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The Ontario General Contractors Association (OGCA) and the Ontario Association of Architects have released a joint best practices statement for owners and bidders on submitting questions before tendering bids for construction projects. OGCA president Clive Thurston said it does not seem fair for owners to impose charges or penalties for requests for information or RFIs.
Reducing unnecessary Requests for Information (RFI) and avoiding penalty clauses for them in contracts are the main drivers for a new best practices statement issued by Ontario architect and general contractor associations.
“We hope this will help reduce the friction that has been occurring, which frustrates owners and everyone in the industry,” said Clive Thurston, president, Ontario General Contractors Association (OGCA). “When you start to get 300 to 400 questions and you have six bidders — that can become very overwhelming very quickly.”
The joint best practices statement issued by OGCA and the Ontario Association of Architects provides information relative to best practices in dealing with questions during the bid period and RFIs during construction.
“When drawings and specifications are ready for bids, accurate and complete information is vital to allowing for the submission of complete bids as well as the subsequent construction,” the associations note in their statement.
Questions during the bid and construction periods serve “a major purpose” in addressing missing or incomplete information vital to a successful project and are in everyone’s best interest, add the associations.
“RFIs are a major issue, some of that has to do with quality of drawings and specifications, however, what we are starting to see are clauses that were going to impose charges or penalties on people who do RFIs,” explained Thurston.
“It does not seem fair because during the tender process, you have to ask questions. When you are dealing with drawings and specs that are 70 per cent done, there are going to be a lot of questions.”
Thurston admits that there also is some abuse by those who do not check the drawings and specs properly to find the answers that are readily apparent.
“Our solution is to educate all members and subtrades on the best process to deal with RFIs both at the time of tender and subsequently during the job,” added Thurston. “We set out a series of best practices that everyone should follow and makes clear in their documents, to all parities, how RFIs are to be asked, submitted and what should be done.”
Among the best practice points for RFIs during the bid period:
• Architects should clearly identify to their clients that the quality and completeness of documents is key to avoiding RFIs, change orders, disputes, and to obtaining an accurate bid.
• Bidders should review documents in their entirety to determine areas of concern, and provide the consultants with a comprehensive list of questions instead of submitting large numbers of individual questions;
• Contractors should advise subtrades to follow the same practice by including a statement in request for their bids.
Among the best practice points for RFIs during construction:
• Contractors must avoid submitting RFIs on information readily available within the documents;
• A standard format should be agreed to for submission of RFIs as well as response time;
• General Contractors should reinforce the same practice with the trades by including a statement in purchase orders or subtrades contracts and also review RFIs from the trades before sending them to the consultant;
• During weekly site meetings, RFIs should be reviewed to determine if there is redundancy within them and record receipt of them within the minutes or an RFI log.
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