ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses contractor involvement with reviewing design documents, during both pre-construction and construction. During the pre-construction phase of a construction project, design review involves value engineering studies and contractor and consultant proposals. On construction management at risk (CMR) projects, owners will engage a general contractor early in the design process for a fee to assist the designer and owner with the quality of their design. Formal value engineering (VE) is a methodical process to evaluate a project's design in order to obtain the best value for the cost of construction. Contractors prepare design submittals to reflect their interpretation of the designer's intent and send those submittals to the designer for confirmation and, hopefully, approval. One of the major types of submittals originated by the construction team is shop drawings. A project engineer may become involved during pre-construction by soliciting and expediting subcontractor value engineering proposals and tracking them on the VE log.
