The Challenge — and Root Causes — of Rework

Everything seemed to be going according to schedule on a job site for a large multifamily housing project that included hundreds of units across multiple buildings. A manual inspection, however, uncovered that pipe sleeves throughout the project were off—enough to put compliance with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) codes at risk. What would have been a relatively simple fix if it had been uncovered earlier became a significant amount of rework because the cabinetry and plumbing already in place. This sent project costs through the roof and triggering a cascade of delays that pushed the project far behind schedule.

This type of scenario isn’t rare. Rework accounts for a significant portion of the total cost and time of commercial construction. With $273 billion worth of construction errors made each year, rework is more than merely tolerated in commercial real estate construction—it’s expected and built-in up front to project budgets and timelines.

With tens of thousands of elements being installed across a project and multiple trades working simultaneously, understanding—and solving—the root causes of rework can be a game-changer for general contractors and developers alike.

Common Causes of Rework

The most common causes of rework on large commercial construction projects fall into a few main categories:

• The drawings aren’t up to date: Design is always evolving. Sometimes, installers are working off of old shop drawings. In other cases, sub-trades are working off their own drawings, rather than design plans issued by an engineer or architect, and errors can happen between design intent and the layout document.
• The Installer makes a mistake: Even when drawings are up to date and accurately reflect the design intent, errors can occur during installation—people, after all, aren’t infallible.
• Manual Quality Control (QC): QC methods rarely provide 100% verification and spot checking is common. Without digital construction verification, it can be hard to do a complete verification at speed so projects stay on schedule.?
• There’s a Lack of Coordination between Trades: One study found a lack of working procedures and clear lines of communication to be a “key predictor” of rework. Another estimates that poor project information and poor communication among stakeholders are to blame for nearly half of all rework.
• Installation Layout Equipment is Calibrated Incorrectly. For example, a mistake in the mix for concrete panels for a nearly $6 billion metro line project resulted in federal and state lawsuits against a manufacturer after inspectors discovered that the manufacturer had not properly calibrated new equipment—a misstep that was likely to cause of the error, they found.??

The industry can potentially do a lot of great things with technology to coordinate and do clash detection, such as with Building Information Modeling (BIM) software. But whether design plans are produced in CAD or BIM, the key challenge remains: How do builders ensure that fieldwork is completed according to plan?? In other words, how can you connect digital plans directly to the built world??

A new toolset available today goes beyond providing digital pictures to provide automatically generated element-level insights into the conformance of fieldwork to plans as work is in progress. With Digital Construction Verification (DCV), you can stop managing errors and start preventing them by catching errors in the moment:

• During pre-pour: Verify all structural elements and MEPF.??
• During installation: Verify all fa?ade layers and workmanship.
• During layout: Verify all interior clearances, layouts and rough-ins.

Learn more about how SiteAware minimizes risk exposure and increases productivity with Digital Construction Verification (DCV) on your project.

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