Submittals in construction: The good, the bad, and the ugly.
In construction, submittals are how contractors and subcontractors receive approval from the design team on equipment and materials. What the design team is looking for in these submittals is if they comply with the design and contractual parameters of the project.
What's included in a submittal changes based on the type of project, but will likely include:
- Samples of products that will be used, such as paint swatches.
- Technical data, dimensions, and product manuals.
- Drawings that illustrate what needs to be built.
While the types of submittals vary, the process for how submittals make their way through a project is pretty standard throughout the construction industry, consisting of four steps:
- Clarifying the Process: The process for submittals is outlined and agreed upon by the teams during the pre-construction phase.
- Setting a Timeline: A schedule is set to ensure submittals are completed on time, while ensuring the availability of architects, engineers, and materials.
- Information Gathering: Subcontractors start gathering documents, samples, and other information to begin their submittals.
- Submittal Review: The architect or engineer assesses what’s been submitted by the subcontractors and either approves the submittal for work to begin, or rejects it and the subcontractor starts back at step 3.
However, even a small project can reach hundreds if not thousands of individual records. So, the time it takes for the submittal process varies wildly depending where you’re building and the complexity of your project. In some instances, 10-12 weeks for the submittal process could be reasonable. Elsewhere, anything more than 14 days would be excessive. In all cases, any delays at this phase of the construction project will likely have a domino effect on the rest of your timeline.
Yes, you can actually save time on construction submittals.
While the submittal process is vital, you’ve likely run into numerous instances where the submittal process falls short. These include errors in submittals, not enough information in documents, and a lack of tracking that leads to an inbox-busting amount of emails asking for submittal status updates.
A construction management platform can enable your team to run the submittal process much more efficiently, and save your project time and money. Of course, that is why you licensed Procore.
Procore has a simple and logical workflow process from creating the submittals through the approval workflows and distribution of the closed submittals.
Good enough? Maybe, but we think there is a way to improve on this process to reduce rework, expedite queries and ensure everyone is working with the most updated information utilizing Inertia’s Intelligent Drawings, now integrated with Procore.
Below are a few key challenges when work with submittals and how we believe Inertia has changed the game.
Challenge: Am I working with the latest and correct submittals?
How do you ensure that the appropriate submittal is referenced for a particular element in the project? For example, how do I know the doors I’m installing have submittals that are approved and specific for that door?
- Existing approach: I search in my inbox to see if I can find the approved submittal or perhaps filter in Procore to search for the appropriate door and hope I didn’t find a related but incompatible submittal.
- With Inertia ICDs: I pull up the ICD of the location I’m working in, click on the door and instantly see the submittal(s) related to that element. I also can see the status so if the submittal is still open, I’ll see that and ensure no work is done until the submittal is approved. If approved, I have the exact information I need to continue on the project.
Challenge: Do I have submittals for all elements of the project I’m working on this week or month?
How do you ensure that submittals are approved for all materials and equipment you’ll be working on over the next period of time.
- Existing approach: I look at the drawings, ascertain all the material and equipment and search through the submittals to ensure all are approved so I can move forward with the tasks for that week.
- With Inertia ICDs: I simply pull up the relevant ICD for the area I’ll be working on this week, run the visual report to color code the ICD’s by submittal. I can instantly see all the elements with submittals attached and their status. In just a few seconds, I know the status of every submittal and, in addition, any elements that are missing submittals all together. With this intuitive process, I can ensure no work is done without previously completed submittals with 100% accuracy.
Challenge: Do you have challenges handing off information at the end of the project such as all the documentation associated with assets?
When you are closing out the project, an important step is to provide information for the further operation of the building and equipment. This can be an onerous process that can in many cases take months or longer to complete.
- Existing approach: At close-out one would typically go through all the associated records, generate PDFs and print and/or drop them into a virtual or physical drive. Because the stacks of documents are no longer correlated, most of this information is simply ignored and eventually filed away never to be referenced again.
- With Inertia ICDs: All the information that occurs against the assets is retained and correlated via the location based maps. The submittals are all attached to every element that they reference as well as other associated information like RFI’s, observations, photos and any other relevant information that operations would now require. Not only is it a simple process to provide to the owner but information can continue to be collected on the assets through the operational phase post construction.
These are just a few of the ways that Inertia ICDs can augment and streamline your submittal process while significantly reducing rework.
Any other challenges you have with submittals or any other project workflow, contact us and let’s talk.
Have you found more ways to speed up your submittal process? 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.