shop drawing review protocol

huangyhg

shop drawing review protocol
i've been tasked to re-vamp our company's shop drawing quality assurance plan, and i feel the need to pick everyone's brain on a few gray areas.  any comments you wish to share will be appreciated.
1)  do any of you require a schedule of submittals be submitted for approval prior to reviewing any shop drawings?  if so, what is the basis of rejection for the schedule?
2) is it acceptable to stamp only the first sheet in a set of shop drawings, or are any of you stamping every sheet like we currently are?
3) for specialty-engineered items such as wood trusses, metal stairs and pre-engineered metal buildings where the submittal bears another engineer's seal, are you processing these items any differently (i.e., stamping them "reviewed" instead of approved, or not stamping them at all)?
4) is it reasonable to reject the following submittal as non-conforming?:  the contractor has stamped the submittal, but their company stamp says "reviewed" instead of "approved".  
5) is it reasonable to reject the following submittal as deficient?:  steel shop drawings with multiple clouds from the fabricator requesting dimensions to existing construction that the contractor has not yet verified prior to forwarding the submittal to you.  similarly, clouds requesting dimensions of mechanical openings which the contractor has not yet coordinated with his equipment supplier.
6) are there any typical structural submittals that you specify as "informational" submittals instead of the typical "action" submittals?  (i might guess that concrete formwork shop drawings would be one such item...)
7) what is the "going rate" for selling cad files intended for the production of shop drawings?
8) after how many "revise and re-submits" do you start charging for additional services for reviewing the same incorrect submittal?  (i'm thinking two...)
thank you very much for your time.
fogeyville

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1) yes it is required, rejected if incomplete
2) stamp the first sheet
3) no submittals are stamped with the word "approved" - our attorneys frown on this word...
4) probably not reasonable
5) yes
8) you should be doing this t&m and charging for all time...
cvg:
thank you for your responses.
i appreciate what you are saying about the word "approved", and it is an on-going dilemna here.
we are not currently using the word "approved", but from what i've been reading from some of the major professional liability insurance carriers' risk management literature, any words other than "rejected" or "revise and resubmit" are considered to mean "approved" in the eyes of the court, especially if your review duties are defined in your contract.
also, most of the time, our contracts with our clients are based on aia c-141, which does require us to "review and approve" submittals.  
for these reasons, we are considering using "approved", but the debate rages on...
1) no on small jobs, yes on large and/or complicated jobs. reject schedule if incomplete or unrealistic but before you do this call contractor to discuss why it will be rejected.
2)yes, but write on the first sheet which sheets this review covers. for example: sheets e1-e7, e9, 100-180, 191, 193
3)reviewed. i suggest that you discuss exact wording with your insurance carrier.
4) no
5) not approved, resubmit with requested dimensions.
6) contractor procedures, means and methods, etc.
7) owner may not like this. this is more an issue of liability than making money.
8)charge after two reviews. put these provisions in spec so the contractor cannot plead ignorance.

1) yes for larger projects
2) for large number of drawings, stamp the first sheet and reference the applicable sheets
3) we never approve anything...
4) general notes have specific requirements for review and i'll post these in a later message.
5) yes, we require that the contractor reviews the shop drawing prior to submission.  if we note several errors that the contractor hasn't caught, then we reject it with a terse comment that the contractor is required to review first.  we often encounter shop drawings that the contractor hasn't likely looked at prior to submission.
6) returned, not reviewed.
7) we don't normally charge for the drawings and provide them without titleblock and as 'paper' only.
8)two sounds reasonable, and i'm not aware that we have charged additional for extra review.  we have a similar issue with review of construction.
dik
for many years we were all caught up in the "approved" vs. "reviewed" vs. "no exception taken" semantics.
some attorneys stated to us what fogeyville suggested - the wording doesn't matter.  just as we are held to a standard of care (i.e. what another reasonable engineer would have done in our situation) - so also with shop drawing reviews - the standardfff"> is that you review them, check them for general conformance with your plans and details, and send them back with comments or no comments.  
the stamp and language doesn't matter all that much unless you are rejecting them or asking for a revised submittal.

apparently, according to our risk management attorneys and insurance carriers the wording does matter.
i suggest to ask those lawyers to provide real court cases involving the word "approved", the winning cases as well as the losing cases. study them, and make your own decision. i remember our stamp have waiver terms, though i don't re  
who would you charge for the excessive resubmittals?  the contractor?  i guess it is his fault that his sub is incompetent.

i wonder what the stamp said on the hyatt walkway drawings??
stamp all sheets, review the design intent and make sure your stamp has a disclaimer on it.