Construction RFIs Without The Headaches

The smarter way to complete construction Requests For Information (RFIs).

One company found that there are about 10 RFIs for every $1 million spent on construction projects. RFIs are helpful to give teams more clarity on project details, but they can be vastly inefficient — causing delays, rework, and budget overruns. We’re going to explore RFIs, how they are traditionally completed, referenced, and what a digital construction platform such as Inertia can do to help.

The role of the RFI in construction

During a project, an RFI is typically written by subcontractors to ask project plan questions and suggest changes, such as:

• Checking the accuracy of design specs.
• Suggesting different materials in case of supply shortage.
• Solving for site issues or conflicting information.
• Confirming timelines or budget terms.

While these details would ideally be ironed out before a project begins, as the project gets built, questions are guaranteed to arise. Connecting these questions to answers in the most efficient way possible is key to keeping a project on schedule and on budget.

Using Procore alone to create and approve RFIs. In general, the steps to complete goes something like this:

1. A subcontractor creates an Issue.
2. The Issue is either resolved or escalated as an RFI.
3. RFI is routed to the appropriate contacts.
4. A response to the RFI is created and sent back to the subcontractor.
5. The RFI is closed.

This is a tried and true process that 80% of the GC market is using successfully today. The challenge comes when that RFI needs to be referenced on site. Today, a contractor needs to hover over a pin on a drawing to see if an RFI (or multiple) are attached. Bring up the RFI in a separate tab and see the status and what might have changed from the original design.

What can go wrong? The RFI is pinned to one drawing, say the architectural floor plan but not the mechanical drawings. If you’re the mechanical sub, you might never see the RFI and therefore perform the work incorrectly leading to rework and other downstream impacts.

Or what if the RFI was pinned to one air-handler, but not the other 20 on the project. How can the GC ensure the contractor sees the RFI on each impacted air handler? Again, if this is missed, the impact can be significant.

Improving the RFI process with Procore with Inertia.

With Inertia Intelligent Construction Drawings (ICD) - the RFI is not attached to a pin or cloud but to the actual element that is impacted by the RFI. For the air handler example above, in Inertia ICD, you can attach the Procore RFI directly to the air handler and apply this to all like elements (in this case the other 20 air handlers).

When the sub is onsite to perform the required work, they can simply reference the Inertia Intelligent Drawing, click on the air handler, and immediately see all the Procore RFI’s attached to that object, in addition, any other relevant information like submittals, photos, observations, inspections are also visible along with their statuses. In this way, the sub has all the real-time information they need to proceed with their tasks. Because the RFI is attached to the Air Handler object, no matter which Intelligent drawing is referenced, architectural, mechanical, plumbing, etc… - the RFI is always right there to ensure you never have rework caused by not referencing the RFIs before proceeding. Imagine eliminating the frustration knowing all the work that went in to creating, researching and revising the RFI’s only to have all that information ignored due to inability of finding the information when needed.

What other ways have you found to speed up your process to stay within budget?

Let us know on LinkedIn.

 And, if you haven’t already, be sure to schedule a demo to see our intelligent drawing software in action.