huangyhg

# of shop drawing copies
i have a general procedural question. i'm curious how other firms are handling the shop drawing process in terms of the time it takes to transfer comments to the 6,7,8,9+ sets of shop drawings that come in for review. when we run into things like 200+ page structural steel submittals that come with multiple copies, we end up weighing the cost of copying the set seven times versus the cost of having someone transfer the marks. either way it is becoming more of a burden. it seems that the most beneficial circumstance would occur for a spec that requires fewer copies but i've encountered resistance from our cm people on that end. i'd appreciate your experiences and suggestions on this.
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we do fewer copies at the initial submittal and markup stage and require the larger number after on a second dubmittal.
thank you for even thinking about this question. a lot of consultants don't!
we will have jobs where the consultant wants 10 copies of shop drawings, marks up 5 and sends them back to us. we throw the 4 extras away, make revisions as noted, and copy corrected ones for fabrication. it's a waste of someone's time to mark up those 4 extra sets, but you can't convince them they don't need to.
we have some customers who will put all comments in a separate letter rather than actually marking anything on the drawings. we are just now working with a customer who scans all the shop drawings, and posts .pdf files on an ftp site for retrieval by whoever needs it. i don't know how long the scanning takes, but that works pretty slick otherwise. there's a lot of ways to work things.
another issue is whether shop drawings are "approved as noted" or marked "revise and resubmit". we have some customers who will require resubmittal for the most trivial changes, which is a waste of time for all concerned. then again, that reminds me of last sunday's dilbert comic strip.
we request only one. mark it up and run one copy for our records and send back one and the contractor makes whatever number of copies he needs for his subs.
this saves us the time and money that was being wasted on marking up six copies.
we require a gazillion copies (7 or so, and more if there are extra parties involved, because those extra parties have a history of grabbing theirs off the top and then we don't get ours). all copies do get used. the logic for requiring the detailer to submit that many is (a) we want "original" red stamps on all copies (b) we'd rather have someone else do the copying than us. that is supposed to change when we move along to electronic distribution.
hg
i like jike's idea. it's brilliant!
a copy of "one" set made by structural engineer is only thing an engineer needs to keep for his records. any other parties in between (architects, etc) can make their marks and make copies as they desire. contractor can make as many copies as he needs to distribute to the subs once all designers had their inputs/comments.
making multiple copies (i've seen as many as 7 or 9 sets) is absolutely unnecessary waste of time/material for producing the copies and unnecessary waste of time/money for someone to manually copy. the person who copies usually is often an admin/technician level staff and almost never the original designer - big room for potential error.
jike, you got my star.
engineer needs only one copy.
facility owner needs only one copy.
inspector needs only one copy (in our case we need two, one for the guy in the shop, one for the home office).
that's three or four right there on the owner side, without even looking at the contractor side. and sometimes there are multiple owners (for instance dot along with railroad or tollway authority).
if some of the parties would settle for copies of the original markup, at least the only problem would be the volume of photocopying, rather than the need to mark several sets separately and yet consistently.
hg
when i've asked why we order so many copies of shop submittals (i think six is standard), i get an answer that we need:
an original
one for our records
one for the contractor
one for his subcontactor
one for the owner
one for our field office
which makes six. i then suggested that we mark up one copy and send it to the printers for copies. the project manager said, "who pays for the printing costs?" the implication was that it was easier to bill out the costs of manually copying the comments four times (his administrative assistant did that!), than the printing costs.
this system has evolved over many, many years and projects. i'm always cautious about haphazardly making changes without thinking out all the consequences. i think scanning the drawings and making them available to the project team has promise.
"final" shop drawings (no further comments from the designers) shall require multiple copies for distribution to many parties involved. however, the first set sent to the designer, which inevitably will receive redmarks, can just be one copy per jike's suggestion. other copies may be made for the contractor, subs, owner, etc but the design team does not need to be a part of that. thay already have one set to comment on.
one hardcopy with an electronic version online for everyone's pleasure with an indication who has the hardcopy at any given moment is an idea. when appropriate designers have finished the review and have no further corrections, a final hard copy can be made for distribution to everyone.
we have been asking for (2) copies. (1) reproducible and (1) bond. we use the bond to mark up and "scratch" on, the reporducible for clean marks. we then scan the reproducible to a *.pdf file and return it to the cm. the *.pdf file is available to all parties via an ftp site and can be printed on any size paper. we plot a full size set for our records. the beuaty of keeping a copy is that if any changes are made beyond our marks, they do not show up on our copy.
one more comment:
changes made on a shop drawing are not legally considered part of the contract documents. the corrrect vehicle for making changes to a contract is through the use of an asi (no cost) or bulletin (cost) which would produce a change order.
we put it in our specs to submit 4 copies, and we return 3, and that the contractor must make the required number of copies of our markups for his subs, and the clerk of works.
when we get more than 3, we throw them away. no one has ever complained.

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