Q: How does a project get delayed by 1 year?

A: By one day at a time.

What is the bane of the industry?

• Consultants not providing good drawings, incomplete drawings.
• Consultants not providing timely answers.
• Consultants holding other people hostage, and being effectively immune.

What’s happening now?

Consultants provide bad drawings:

• things don’t work. there is poor coordination.

…but who cares? That’s someone else’s problem.

These issues are uncovered and effectively solved through the shop-detailing process. Effectively, the consultants are outsourcing their work to others who:

• aren’t getting paid:
• and who are the least able to efficiently solve problems

For example, issues are raised, and because we need that all important STAMP OF APPROVAL - we have to genuflect with cap in hand and beg for the consultants to answer quickly, to approve our suggestions. Sometimes these consultants may propose a different solution (perhaps to protect their interests), and this prompts further problems and corrections: and round and round we go: till the delays spiral out of control. From the tax payer’s point of view, or perhaps the final stake holder’s POV: I really question whether all these bells and whistles are worth it? A plainer design may do the job, while still being aesthetically pleasing - but some of these consultants think they are Gaudí It is quickly forgotten that Guadi’s buildings have taken 100 years to construct….and worst of all, these guys aren’t carrying that can. Who is? The fabricators.

Delays cause more delays

The structural steel ties into many other elements, which may be delayed by the structural steel. e.g. why is the electrical delayed? “It’s because of the steel - he’s the one delaying, your Honour”. But what is causing the delay in the structural steel? That is hard to say right now.

Summary: The consultants delay projects by bad designs, and they further delay projects because it takes forever for them to move - yet it is the fabricator who is left carrying the can!

Not anymore: shed some light on the problem by issuing a notice of delay. Now there is a name, and a time log against anyone who holds up a project, and this time - there is nowhere to hide. After your issue a delay notice - hit them with an invoice - a nominal one:

I think now, armed with a log book of delay points + the documentation to back them up, and invoices to convey that you mean business, you’ll find that: the delays will magically disappear, and that drawings will magically be of better quality.