Oops on a spec revision

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Author Message Jerry Foshee Junior Member Username: jf05 Post Number: 2 Registered: 09-2005 Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - 12:08 pm:    I work at a repro shop so I copy a lot of project manuals and spec revisions. When a new spec revision comes out I remove the "old" pages and incorporate the new pages into the book. Recently I had one where the revision covered (for example) page 01360-2 sections C and D. However, the old page 01360-2 contained sections C, D and the first two paragraphs of section E. Follow SOP and you lose potentially important data, so I left the old page in, crossed out the appropriate paragraphs, and wrote a note in the margin before I scanned the book in. After reading some of the posts concerning legal liability I realized this might be more serious that I first thought. Is it? Does the spec writer need to be directly notified, or will contacting the firm whose name is on the revision sufficient? Or am I completly over-reacting? Ralph Liebing, RA, CSI Senior Member Username: rliebing Post Number: 217 Registered: 02-2003 Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - 12:36 pm:    Jerry, thanks for being such a dedicated guy and in recognizing a bad situation. For several reasons you should make no changes, but you should contact either the design firm whose name is on the book or the specifications writer. It is their responsibility to straighten out this technical situation for their liability issues, and for their copyright control of the documents. For those 2 reasons alone, make the call to them and don't attempt to resolve the problem-- it is much bigger and more imposing than merely collating some information. Thanks guy,-- nice to know there are people out there who like to help and actually protect us from ourselves! And thanks for bringing this up here. Steven T. Lawrey, AIA, CSI, CCS, CCCA Senior Member Username: lawrey Post Number: 30 Registered: 08-2004 Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - 01:09 pm:    You are not overreacting, however it seems everything that could go wrong actually went wrong. First, this revision most certainly is part of an addendum or contract modification. Therefore the A/E should issue it separately, along with the accompanying paperwork, instead of bound in the project manual. Upon receipt the bidders or contractor must first log the revision, then coordinate it with other parts of the work, and then issue it to affected subcontractors. Burying revisions in the project manual makes the bidder's/contractor's job near impossible. Next, upon noticing the formatting inconsistancy, the spec writer should have been notified to get further instructions. He/she should know better than to issue revisions in the manner you describe. Certainly, for many reasons, the hand notations are a major "no - no". Those reasons include authorship, document quality control, legal liability and calling undue attention to the revision. The specifier or the A/E firm should adhere to document revision procedures outlined in the PRM CSI MOP. William C. Pegues, FCSI, CCS Senior Member Username: wpegues Post Number: 489 Registered: 10-2002 Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - 01:27 pm:    Jerry, You have the right idea. But the correct thing to do is as the others have advised - contact the group that sent you the information and piont out the problem. Who knows - it could be an intentional deletion of those other paragraphs, but likely not. But you are not in a position to be able to tell. What it sounds like has happened is that the revised 2 paragraphs, the page got longer and pushed some original information onto the next page - so its missing when they printed out just the one page. One thing to be careful of - you may be put in contact with the clerical support that may have no idea what you are talking about, so you may need to use the above paragraph to explain what you think happened - or you may have to send back the original page and the replacement page for them to understand it. General comment... This is one reason why 'revise and reissue' should apply to whole spec sections and not individual pages. And even more important to do so when its clerical help that is printing out the 'revised pages' because they can't tell either. I have always advised never to 'revise and reissue' pages - either changes by note or revise and reissue the entire section if changes by note would be confusing or take more than 1 page of 'notes'. William Nathan Woods, CCCA Senior Member Username: nwoods Post Number: 12 Registered: 08-2005 Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - 01:53 pm:    Wow, I wish you worked at my Repro shop. Just having you ask the question is extremely gratifying to see. Wayne Yancey Senior Member Username: wyancey Post Number: 64 Registered: 05-2005 Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - 02:05 pm:    I agree with Ralph, Steven, and William, My first choice is revise and resubmit the entire section because repagination occurs to frequently. I save the revised section to a new folder named addendumX, suffix the section file name with ADXm/d/yr, turn on track changes, add a line in the footer "REVISED & REISSUED BY ADDENDUM #1, dated XX/XX/2005, and finally print on colored stock. I appreciate Jerrys due diligence in picking up errors, but he should call the A/E with the information before proceeding. When I used the WANG wordprocessor, it was easier to handle repagination than currently in MSWORD. Wayne Jerry Foshee Member Username: jf05 Post Number: 3 Registered: 09-2005 Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - 02:36 pm:    Thanks for the responses guys. Very helpful. And for the kind words as well. That's exactly why we can get away with charging you guys a little bit more than the other shops. :D I did call the firm that released the CSI, but I had to leave a message. It was after 5. Knowing how messages don't always reach their intended target, and now understanding the importance of this issue, I'll have to confirm the message got there. Steven, you bring up another question. You're correct. It was part of an addendum, complete with new drawings. Usually, we'll receive new drawings and a few pages called CSI #1, Addendum #1, or a myriad of other titles. This CSI's first page will have a list of revised drawings and sometimes a list of revised spec book pages as well, followed by those same revised pages. The new drawings and the CSI is then sent to various people per transmittal. That follows along with what you said procedure should be. However any subsequent orders for the project manual will be the new revised manual. Behind the cover page(s) will be that first page of the CSI which has the list of revised drawings and spec book pages. The revised pages are incorporated in the book as I described earlier. Now is that the way it's supposed to work? Jerry Brett M. Wilbur CSI, CDT, AIA Senior Member Username: brett Post Number: 63 Registered: 12-2004 Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - 03:27 pm:    Great thread. Jerry, I love your attitude. I love that you care about your customer and trying to make it right for them. I just happened to be having lunch with the Sales Manager for one of the larger repro firms here in Houston today, so I asked him about the issue. It creates an obvious dilemma, and the scenario goes like this: It's after 5 PM, the Architect did not leave an after hours phone number, their office doesn't answer the phone, and the order has to be delivered by 9 AM the next morning. What to do? 1. Issue the documents as is, with the error, and notify the Architect in the morning. The Architect would then have to explain to the client why the documents were issued wrong, thus running the risk of the Architect having egg on their face. Nothing wrong with issuing another addendum, except for more egg; or 2. Don’t issue the documents until it is straightened out in the morning, thus running the risk of them not meeting a deadline, thus running the risk of the Architect having egg on their face, who then blames the repro company for not meeting the deadline. I’ve never met an Owner who actually called the blueprint company to yell at them for being late, so I would bet the repro company plays the fall guy for the Architect a lot. A helluva lot; or 3. Do what you did, be an awesome customer servicer, try to correct the problem, run the risk of being wrong with the correction, take on the liability for the repro company, run the risk of losing your job, etc, etc. Just ask the question, would the Architect cover your back? I believe it is the Architect’s responsibility for their own quality control. John Bunzick, CCS, CCCA Senior Member Username: bunzick Post Number: 404 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - 03:36 pm:    The majority of repro firms would probably do what Brett lays out in item 1, but without the phone call to the architect because they probably wouldn't have even noticed the problem. Anne Whitacre, CCS CSI Senior Member Username: awhitacre Post Number: 251 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Monday, September 26, 2005 - 07:14 pm:    I would suggest also that you ALWAYS get a contact number for any print job, especially if you're going to be printing after 5 pm. I regularly provide this for our print shops and always did when I consulted -- I think its just standard procedure around here. As for the change in the specs: I agree with the folks above who said "always issue whole sections only." almost any change will repaginate a spec section, and no one does the paste-up like we used to do, because most project manuals are printed double sided. Sounds like your repro house is more responsible than the architect!