Construction Documents are Broken
One of my goals for 2024 is to write more.
Specifically, I aim to publish a blog post at least twice a month. I'll begin with a topic I encounter daily on behalf of our customers: construction documents and their common issues.
There are frequent problems with construction documents that we aim to address with Provision. Here is a brief list:
First, consider contracts in the Canadian context.
They are often bespoke or derivatives of CCDC contracts. When altered, owners typically modify them clause by clause with a document known as supplementary conditions. Picture a 50-page contract modified by a separate document. Instructions like "replace 'Owner' with 'Contractor'" or "change the number '5' to '40'" can be confusing. Contractors must manually reconcile this document to understand the changes.
Users often complain that these supplementary conditions can be longer than the contract itself. Some others tell me that to create a proper reconciled version, they spend evenings stitching together the original document along with these modifications. In some instances, it’s taken 16 hours.
(As an aside, when insiders express frustration about the state of constructions, these individual workflows are what feed into their perspective. Each individual inefficiency creates a substantial burden for these workers, and results in high overheads, low productivity and increased costs.)
Second: specifications.
These are like half of an instruction manual for construction projects, the other half being drawings. Specifications are often boilerplate, recycled from project to project and are not always relevant (there are exceptions to this of course, say on large design-build projects).
Yet, they form part of the legal contract. So they are binding and must be completed.
Given that constructors agree (legally) to these often ill-fitting requirements, complications arise. Savvy owners and / or their representatives negotiate to include items they actually want but may have missed, in exchange for contractually required ones that aren’t.
This creates a nebulous sense of requirements in respect of the contract, and a combative relationship in respect of the owner. And, of course, it drives costs up.
Lastly, addenda.
When bidding on a project, contractors receive addenda that modify original documents like specifications and contracts. There might be dozens of these addenda, and the contractor must understand all requirements to make an accurate bid. An addenda late in the project bid may modify a critical existing requirement. The challenge is that addenda modify requirements with instructions (similar to supplementary conditions), creating further uncertainty. In any other commercial setting, imagine not getting a fully reconciled version of a contract worth $20M in capex. It wouldn’t happen.
So, it's easy to lose track of them and miss important details. Again, this adds dollars, usually in the form of contingency.
Why is this important? These issues all increase construction costs. The cumulative effect of these increased costs means we miss out on potential projects like hospitals and schools.
It’s these obscure but impactful problems that we ultimately aim to solve at Provision. The better we are at eliminating the pain and tedium of these workflows, the more constructors can focus on the things that matter.