Design and Engineering

Why Shop Drawings Should Not be the First Deliverable You Ask For

The importance of Profile Drawings in communications and coordination

The first question that we typically get on a new project at Bellwether, is “When will we see shop drawings?”. It’s not surprising to hear, since shops are typically the first submission on standard, off-the-shelf systems.

But shop drawings are ultimately an interpretation of how a glazing system supplier will use their system to address the perceived architectural intent. Sometimes they are a good fit with design intent, such as how a typical double hung window will fit within a standard rough opening. When it comes to developing custom, project-specific glazing systems, however, a conversation and working dialog has to be created to match the intent while presenting alternatives for various project-specific conditions. In other words, while you may have to modify your project conditions to meet the set criteria of a standard glazing system (e.g. choose rough opening sizes from the supplier’s offering), with custom design you can modify the glazing system to meet your needs exactly.

This is where the Profile Set of drawings makes sense as the first submission. As compared to shop drawings, Profiles are a scaled down set of drawings identifying key details, system sizes, shapes, anchor conditions, intersections with surrounding materials, etc. Basically, it is a conversation starter that presents our interpretation of what the architect wants, and how we would solve the project-specific challenges.

What is important to note is that the Profile set is a conversation starter. It is not meant to be as locked-down as a set of shop drawings. It is meant to lead to better shop drawings by answering some of the most common questions up front and presenting trade-offs to consider. And, this all happens while there is time to experiment with materials, structural strategies, and their budget impacts.

Profile drawings make for more accurate and efficient shop drawings, and a streamlined approval process, by:

  • Getting everyone on the design, manufacturing, and installation teams in on the conversation up front. Here, we identify the impacts of the design before they are written in stone.
  • Flushing out the design intent to insure that everyone is truly talking the same language.
  • Identifying any discrepancies between architectural drawings, specification notes, and bid scopes of surrounding trades.
  • Getting everyone working as part of the same team. This is the most important component, since multiple sets of shop drawing delivered by multiple suppliers, may each be designed in a vacuum. This approach typically requires significant coordination after the fact, when the clock is ticking loudly. Profile drawings smooth the flow through early coordination and communication among team members.

There is typically a good deal of time and effort invested by the time a full set of shop drawings is delivered. If there are critical differences of opinion identified at the shop drawing stage, there can be significantly more time lost in going back to the drawing board to coordinate after the fact.

When the process is started with a set of Profile drawings, the architectural intent is clearly identified by the whole construction team before anyone has taken too much time moving in the wrong direction. In our experience, this process is guaranteed to result in a streamlined set of shops that has a much greater chance of success during the approval process.