# of Shop Drawing copies
# of Shop Drawing copies
(OP)
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.






RE: # of Shop Drawing copies
RE: # of Shop Drawing copies
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.
RE: # of Shop Drawing copies
This saves us the time and money that was being wasted on marking up six copies.
RE: # of Shop Drawing copies
Hg
Eng-Tips guidelines: FAQ731-376
RE: # of Shop Drawing copies
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.
RE: # of Shop Drawing copies
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
Eng-Tips guidelines: FAQ731-376
RE: # of Shop Drawing copies
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.
RE: # of Shop Drawing copies
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.
RE: # of Shop Drawing copies
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.
RE: # of Shop Drawing copies
When we get more than 3, we throw them away. No one has ever complained.
RE: # of Shop Drawing copies
RE: # of Shop Drawing copies
Some fabricators or contractors send many more, but they are hastened to the circular file. Contractors are suppposed to check the shop drawings before submitting them, but they never do, so they don't know how much works it is to marks up all their errors on all the sets.
RE: # of Shop Drawing copies
RE: # of Shop Drawing copies
You have a good point. This is something that I also was concerned about. This is how we have addressed this concern:
I use a heavy marker (Sharpie fine point permanent marker) so the marks are obvious and legible and there is no doubt that they came from me. They cannot claim that they didn't see it.