's lawyers sharpening their red pens.

Well our contracts say that our consultants are to model their work to defined level of accuracy so if they sharpen red pens (not sure how you do that) we'll do the same but instead just use red pencil. :)

Chad, I would love to see this more often. One medium size firm (60-70people) I work with have tried referencing different LoDs for the different components of systems. My firm uses the AGC BIMForum spec as a basis. I’ve seen too many bottom barrel MEP Engineers use Revit as a 2D drafting tool, which defeats the purpose of BIM.

yeah, I keep showing LOD lists linked to revit families as a contract exhibit and some of the owners are like oh, that's a great idea, but it still hasn't made it into a contract yet... at least I've convinced them that if we can't get specific, to never agree to more than LOD 200... we've been burned pretty bad by LOD 400 language and generally touting our office as LOD 400 under the concept that "everyone provides 300, and we want to be a bit better, but 500 sounds like too much"...

My main purpose is looking at solutions to errors found within the construction drawings in order to reduce the amount of RFIs but in order to do that I need to know what issues other people have experienced.

I'd suggest getting "Contractor's Guide to Change Orders". Basically, its a book telling contractors how to find holes in drawing sets and get a change order. The process normally starts with an RFI.

Mighty, I was going to suggest this too. This book is on my list to buy as well. I've heard it's really helpful.

lol.. exactly. Particularly I hate the phone camera and vague text messages. The advent of smart phone tech basically means your GC doesn't think much about just sending a question. The 'old days' were better; they had to write out a fax and it was such a pita, they'd look at the drawings closer or wait for the field visit to discuss it.

I know what you mean. Some GCs don't even send legible questions. It's just "flashing?" along with a fuzzy close up of some sheet metal somewhere on site... ummm I don't know what that means! Honestly, I'm at the point where it's not worth my time to try to figure out the question and then respond.

If you have an owner that will play along, threaten the GC that the owner will start deducting from the cost of the work the A/E's time spent on responding to frivolous RFIs. Then start documenting everything as frivolous that doesn't meet the letter of a valid RFI as defined in the General Requirements.

If you have an owner that will play along.... *sigh*

Yeah, it's a big caveat I put in there. Sometimes the owner doesn't necessarily need to play along. Some standard owner-architect agreements have things like this already identified as additional services for the architect.* It doesn't carry the same weight for the contractor though unless they are the ones that ultimately pay for the additional time spent. 

That said, us architects try to keep the owner too happy most of the time and we don't charge for things like this even when it is spelled out in our agreement. 

*For an example, see AIA B101, Section 4.2.2.2.

No. software is never the answer

There are some things: Revit is good at coordinating cross disciplines so everyone is on the same base model. I'm sure someone more familiar can correct me, but I think it has the ability to find geometry conflicts. Additionally, there are Revit add in's like e-Specs to assist in coordinating the specifications with family groups and keynotes. I also used some basic structural software to double check my structural engineer if I thought something looked off. Online, there are other calculators like dew point. Other software like energy analysis, solar, etc. So there are coordination and backcheck tools, however they are only as good as the monkey beating on the keyboard and knowing what to look for.

"So there are coordination and backcheck tools, however they are only as good as the monkey beating on the keyboard and knowing what to look for."

^This. 1000% this.

I don't like how "extra" in the workflow it is now to update something like a ceiling plan when MEP can't/won't coordinate properly in time. It used to be in CAD, I could just be like "GC, just look at my RCPs, they're correct" Now, the time for RCPs is under an hour "just link everything in, it should look great, if it doesn't, tell the consultants to fix it" and then I have to tab-select liinked elements, hide them, go into their model to grab their family and place them in my model at the correct location, etc...

When workflows have been condensed to be measured in minutes, hour long hiccups become problematic

Scheduling software would be the most useful to extend deadlines by two weeks. One full week for arch review/coordination of sub-consultant drawings and another week for said consultants (+arch) to remedy their work.

I'd bet that Autodesk, Bluebeam, Newforma, Lumion, Keynote Manager, Asana, etc. all tout increased efficiency, elimination of design errors, and streamlined project management. At the end of the day you'd be hard pressed to convince me that they can replace a pencil's down submission and full review period. A 95% submittal if you will. 

In the office I work in a 100,000 sf middle school it took around 40 hours for just the architectural drawings (CD's) to be reviewed and red lined. The coordination between disciplines took much longer due to the project being a fast track delivery method.

We have QC review, the QC redline set is almost always given back to the design team after the deadline has passed. QC is given typically 3 days to do the review and is reviewed off of something that looks like 70% completion set but is typically called 90%...

