Coordination of Drawings and the Project Manual - Part 2
Today's images are from the old CSI Manual of Practice. For some reason, there were no counterparts to these useful diagrams produced in the newer Project Resource Manual. I think these first two are very important to help understand what annotation content is required in a drawing and, just as important, what content should be left out.
The sketch wall section shows a number of notes, the Wrong Way, and the Right Way, as well as whether the information shown wrongly belongs in another specification section, or on another drawing. We can quibble over whether the recommendations are fully consistent, but the gist is clear. The Right Way is to use simple annotations that convey identification without too much information as to quality, size, or style.
The second sketch lists Should's and Should Not's for drawings, capital annotation crimes include using references to specific subcontractors, use of proprietary names, and use of the ever-popular "See Spec".This latter term is one of my personal favorites. It conveys the writer's sense of concern that more information about that item is needed, while also conveying their ignorance of what that information might be, as well as their attempt to pass the buck to another writer of a different document.
Please forgive my direct commentary, but there is no reason to write these words. Properly coordinated documents will only require the most generic identification of items on drawings, using terms identical to the specifications. The terms will connect the item with it's specification description, no additional modifiers required.
Most drawing annotations contain far too much information about the items denoted. This practice not only fosters coordination errors with the specifications and with the drawings, but increases the effort needed to produce the drawings and clutters them with unnecessary and potentially erroneous information, often included on the basis of "..no one reads the specs anyway..."
Short, generic descriptions also reduce revision effort in the event of a change of product. If a modified bitumen roof is changed to a thermoplastic membrane, the simple annotation "membrane roof" would not need to be changed on the drawings. Shouldn't we all be in favor of doing less work, and putting the information where it really belongs?
This latter sample checklist is one way of developing specification content based on drawing review, as well as a tool for including cross-references between sections. There are a number of ways of gathering and organizing this information, any method that retains the information and records the decisions made is a good method. The key to good practice is to find one and use it consistently.Next Post: Precedence Clauses
