From Start to Finish: The Importance of a Constructability Review

Constructability Review Hurdles

With a compressed schedule, the architect and each sub-consultant work feverishly toward the end date. The unfortunate result is that they quite often find themselves in a position from which they have no choice other than to issue whatever they have completed to date for bidding and construction purposes. This persistent problem of incomplete design documents is further aggravated by the fact that we also lose the ability to perform a final, comprehensive, quality control review (i.e., a constructability review) of the documents. Ideally, all of the design documents would be completed one or two weeks prior to the end date. At this point each member of the design team would have an opportunity to review their work for inconsistencies or errors and perform final modifications prior to issuing the design documents for bidding and construction purposes. Unfortunately, design schedules rarely afford the necessary time for this crucial design step. As a result, design errors, omissions, and inconsistencies are constantly discovered throughout the construction process. Needless to say, many of these problems subsequently become change order issues.

Experience has shown that when we do not have enough time to perform a thorough constructability review prior to issuing the design documents, we often disregard performing a constructability review altogether. The unavoidable truth is that problems are going to be discovered at some point: It is much more beneficial to find problems during the first few months of a project than sporadically as construction progresses. By identifying and solving problems early, we greatly reduce the quantity of remedial work, eliminate many change order issues, and decrease the magnitude of delays.

Another hurdle to performing a comprehensive constructability review is the routinely hectic transitions between design, bidding, and construction phases. Design teams are consistently in such a time constraint that they can barely keep up with a project as it rapidly progresses. As a result, finding the time to sit down and focus solely on proofreading the massive stack of documents at times appears to be an impossible task. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the sooner problems are discovered, the sooner they can be resolved. The sooner problems are resolved, the lesser the chance that they will develop into change order issues. Plainly, the project team must find enough time for this crucial design step or, alternatively, employ a third-party firm for the task.

Potential Solutions

Employing a competent and reputable third-party firm to perform a constructability review is an excellent management practice. Depending on the size and complexity of the project, a thorough constructability review can take weeks or even months to complete. Further, comprehensive constructability reviews cannot be performed until the design documents are near completion. This is the main reason that there never seems to be enough time for a thorough review.

Notably, a constructability review must be performed by an experienced individual(s), which means that an executive level person(s) must allocate a significant amount of time for this task. In reality, finding executives with multiple weeks of available time is often deemed impossible. However, the fact of the matter is that problems are difficult to find and take an experienced set of eyes to identify. Assigning young project engineers, as smart as they may be, to this task is significantly less productive because the younger generation just hasn’t yet gained enough experience to know what to look for.

A general contractor may directly employ 100 or more different companies for a construction project. There will be multiple bidders for each of these scopes of work, and the majority of these bidders will in turn receive bids from a variety of manufacturers, suppliers, and companies as well. Once a project is completed, it is not uncommon for nearly 1,000 different companies to have been involved from the project’s conception, through design, bidding, construction, and eventually completion. This emphasizes the importance of the design documents. The only truly efficient and effective means of conveying coordinated direction to all of these parties is via the design documents.

Bid Instructions vs. Design Documents

A notable misconception commonly held by design team members is that information they were unable to incorporate into the design documents prior to issuance for bidding can be quickly and simply added to the bid instructions. General contractors prepare and issue bid instructions to delineate the scope of work for each individual subcontractor. Although providing direction to the bidders via the bid instructions might appear equivalent to providing direction via the design documents, it is actually quite inferior for many reasons. One such reason is that subcontractors will thoroughly read the bid instructions during the bidding phase, but they are highly unlikely to ever review them again after being awarded a project. This is unfortunately the status quo, and it is actually much less efficient for the general contractor to issue direction in their bid instructions than it is to incorporate the direction into the design documents.

Again, it is a good management practice to perform a complete constructability review as early as possible, although the review comments may not be incorporated into the design documents prior to bidding the project. It must be recognized and fully understood by all project team members that shortening or eliminating the constructability review process does not eliminate problems. Shortening or eliminating this crucial design step only delays discovery of the problems. It is always advantageous to identify and solve problems as early as possible. Identifying and solving problems early provides ample opportunity for resolution before delays are incurred and many times even before additional costs are incurred.

 

---

 

This article was republished from the book “Construction Management: Understanding and Leading an Ethical Project Team” by Jason G. Smith