Page 108 - Civil Engineering Project Management, Fourth Edition

The employer and his engineer
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further drawings the contractor needs are supplied to him in good time. These
may include drawings from plant suppliers of the foundations required for
their plant and so on. If the engineer does not supply such drawings in time,
the construction could be delayed, causing the contractor to claim for delay to
part or whole of the job and any extra cost arising, which will have to be met.
If the design of the works (or part of them) has not been undertaken by the
engineer for the construction but by some other firm, the engineer will have
to ensure they produce any further drawings and information required in good
time. The engineer then has less control over the situation, with a greater chance
of delays and errors arising. Time must be allowed for the engineer’s checking
and possible amendment of designs submitted by others. A prudent engineer
will ensure that all such information is in his hands as soon as the construction
contract has been let.
The engineer may require the contractor to supply drawings and details for
his temporary works, such as formwork, including design calculations for the
same. These must be checked and consented to by the engineer to ensure they
are suitable and not detrimental to the permanent works. Time must be allowed
for this process including time for any possible amendments.
Designs will also have to be checked against safety requirements of the
Construction, Design and Management (CDM) Regulations (see Sections 10.2
and 10.3).
On some large jobs or those overseas, there has been a practice to divorce
construction from design. The employer uses one firm to produce design draw-
ings and specifications, on receipt of which the employer pays the designer off.
The employer then uses the drawings and specifications to get tenders for con-
struction, and engages another firm to supervise the work of the construction
contractor. This approach can be very unsatisfactory because, if constructional
difficulties are encountered or variations prove necessary, the measures taken
may not be in line with design assumptions made by the designer. The firm
supervising construction will have no rights to contact the designer, and the
designer has no obligation to provide any further information.
For some types of structures, such as dams or earthworks, where the safety
and durability of the structure is highly dependent upon the nature of the
foundations and materials used in the construction, a responsible engineer or
firm of consultants would not be prepared to undertake the design without
also having rights to supervise construction.

8.6 Quality assurance considerations

A contractor may run a quality assurance (QA) system and some employers
take this into consideration when making a list of selected contractors for
tendering. QA is an administrative system for checking that the quality of a
firm’s output complies with some set standards (see Reference 1). But this does
not include a definition of the standards. For example a contractor may issue