The subcontractor start-up meeting: what to agree before they mobilize
The roofing subcontractor's crew arrived last Monday with a boom truck nobody had booked, six workers nobody had oriented and a foreman who thought hauling debris was your job. Sorting it out took until Wednesday. The masonry subcontractor mobilizes in ten days.
Before each trade mobilizes, meet its project manager and the foreman who will run the crew, and agree in writing how this site works for them: contacts, dates and areas, open submittals, access and hoisting, safety, cleanup and reporting. The subcontract says what to build, not which gate the trucks use or who books the hoist, and the foreman has seldom read it. Questions left for the first morning get answered by whoever is nearest. The trade's side of the same week is in starting a subcontract well.
- Invite the trade's project manager and its foreman: one commits crews and dates, the other runs the work. Meet on site a week or two before mobilization.
- Walk their route: gate and delivery hours, laydown, hoist booking, washrooms, power and water, the washout area and their work areas.
- Agree dates from the look-ahead: the start, the areas in order, what others must finish first, and what they hand on.
- Clear the open paperwork: submittals, mock-ups and long-lead items with needed-by dates, and any preinstallation conference the specifications require; one university's standard bars installation until that conference is successfully concluded.
- Set safety and site rules: orientation for every worker before they start, this site's hazards and permits, and the trade's supervisor.
- Agree cleanup and reporting: what clean means, the daily head count, the weekly meeting, who may instruct the crew, and how instructions, changes and notices are recorded. Enforcement is in getting every trade to clean up.
- Put it on one page, sent to both companies the same day.
Common mistakes
- Meeting the trade's office, not its foreman.
- Handing over a binder of rules instead of walking the site.
- Holding it on the first morning, with the crew at the gate.
- One agenda for every trade, with nothing about this one's work.
Checklist
The start-up agenda
- Project manager and foreman, on site
- Route walked: gates, laydown, hoist, washout
- Dates and sequence from the look-ahead
- Open submittals and mock-ups dated
- Orientation booked; site rules explained
- Cleanup, reporting, meetings and instructions
- One page sent the same day
Check your understanding
The trade's project manager offers to meet by phone and send the foreman on day one. What do you ask for, and why?
