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Advertising supplement provided by The Council of American Structural Engineers, in conjunction with The American Institute of Steel Construction, Inc.

The CASE committee’s vision was that with time organizations representing other design professionals would adopt a similar methodology and/or guidelines. However, in the meantime the principles and concepts within the CASE 962D document can be applied to each discipline in their development of a quality management plan.

Specifically, the project architect can aid the process of developing well coordinated and complete construction documents in the following ways.

First, the architect should establish a firm specific quality management plan, modified to suit the specific project and encourage the design team to do likewise.

Second, the project architect should select design team members, including the Structural Engineer of Record (SER), who will perform their services within the scope of a quality management plan. In the case of the SER, the project specific quality management plan should reflect the CASE 962D guidelines. Also, the project architect should recognize that additional fees may be justifiable for the SER and other consultants due to the higher level of effort in coordinating and preparing complete structural construction plans.

Third, in the initial meetings with the project owner or developer, a clear presentation must be made emphasizing the benefits that will accrue to the project when special effort is made to develop well coordinated and complete construction documents. These benefits include more accurate bids, fewer project delays and a reduced number of requests for extras. Care must be taken by the project architect to distinguish between the assumption by the owner/developer that well coordinated and complete documents are typical on every project, while the current reality is that on most projects an adequate budget is not available to promote good team communication and an effective quality assurance plan for document preparation.