Building the submittal register from the specifications
Three weeks after award on a single-storey grocery store, the project manager asks for the submittal register. The coordinator has the trades' own lists, 87 items between them, and a project manual of 57 sections that nobody on the team has read end to end.
Read every section of the project manual, Division 01 included, and write one register line for each item it asks you to submit, instead of trusting the trades' lists or anyone else's register. Requirements hide in quality assurance, field quality control and closeout articles, and in Division 01 sections the trades never read. Even an owner's register is a start, not a finish: a US Army Corps of Engineers regulation, for example, says the register its designers prepare is generally not all-inclusive and makes the contractor responsible for finding the submittals that must be added.
Section by section
- Work from the table of contents, ticking off each section as you finish it. Include Division 01: in Canada's National Master Specification, for example, it holds 01 33 00 Submittal Procedures and 01 78 00 Closeout Submittals.
- Read the whole section, not only its submittals article: test reports, qualifications, mock-ups, warranties and spare materials often sit under quality assurance, field quality control or closeout.
- Write one line per item: section, item, type, who provides it, who reviews it, and whether it is for review or for information.
- Check drawing notes and schedules that ask for shop drawings, engineered design or samples.
- Name a provider for every line from the subcontracts and purchase orders. A line nobody has bought is a scope gap to settle now.
- Add the date each approval is needed; working back to a submit-by date is in submittals that do not hold up procurement.
- Have each trade confirm its lines, and keep lines that do not apply, marked N/A with the reason.
Common mistakes
- Copying the last job's register and editing it.
- Searching the specification for "submit", which misses "provide a certificate" and "deliver spare materials".
- Stapling the trades' lists together.
- Deleting lines that seem not to apply.
Checklist
Before you issue the register
- Every section ticked off, Division 01 included
- Quality and closeout articles read, not only submittals
- Drawing notes and schedules checked
- Type, provider and reviewer on every line
- An approval-needed date on every line
- No line without a provider
- Each trade has confirmed its lines
Check your understanding
A trade says its section "has no submittals" because the submittals article is empty. What do you check before you accept that?
