Archive through April 26, 2006

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Author Message Kim A. Bowman, CSI, AAIA, LEED AP Senior Member Username: archspecmaster Post Number: 8 Registered: 02-2005 Posted on Thursday, May 05, 2005 - 05:18 pm:    I have started (actually about a year ago) requiring contractors to email product data and shop drawing submittals in pdf format. We have been checking these submittals and emailing them back to the contractor for them to distribute. It is absolutely fantastic to get electronic submittals in this format. They are easier to check and review electronically than you would think. You need the full blown version of Adobe Acrobat but you can edit, mark-up and actually insert a shop drawing stamp on to the pdf's. We are having a hard time getting these kinds of submittals from small contractors, but the large firms, Turner, Hensel-Phelps, Centex, comply very well. Has anyone else been requiring this right up front in 01300 Submittals? And if so, how has it been working with you? Phil Kabza Senior Member Username: phil_kabza Post Number: 105 Registered: 12-2002 Posted on Thursday, May 05, 2005 - 09:48 pm:    Although we haven't started handling submittals in this way (I can't wait, and I'm using your posting inhouse to reinforce the point), we have started working with a large client using Acrobat 7.0 for review set submittals and comments. Big time and money saver! Plus it tends to clean up your act with addressing review comments. Anne Whitacre, CCS CSI Senior Member Username: awhitacre Post Number: 192 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Monday, May 09, 2005 - 01:56 pm:    almost all of our submissions are electronic as well, especially on projects out of our local area. You need to hold the line on turn around time though -- a lot of times the speeded up submittal process means that the contractor expects EVERYTHING to be expedited. (we have a clause that says that anything received after 1 pm is considered to have been submitted the following day -- that cuts back on some of the issues with 4 pm Friday submittals...) Sheldon Wolfe Senior Member Username: sheldon_wolfe Post Number: 202 Registered: 01-2003 Posted on Tuesday, April 25, 2006 - 10:31 pm:    It's been a year since the last post - anything new? What electronic ways of processing shop drawings are being used? What is available? Does anything work? Ellis C. Whitby, AIA, PE, CSI Senior Member Username: ecwhitby Post Number: 13 Registered: 03-2003 Posted on Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - 08:13 am:    On a large medical research building project that is just ending, we received Submittals in pdf format via Constructware. Samples were mailed or delivered. Upon receipt of an email notice that the submittals were posted on the project site in Constructware we downloaded and plotted the drawings. We reviewed and marked-up the submittals in hardcopy form. After review, we sent a hardcopy back to the General Contractor. The General Contractor wanted us to scan the reviewed submittals and send them back as pdfs. I presume one reason was that this avoided the cost of printing and distribution for them, since they would send the pdf to the subcontractors. We generally refused to make pdfs due to several concerns, including the following: 1. We would have to check that every scanned submittal contained all the sheets and was legible (time and manpower consuming); and 2. We would incur a large per sheet cost of scanning drawings (we can scan up to 11x17 into pdfs in house). This cost/sheet cost was not reimbursable under the Owner/Architect agreement. As I recall it was on the order of $5/sheet. This last objection may be alleviated as we negotiate new printing agreements or purchase our own large bed scanning machines. When we sent a hardcopy back to the General Contractor it is either created “traditionally” (i.e., by duplicating redlines on a second copy of the submittal, or by “xeroxing” a copy with the marked-up submittal. We have encountered similar requests/requirements on other projects and are dealing with them in a similar fashion. I have an additional objection with the submittal tracking systems as currently run by most General Contractors we deal with, in that they “start the clock” when they post the pdfs to Constructware (or similar service), but “stop the clock” when the receive the hardcopies. This often adds several days to the perceived review time, when the posted pdf was a color sample or hardware sample. Obviously we can not review samples until they are in our office. They also “start the clock” even if the pdf was posted after business hours or on a weekend. So far we haven’t had must heartache about this: the contractors blame it on the “way Constructware is setup” and most of the owner’s we have are sophisticated enough to understand our point of view. J. Peter Jordan Senior Member Username: jpjordan Post Number: 181 Registered: 05-2004 Posted on Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - 09:57 am:    The firm I used to work for had problems with hardcopy submittals similar to what was being reported above on hard copy submittals. Many firms request 1 or 2 copies of any submittal and return 1 mark-up to the contractor for distribution and reproduction. Many of the contractors are still submitting 4 to 6 copies and expecting the Architect to mark every thing up. They say that their estimates don't include reproduction cost (neither do ours for this sort of this), and they don't seem to realize that there is a cost with having even a relatively