On an average, engineering involving the submission of material, equipment, shop drawings, fabrication drawings, mix designs, method statements and other technical submittals exhaust at least 30% of a project’s construction duration. Frequently, delays in engineering constitute a major cause of delay to a project.

The necessity of shop drawings is driven by the need to bridge the gap between the design documents and construction documents. In the words of Arthur F. O’Leary – an architect renowned in forensic architecture, and an arbitrator – shop drawings are a “necessary evil.”

Action Submittals requiring an Engineer’s responsive action (as opposed to Informational Submittals), result in multiple re-submissions particularly in respect of shop drawings. 

Both the initial review period and the resubmission review period granted to the Engineer must be indicated in the specifications. As such, the Contractor’s schedule should account for one round of resubmissions to ensure that the progress of the works is not affected.

Once the Engineer provides all the comments and requests for modifications upon initial review, and if the Contractor complies fully with these requirements, the amended shop drawings are resubmitted only once. However, there are often numerous resubmissions: under the pressure of reviewing within a certain time frame, Engineers may return a shop drawing in advance of a comprehensive review. Conversely, Contractors often fail to comply with the entirety of the Engineer’s review comments, thus justifying rejection. As a consequence, there is a series of resubmissions that may ultimately delay the progress of the project.