In this new age of connected construction, it’s more vital than ever before to stay on top of your game. Fall just a bit behind on time or budget, and you may find yourself losing out to competitors, or irretrievably late to forthcoming technology developments. In fact, according a new report from KPMG, 87% of owners report that their construction projects are coming under greater scrutiny, making it more than important than ever to set projects up for success from the start.
Before construction begins, one of the most essential aspects of any project manager's job is managing construction submittals, which determine the accuracy of project completion, the success of the proposed timeline, and line items on the budget.
If you want your construction company to rise above the rest, it’s crucial to not only understand this term but grasp why it matters to your job, your projects and your life. Below, we’ll take a close look at what are construction submittals, why they matter, the basics of a solid submittals template, what they consist of, and how to streamline the process.
What we cover
A submittal is a document prepared by an installing contractor that gives details on the products that are going to be installed as well as the location where they’ll be installed. A robust submittals process ensures that a project will align with design intent as well as adhere to the specifications in the contract requirements.
Unlike processes like construction project closeout and as-builts, which are meant to be completed after construction is complete, the submittals process starts in early project phases and helps guide how the project will actually be executed.
Before construction begins, every piece of equipment, material types, and even details such as the exact color of paint need to be reviewed and approved via submittals. Depending on the individual project, construction submittals can involve thousands of different items. These include:
These docs are essential to successful construction because they show the project at a very granular level, and allow design professionals to approve the equipment, materials, and more. The approval process needs to happen before items are fabricated and delivered because afterward, it will be too late to prevent unnecessary setbacks in timeline and budget.
The quality of the submittals also matters. More detailed construction submittals provide a better chance of an accurate budget and schedule, resulting in overall project success. But as construction submittals often involve thousands of different materials relating to each project spec, an accurate and organized input is critical. If a high level of detail is not included, or errors are made when creating the submittals log, the whole project may be compromised.
Common types of submittals include:
While submittals provide information about materials or systems for approval, RFIs are used to ask questions and clarify design intent or specifications. RFIs help address uncertainties that arise during construction, while submittals confirm adherence to design.
Submittals are typically prepared by the contractor or subcontractors, but the responsibility may fall on suppliers or manufacturers as well. The contractor is responsible for submitting these documents to the design team for approval.
So, what's the process for creating submittal items? It starts with the following components:
Any submittals process starts with a spec book or sometimes referred to as the project manual. This project document is extremely robust and outlines all the project requirements from materials, equipment, and products needed, testing and commissioning processes, payment requirements, installation and technical details, scheduling details, and more.
The spec book could contain thousands if not tens of thousands of details, items, and data. This crucial construction document is used to create a submittal log.
Submittal logs, sometimes known as a submittal register, are generally created from the spec book at the beginning of the project as a tracking mechanism to ensure that all materials and final designs are approved by the design team prior to installation. Often times designers specify several products that can be used on a project so it is up to the responsible contractor to pick one. These lists help manage the hundreds of materials, certifications, testing, and project requirements and warranties that need to be submitted to the design team.
The submittal log tracks every document on the project and is used as a record to confirm the design team has approved every item. A good submittal log should at a minimum include the following:
Construction project managers agree that the submittals review process has traditionally been long and arduous. First, all submittal items must be aggregated from specialty contractors, ensuring you have detailed data and specifications for each facet of the project. In the past, this equated to time-intensive manual entry processes like massive Excel spreadsheets, ripe for inaccuracies and mistakes. Construction project management software can help automate this process, and in turn, improve the accuracy and quality of submittal items. After submittal items are collected, the architect and design team must review everything for compliance, while the general contractor reviews them all to ensure they have the right products and specifications.
A typical submittal workflow looks like this:
Organization is key to running this process smoothly. Without it, the thousands of documents involved and the many layers that comprise a construction project can quickly become overwhelming and disjointed. This is why having a comprehensive submittal log is critical.
Without a comprehensive submittal log, it would be impossible to manage the submittal process confidently. If you are looking for a submittal log template, download our free template.
Now that you understand what a construction submittal is and the process, how exactly do you improve the essential, yet at times frustrating submittal workflow? It starts by improving three key pillars:
Technology plays a critical role in enabling the above pillars. But where to begin? Here are 9 steps to help you streamline the submittals process starting today with cloud-based technology.
As previously mentioned, construction specifications describe the proposed materials and workmanship required to build a project according to the design. Depending on the size of the project, specifications can range from 100 to 2,000 pages long and contain requirements for thousand of submittal register items.