low paid person copy "red marks" from a "master" sheet to 3 to 5 other copies. The greatest expense would be associated with inaccurate copying. Electronics are great, but at some point it usually gets converted to paper. In most cases more than 1 copy. It is still not a paperless process, and who pays when 150 sheets need to be converted from electrons to hardcopy may be much less than clear. Margaret G. Chewning FCSI CCS Senior Member Username: presbspec Post Number: 93 Registered: 01-2003 Posted on Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - 10:20 am:    Ellis, On the PDF copies that you are given, is an comment/redmark function activated on them? If the contractor is expecting comments back in PDF they should be set up for commenting when created. This can be done in Adobe Acrobat Pro. Actually if you have Adobe Acrobat Pro you can comment and redline his PDF directly and send it back to him without having to make hardcopies of the drawings. Lynn Javoroski CSI CCS LEED AP SCIP Affiliate Senior Member Username: lynn_javoroski Post Number: 342 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - 10:25 am:    Just saw a brief demonstration of Adobe Acrobat 7 Pro. Astounding and amazing. You can do anything that you would be doing by hand, save it as a record, and send it anywhere. It's everything Margaret says - and then some. Ellis C. Whitby, AIA, PE, CSI Senior Member Username: ecwhitby Post Number: 14 Registered: 03-2003 Posted on Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - 10:48 am:    >Margaret G. Chewning FCSI CCS: “Actually if you have Adobe Acrobat Pro you can comment and redline his PDF directly and send it back to him without having to make hardcopies of the drawings.” On product data I wouldn’t have too much of an issue with this procedure, presuming that there is some way for our submittal stamp to be easily applied to each submittal. Until corporate council agrees that we do not need to apply a submittal stamp I don’t see an easy way to resolve this. Even though our Division 1 submittal requirements require that every submittal have room for our stamp, inevitably we have to place the submittals stamp on the back of some page in the product data. How this would work with pdfs I don’t know. We could “insert” a copy of our stamp as a page into the pdf, but any omission or deletion of that page “downstream” could result in confusion. With regard to drawings, I can not review drawings on a PC. In order to ensure a complete and thorough review I inevitably need to look at several sheets simultaneously. How you do this on a computer screen without going blind or crazy is beyond me. I currently use a laptop, but even when I had dual 21” monitors “on screen” submittal review of 24x 32 or 30x42 drawings was unworkable. I have discussed this with many of my coworkers and friends in other firms and I know of no one who would willingly review submittal drawings “on screen” (Again, sketches, small sheets, and product data are a different story). Perhaps it’s a matter of an old dog and new tricks, but until we have wall sized screens where I can display 4, 5 and more sheets in full size at the same time, I will stick to printing out the drawings. Margaret G. Chewning FCSI CCS Senior Member Username: presbspec Post Number: 94 Registered: 01-2003 Posted on Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - 10:59 am:    I understand your frustration on reviewing the documents on screen. It does do some odd things to astigmatism. However your comments and notes can be transfered from the hardcopy to the PDF version and your "Stamp" can be created as a permanent signature to the PDF file with a certified signature function in the program. Nathan Woods, CCCA Senior Member Username: nwoods Post Number: 83 Registered: 08-2005 Posted on Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - 11:17 am:    Adobe Acrobat 7.0 is very good, but also pricy, and unless you have a thousand users in ONE location, you cannot buy site licenses. We are experimenting with a server deployable PDF solution called Bluebeam "Pushbutton Plus with Revue". http://www.bluebeam.com/ I am now in initial testing, and I can report that I like it BETTER than Acrobat, it has similar and perhaps even better features, integrates with AutoCAD exceptionally well, and is easy to use. It is also considerably less expensive per user. Russ Hinkle, AIA, CCS Junior Member Username: rhinkle Post Number: 2 Registered: 02-2006 Posted on Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - 11:33 am:    In my previous office we deployed Nitro PDF professional with great success. It allowed for creating pdf's, red marking, and adding stamps. Accounting was paperless, faxes were intercepted and emailed to the recipiant. Drawings were plotted to pdf instead of dwg or paper. Cost per seat was very reasonable (at the time I believe it was $15 per seat). I also agree that the less paper desired, the more screens / computer horse power is needed. It really is a shift in mind set to break that habit of needing paper. Mark Gilligan SE, CSI Senior Member Username: markgilligan Post Number: 74 Registered: 05-2005 Posted on Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - 12:02 pm:    People respond to and process information on a piece of paper differently than they do information on a computer screen. These differences will have an impact on our ability to identify errors. Thus it is naive to expect that we can move to a paperless process any time soon. These differences are more than different mindsets and have been documented by research.