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Design Manager: design management plan-Construction Documents quality

Design Manager: Design Management Plan-Construction Documents Quality is the Seventeenth article of a series of articles about design management in architecture practice. I have discussed in the previous articles what is design management. Who is the design manager in practice and is it a project or firm design management plan? The key functions of the design management plan in practice. Adding to that What needs to be managed in a firm in practice. This article is the twelfth article on building and writing a design management plan.

What are construction documents?

Construction documents are the documents used by architecture firms, construction company clients, and any relevant company responsible for the realization of an architecture project. Construction documents include drawings, specifications, Bills of quantities, and contracts.

Construction drawings include architecture, structure, mechanical (AC-Plumping-Firefighting), Electrical, road network, and landscape drawings.

Specifications include all the above discipline’s components materials physical characteristics and strength. The specifications include defining the location of specifications in the building components such as doors, windows, concrete beams, drainage pipes, air conditioning pipes, and landscape components.

Bill of quantities is the table of all the building components quantities either in M3 or M2 . The concrete structure for example quantities calculated by engineers in M3 . Architects calculate Doors as No of units. Air conditioning ducts calculated by AC engineers in RM that mean running meter.

Contracts include the main construction contract between the client, the construction company, and the architecture firm. The contract includes clauses of dispute, clauses of payments, terms of payment, and procedure of payments and related process.

Construction documents safeguard the project completion as per the project management plan. The successful completion assures the client’s achievement of the project vision, goals, and ambition and reaches the targeted turnover from the capital invested in the building.

What are the important factors of the construction documents quality in practice?

To stand on the critical factors of construction documents I have divided these factors according to their relation to construction documents.

Construction drawings: when the contractor receives the construction drawings he distributes every discipline drawings to his department. The accuracy of the construction drawings governs the high quality of the shop drawings prepared by the construction company for execution on the project site. For example, the windows in the project must have shop drawings for accurate fixing on the site. The construction team – supervisors- collect actual site dimensions to draw the windows as per the actual dimensions. The shop drawings include all window elements sections, plans, elevations, and connection details to adjacent building components.

The construction company-related team that prepared the shop drawings transfers the drawings to the factory. The factory staff will use the shop drawings to prepare the fabrication drawings. These drawings include every component in the window as per its section and dimensions for fabrication.

Any inaccurate information from the construction drawings will lead to a massive loss in project money, time of construction, delay, disputes, and fines.

Specifications: the project specification governs the overall accurate form of the building to match the architectural design. Any discrepancies between the construction drawings and specifications will lead to the preparation of building components that do not match the building design. Accordingly, that will cause a loss of material, money, project time, delay in completion, and rework of drawings and specifications from both sides the architecture firm and construction company. For example, if the window component’s spec dimensions and sections do not match the construction drawings will lead to total corruption in the whole process.

Bill of quantities: the accuracy of building component’s quantities governs the smooth operations of the construction activities on the project site. For example, granite quantities for building façade if not calculated accurately including the extra amount consideration of cutting and wastage during preparing the granite pieces in the site will cause extra cost on this item. Accordingly, the ceramic tiles quantities of the extra amount of cutting for edges and end pieces will cause extra cost also. Other items also follow the same principle.

Contracts: the construction contract between the client and the construction company must consider one critical matter the dispute matters and how to refer to an external company or FIDIC. Delays, extra costs, changes in project components, changes in specifications, and stops in the construction timeline must be covered by the contract due to their direct effect on the project budget on each side of the client and the construction company.

The most important factor in the successful delivery of construction documents that leads to the effective completion of project construction activities is information transfer between all disciplines.

Delivering high-quality construction documents in practice.

Meetings scheduled between the client and the architecture firm are the pillar for the successful delivery of construction documents. Keeping the client informed about the project’s progress and development is very important to keep data and information transferred to all involved parties in the project. Meetings between all the related project disciplines govern the accuracy of preparing construction documents with high accuracy. Information of any progress and development in design matters must move to all involved parties – client and firm project-related staff- weekly or as per schedule. The client wants to know how the project is going and how his budget and goals from it will be realized. Any changes that will affect the cost will affect building specifications, components, and final form.

On the other hand, the architecture firm must know within the project progress timeline the client’s views about the project design. In this case, the architecture firm will know what the client’s actions are related to any design matter that might require extra work or changes in building systems. For that, the architecture firm might need to reschedule the design work asking for more time. The architecture firm might need more staff to relocate to this project. Or the firm might need to outsource the work to another sub-consultant for fast delivery and completion. These activities will need extra time from management, administration, and finance.

The construction company preferably to be involved before the final stages of the design activities. The construction company when asked for bidding for the project will take all the documents and study and analyze them in detail.  The construction company will for Any discrepancies, unmatched information, or missing information pass a full report to the firm for action.

The design manager must consider various matters when preparing the design management plan. From the inception information about the project from the client and related bodies must be registered and transferred smoothly to the project team. A full schedule of meetings from inception to final stage of project design must be identified. Full team from all disciplines to attend these meetings and to define the proper staff for meetings. The process of the final report and comments after handing over construction documents on bidding must be transferred to all disciplines.  

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