Sixty submittals, three engineers, one contract period
Construction is under way and the mechanical and electrical contractor is sending technical submittals: pump selections, AHU data sheets, cable schedules, fire alarm cause and effect, lighting samples. Some come through their document platform, some by email with a zip file, some are resubmissions of items you commented on last month. Each needs a review, a status such as A, B or C, and comments, inside the review period in the contract.
Your engineers are also still answering design queries. The submittals sit in inboxes. When the contractor says a review is overdue, you are not sure they are wrong.
Why the review queue gets out of hand
- Submittals arrive through several routes with no single list.
- Review periods are set out in the contract and not tracked per item.
- Resubmissions are hard to compare with the previous version and your earlier comments.
- Comment sheets are typed from scratch in Word for each item.
- Nobody balances the workload between reviewing engineers.
Review periods add pressure. The contract gives you a set time to respond, and the clock starts when the submittal arrives, not when an engineer notices it. A zip file that sits unopened over a busy week can use up most of that period before anyone has looked at a data sheet.
What an unmanaged queue costs
| Gap | Consequence |
|---|---|
| Review missed or late | Contractor may claim delay or proceed without comment |
| Earlier comments not checked on resubmission | Issues slip through |
| Inconsistent status coding | Confusion about what can be ordered or installed |
| No record of review history | Weak position if questions arise later |
What your practice said about a submittal, and when, can matter a great deal later. A tidy record is worth having even when everything goes well.
How we build a submittal log
- Submittals from the contractor's platform, a project mailbox and direct emails are captured into one log, with date received and documents attached.
- Each item gets a reference, a discipline, a reviewer and a due date calculated from the contract review period.
- Resubmissions are linked to the original, and your previous comments are shown next to the new documents.
- The reviewer records a status and comments in a simple screen, choosing from your status definitions.
- A comment sheet in your format is generated and returned through the right channel.
- A dashboard shows each reviewer's queue, items due this week and anything overdue.
- The full history of each submittal is kept for later reference.
A language model can list what a submittal contains and highlight differences from the previous version for the reviewer. The technical review and the status are the engineer's decision.
We usually load the submittal register the contractor already maintains, where there is one, so your log starts in step with theirs. Your status definitions, comment sheet template and contract review periods are set once per project, and the log applies them to every item.
How reviews run afterwards
Engineers see their queue with due dates and work through it. When a resubmission comes in, the earlier comments are right there, so checking they were addressed takes minutes.
The project lead can rebalance the load when one engineer has too many items due at once.
Could this be your project?
- Contractors chase you for overdue submittal reviews.
- Submittals arrive through several routes.
- Comment sheets are typed from scratch.
- Checking a resubmission means finding the earlier comments.
- You could not list all open submittals right now.