I recently took over a project, that while complex, seems to have been rushed through coordination. This has resulted in over 1500 legitimate RFI(s) and the project is still a few months from substantial completion. That doesn't count the hundreds of RFI(s) that have multiple revisions, some going all the way to R5. Nor does it count the RFI(s) that have been outstanding for 18 months without a response. I've never worked on a project with so many issues from the A/E side of things. Typically this would only happen when a GC is looking for a change order, but most of these are legitimate.
My question to the group is this: What is the typical and highest number of RFI(s) you have dealt with on a project
Josh Mings
Jan 22, 17 1:36 pm
Only been over 100 (barely) when a GC didn't lump similar questions asked at the same time into the same RFI.
Most projects I've worked on have been between 30-50.
Non Sequitur
Jan 22, 17 4:08 pm
does the 1500 include m, e and s?
natematt
Jan 22, 17 4:56 pm
Working on 9-10 digit projects, I have seen 500+ on several projects, never sticking around long enough to see where it maxed out mind you.
When you rush complicated projects, this happens. It's a bit upsetting to me when people act surprised by it though. If you can get something done well in a set amount of time, then it's not really rushing is it?
Do you have a ballpark cost on this project? Just curious.
chigurh
Jan 22, 17 5:26 pm
Sometimes you just run into a GC that won't do shit without every detail to 256th of an inch.
g.thomas.z
Jan 22, 17 6:39 pm
1,500 is absurd-- I'm assuming this is for a hard bid project?
I took over the CA for a $25M project that ended up with 200+ RFIs. Drawings were graphically awful, poorly coordinated, and produced by inexperienced staff. Believe it or not, the CM/GC was our savior. Project could have easily had 400+ RFIs and some serious schedule delays but the contractor stayed out front and was a true team player.
DTL DWG
Jan 22, 17 6:48 pm
to Chigurh's point, this may just be their very thorough method for justifying later a whole bunch of change orders. it builds a decent case against the architect and puts serious doubt on the competency of the architect's paperwork. at 256th of an inch, we all know a phone call and a worker on site could take care of it in 30 seconds, but if you can make the architect look bad, go for it...
wurdan freo
Jan 22, 17 8:29 pm
I've worked on several projects on the construction side that had this many RFI's. All of these were MultiMillion dollar projects worth 30 mil or more. It's easy to find many design details not resolved or even addressed when projects that size are fast tracked.
MaybeArchitecture
Jan 22, 17 10:37 pm
It's a nine figure project and includes MEP. It's a hard bid government project, but many of the questions they are asking point out real flaws in the CD's. For instance, the way the bathrooms were designed the A/E team didn't take into account the finishes so nothing was ADA compliant. The fire walls on the life safety drawings did not match the partition types on the floors plans. It goes on and on...
It's incredibly frustrating to see this level of poor performance for such a big project.
wurdan freo
Jan 23, 17 12:12 am
^^ sounds like a cluster fuck... and par for the course... I wouldn't expect any less from government low bid processes. Good stewards of taxpayer money.
natematt
Jan 23, 17 12:30 am
Sounds like the architect could have done better, but given the circumstances anything less than a mountain of RFIs would be pretty miraculous in my book. 1500 still seems bad though.
Fivescore
Jan 23, 17 10:04 am
The worst I've ever seen is close to 2000, on s $100 million+ project. But I would definitely not characterize those as mostly legitimate - in fact the GC's young PMs admitted to being given weekly quotas of RFIs to generate. We've since beefed up our project manual language concerning frivolous RFIs. Knowing they'll be paying for architects' and engineers' time for responses if the RFIs meet the definition of frivolous does dampen their enthusiasm for creating them.
bowling_ball
Jan 23, 17 12:09 pm
Depends on the project size, type, quality of contract docs, sophistication of the GC, etc. The most I've heard of locally is a little over 2000 rfis for a $350M project. I've never done anything so large and complex, but I have a fairly simple $50M building about 65% complete right now, and I think we're at about RFI 125.
I recently took over a project, that while complex, seems to have been rushed through coordination. This has resulted in over 1500 legitimate RFI(s) and the project is still a few months from substantial completion. That doesn't count the hundreds of RFI(s) that have multiple revisions, some going all the way to R5. Nor does it count the RFI(s) that have been outstanding for 18 months without a response. I've never worked on a project with so many issues from the A/E side of things. Typically this would only happen when a GC is looking for a change order, but most of these are legitimate.
My question to the group is this: What is the typical and highest number of RFI(s) you have dealt with on a project
Only been over 100 (barely) when a GC didn't lump similar questions asked at the same time into the same RFI.
Most projects I've worked on have been between 30-50.
does the 1500 include m, e and s?
Working on 9-10 digit projects, I have seen 500+ on several projects, never sticking around long enough to see where it maxed out mind you.
When you rush complicated projects, this happens. It's a bit upsetting to me when people act surprised by it though. If you can get something done well in a set amount of time, then it's not really rushing is it?
Do you have a ballpark cost on this project? Just curious.
Sometimes you just run into a GC that won't do shit without every detail to 256th of an inch.
1,500 is absurd-- I'm assuming this is for a hard bid project?
I took over the CA for a $25M project that ended up with 200+ RFIs. Drawings were graphically awful, poorly coordinated, and produced by inexperienced staff. Believe it or not, the CM/GC was our savior. Project could have easily had 400+ RFIs and some serious schedule delays but the contractor stayed out front and was a true team player.
to Chigurh's point, this may just be their very thorough method for justifying later a whole bunch of change orders. it builds a decent case against the architect and puts serious doubt on the competency of the architect's paperwork. at 256th of an inch, we all know a phone call and a worker on site could take care of it in 30 seconds, but if you can make the architect look bad, go for it...
I've worked on several projects on the construction side that had this many RFI's. All of these were MultiMillion dollar projects worth 30 mil or more. It's easy to find many design details not resolved or even addressed when projects that size are fast tracked.
It's a nine figure project and includes MEP. It's a hard bid government project, but many of the questions they are asking point out real flaws in the CD's. For instance, the way the bathrooms were designed the A/E team didn't take into account the finishes so nothing was ADA compliant. The fire walls on the life safety drawings did not match the partition types on the floors plans. It goes on and on...
It's incredibly frustrating to see this level of poor performance for such a big project.
^^ sounds like a cluster fuck... and par for the course... I wouldn't expect any less from government low bid processes. Good stewards of taxpayer money.
Sounds like the architect could have done better, but given the circumstances anything less than a mountain of RFIs would be pretty miraculous in my book. 1500 still seems bad though.
The worst I've ever seen is close to 2000, on s $100 million+ project. But I would definitely not characterize those as mostly legitimate - in fact the GC's young PMs admitted to being given weekly quotas of RFIs to generate. We've since beefed up our project manual language concerning frivolous RFIs. Knowing they'll be paying for architects' and engineers' time for responses if the RFIs meet the definition of frivolous does dampen their enthusiasm for creating them.
Depends on the project size, type, quality of contract docs, sophistication of the GC, etc. The most I've heard of locally is a little over 2000 rfis for a $350M project. I've never done anything so large and complex, but I have a fairly simple $50M building about 65% complete right now, and I think we're at about RFI 125.