With AutoSpecs, you can create a submittal log from a spec book at the start of a project. Whether your spec book is 100 pages or 1,000, the technology allows you to create a downloadable and accurate spreadsheet with all of your project’s submittal register items in just minutes. The process saves you time and eliminates the chance of errors.
Read more: Accelerate your submittals workflows: New functionality in Autodesk Construction Cloud
The submittal process involves dozens of people submitting and approving product data, shop drawings, and closeouts to ensure that the building is being built according to the specifications. While it’s important for external individuals to be able to fully participate in the submittal workflow, it’s just as important that sensitive project information is kept private. Utilize technology that provides you with both flexibility and control to assign submittals to non-project stakeholders at the click of a button.
Without being added to the project, subcontractors, vendors, and designers can submit or review submittals all through email. Since external partners don’t have to be added to the project itself, private information including sheets, annotations, and documents can always be kept confidential–and the project can keep moving forward.
With all the submittal information to track throughout the process, it’s easy for items to slip through the cracks. No matter how many submittal register items you have, technology that allows you to filter enables you to narrow down the list of approved vs. rejected submittal items You can filter by anything such as spec section, priority, status, approvers, reviewers, created by dates, due dates, and submittal type.
The construction submittal process has many steps before approved documents get shared with the field team to start building. From the vendor or subcontractor uploading submittals all the way to the design team or consultant approving them, no extra time should be wasted getting partners set up on your submittal tracking system.
Utilize construction submittal software that sends approval alerts via email. When approvers receive notifications straight to their inbox that submittal items have been assigned to them, it improves accountability, transparency, and empowers them to send responses faster.
For every single submittal, there are multiple people involved in reviewing and approving before it gets published to the field. Through all of these handoffs, submittal documents get marked up, renamed, reordered, and stamped to guarantee that the field team builds according to specifications. If teams don’t have the right tools, they could be jumping from multiple platforms, or reverting to manual, inefficient systems.
Using tools that centralize documents enable PDF markups for submittals, teams will no longer spend time exporting documents, marking them up in a separate PDF tool, and uploading them back into a system. Instead, this construction management software feature allows users to effortlessly annotate submittals with text, highlights, shapes, callouts, and stamps, to get the right information recorded, fast.
When a submittal gets sent out for review, it’s very rare that it only needs to be approved by one party. Instead, approvers can include the architect, mechanical designer, electrical designer, and plumbing designer. Since most submittals require a two-week window to receive final approval, it’s not productive to wait for each party to review the submittal independently before going on to the next reviewer. By being able to assign a submittal to all the required reviewers at the same time, it reduces the risk of delays and the time you spend managing and collecting feedback.
With technology that enables parallel reviews, you have the ability to send submittal items to multiple reviewers simultaneously by adding them as co-reviewers. Co-reviewers will be able to add their response in the comment field. The reviewer is responsible for coordinating and incorporating co-reviewers comments into the official response ensuring a clear point of approval. Once again, the improved transparency promotes accountability across the project team and makes it easier to identify where you need to take action.
In addition to individuals who are required to submit or review a submittal, additional team members who should be aware of the status of the item as it progresses through the workflow but don’t need to take action can be added as a distribution list member/watcher. They will be notified when a submittal item is created, transmitted, reviewed, or published in order to ensure that all materials are correct. Examples of individuals who could be added to the watching/distribution list include additional vendors, subcontractors, internal team members, designers, and even owners.
Status matters when it comes to submittals. Materials or products installed in a project without the design team’s official approval can be subject to removal and replacement at the contractor’s cost. This can be a huge headache and lead to a potential change order, which is time-consuming and causes delays in the project.
Not all technology is customizable, which can be a pain when you have standard terminology your teams are accustomed to. Aim to implement technology that enables you to create clear and custom status indicators—making it clearer than ever for the project team to know which submittal has been approved so they can start building.
Getting submittals approved on time is crucial to ensure a project is on schedule. To ensure they are on track, status updates, and reports are frequently requested from the project engineer managing them.
Implement project management solutions that enable you to create detailed and custom reports and dashboards. Furthermore, as these reports are shared with the project owner or other interested parties, it’s important they look professional. For instance, some technology lets users easily create a PDF report that displays a selection from their submittals packages all with their logo on it.
Previously, the manual and fragmented system to create, track, and approve submittals have been inefficient and a manual process. But now, there are more tools available to help you streamline submittals, saving enormous amounts of time and resources.
If you’re looking to automate and standardize submittals on your project, consider adopting industry-specific tools from Autodesk Construction Cloud. By using the right software as a tool to help move submittals along, you can get to construction faster with a reduced risk of error, delays, and cost overruns.
