Submittals that do not hold up procurement
The door hardware submittal comes back on a Friday afternoon stamped "revise and resubmit", for the second time. The supplier will not release the order without approved drawings, and the frames are needed on level 2 in six weeks. The first package went in without the hardware schedule the specification asked for.
Submittals hold up orders in predictable ways: they go in late or incomplete, arrive in pieces the reviewer cannot check together, or sit unanswered because nobody follows up. The general rules normally sit in Division 01 of the specifications — Canada's National Master Specification, for example, has Section 01 33 00, Submittal Procedures — so read your project's version for the review period and what a complete package contains. A rejection costs more than the correction: some specifications, including the US military's guide specification, give each resubmittal the same review period as the first.
- Build the register in the first week from every specification section's submittal article: item, section, type, reviewer, and two dates, approval needed and material needed, as the US guide specification's register does.
- Set a submit-by date for every line, working back from its order date through the review period, one resubmittal allowance and the supplier's preparation time. Start with the long-lead items.
- Send related items together: frames with doors and hardware, equipment with its controls. The US guide specification requires interrelated items to be submitted at the same time, and a reviewer who sees one piece of a system cannot check how it fits the rest.
- Review every package before it leaves: model, options, dimensions, finishes, certificates and fit with adjacent work, with deviations clearly marked.
- Follow up on a fixed day each week: overdue packages from the trades, overdue reviews, and a call before a due date rather than after it.
- Release the order the day it is approved, with the reviewer's comments attached, so a package stamped "reviewed as noted" or "approved as noted" is built as noted.
Common mistakes
- Sending the register to the consultant once and never updating it.
- Submitting product data without the shop drawings it depends on, so both come back.
- Passing a trade's package through unchecked and learning about the wrong voltage from the reviewer.
- Treating an "as noted" stamp as a clean approval and ordering without the notes.
Checklist
The Monday submittal check
- Register updated with last week's submissions and returns
- A submit-by date on every line
- Related items grouped into one package
- Overdue trade packages chased by phone
- Reviews due this week raised before the due date
- Approved packages released the same day
Check your understanding
Why plan for one resubmittal on items whose order date is tight?