If I had it my way on major projects (which would still be tight and require people with specific skills)  Every permit/contract deadline (forget the intermediary or SD DD phase stuff) would have an internal deadline 2 weeks before the date.  A QC person like myself would be given 40-60 hours to review the set, due 5 business days after put on their desk.  The design team would then have a week to pick up comments.  On day one the QC person would need to give the greenlight to the principal in charge, saying in effect "this set is good enough that the team will be able to pick up my redlines"  otherwise, the deadline would need to be pushed.

joseffischer, do you also review specs as part of your QC process? A few of us at my firm have been pushing for a QC process similar to what you're describing as the optimal situation, but have yet to make any headway with implementation.  In my situation, we wouldn't necessarily have a dedicated QC person per se.  It would be a project manager or project architect reviewing for a team they are not a part of.

you should set aside 3% of your fee for QA/qc

May I ask how you came up with that number curtkarm?

That sounds like a dream world Josef... i like it. Though, i would also prefer if there were a little more talk between the reviewers and the design team. I see a lot of comments that frankly are unneeded because the reviewer isn't as familiar with the project, systems, or approach.

natematt, if the reviewer can't figure out the project, systems, or approach during the course of their review ... can we expect the contractor and their subs to figure it out?

chad, i think i sat through a meeting where someone said that once.

I'd started integrating into Revit; So I'd open the model, create a user note, and go to town while they were working on it. I just got sick of getting handed the same copy they were sending out to bid because the PM's never put QAQC time in the internal schedule and wouldn't 'pencil down' until the due date.

The rule of thumb I have always used is either 1 hour per sheet in the set, all disciplines, or 2 hours per Arch sheet, whichever is more. And, before you ask - no, I can never get the PMs to actually budget that much time to start with, but over a number of projects as they start to see their RFIs and Change Orders go down, I've been able to gently nudge them in the right direction.

Everyday Architect - When the drawings are informed by feedback from specialized consultants, contractors, manufactures, and/or those who have extensive experience in the construction and systems, exceeding those of the people reviewing them... then I would disagree with your logic entirely. I have a lot of respect for people with more experience than me, but when anyone comes up against something they are not familiar with in a set of drawings they are reviewing, it may be useful to speak with the design team who may have spent a lot of time addressing the questions already. I am not asking for a whole lot...

natematt, seems I may be misunderstanding the scope of your typical reviews. I don't usually see, or expect that, reviewers get into the technical aspects of the project unless they are well-versed in those particulars (i.e. someone may comment on a roof flashing detail because they know about roofing and flashing). Their review for the more specialized aspects of the project might be limited to coordination only, not the technical parts of it. 

I agree with you that if they don't have the knowledge or expertise they shouldn't be getting into it, or at least proceeding with some help from the team to understand it. Sometimes as I review something I may not know everything about it, but I know enough that the approach seems strange. It's fairly common for me to highlight it and ask if they coordinated the detail with the manufacturer's rep or something like that. More often than not, they haven't and it was something that somebody just dreamt up and thought it would work. That kind of stuff needs to be questioned or caught in a review.

My earlier comment/question was more about if the reviewer can't find references or connections between different drawings or between something called out and the specification ... we can't really expect the contractors to make those connections either.

At least for the knowledge part, in most firms, there is 'that person' who has the specialty... like currently at my work, I'm the 'fire rating' guy, so everyone tends to have me review those particular aspects even if I'm not the lead Peer reviewer. When I was doing full peer review, we'd check the 50% DD, 50% CD, and 95% CD sets looking at everything. Even 50% DD sets had outline specifications (basically the index or uniformat which describes the products and materials). My job was to look for holes or misses, as well as mistakes or bad references. I typically asked for a week on a commercial type project. Smaller stuff could be a couple days. Based on my litigation experience, younger firms lack that grey hair expertise and are only as good as the person in charge. So if they suck at specs, the specs suck and no one learns to know the difference. They only learn when called out on it on a job and it becomes an issue. Then newer work I'll see new changes incorporated. Sort of funny... I've had one architect whose been sued a few dozen times over the last couple decades and you can pretty much track their education and expertise as they figured out how to avoid issues. Sort of like the first set was sketches and vague notes, and now they have about 10 boiler plate CYA detail sheets about flashing conditions and supporting spec sections.

Everyday Architect - Entirely agree with you there. Legibility of a set is entirely within the scope of QA and if they don't understand it.... then it's a bad sign for the contractor. I just find a lot more comments coming in these days on weird projects about technical things the reviewers don't really know about, and they get repeated at each phase, wasting everyone's time. I'm not saying its good reviewing...

This was fun coming back to for a quick read. Glad to see some people actually have some QC. On the spec question, depends on the project, but for my projects, since as I mentioned, our QC actually doesn't properly exist... I QC my own stuff after specs are complete. I don't QC the specs I wrote (about half) but I do QC the ones others wrote as part of the process. Since it's my project and/or I know what the principal wants, Spec vs Drawing coordination usually entails me changing the spec because the author in question was out of the loop.