The submittal process is one of the most schedule-sensitive administrative functions in a construction project, and it is consistently underestimated by owners, developers, and even some construction managers who have not experienced what a clogged submittal pipeline actually does to a construction schedule.
A submittal is a document, sample, or product data sheet that the contractor submits to the design team for review and approval before that material or product can be incorporated into the work. Structural steel shop drawings, window and curtain wall submittals, mechanical equipment cut sheets, finish material samples, pre-construction concrete mix designs, each must be reviewed, commented on if necessary, resubmitted if required, and approved before the related scope of work can proceed. On a large multifamily or commercial project, there may be hundreds of individual submittals in the log, each with its own review cycle.
Why Submittals Drive Schedule
The connection between submittals and schedule is direct and mechanistic. Work cannot proceed until the submittal for that work is approved. If the structural steel shop drawings are not approved before the steel fabricator begins fabrication, the owner either allows fabrication to proceed at risk, accepting potential changes if the drawings require revision, or waits for approval before authorizing fabrication to start. If they wait, the steel delivery date is pushed back by the length of the review delay, and the structural frame erection date moves with it.
This cascade effect is what makes submittal management a genuine schedule management function rather than an administrative one. The construction manager who tracks the submittal log against the construction schedule, who knows which submittals are on the critical path and which have float, can prioritize review urgency and flag delays before they become schedule impacts.
Long-lead equipment submittals are the most consequential. Elevators, switchgear, custom curtain wall systems, and specialty mechanical equipment all have extended fabrication and delivery lead times, sometimes 16 to 26 weeks from submittal approval to delivery. A project that does not submit elevator shop drawings until month four of a 20-month construction schedule, assuming a 4-week review cycle and 20-week fabrication time, will not receive elevator equipment until month 28, eight months after construction was supposed to end. This is not a hypothetical; it is the pattern that produces elevator-related certificate of occupancy delays on projects where submittal management was not treated as a schedule-critical function.
What a Construction Manager Must Track
The submittal log is the master tracking document, a record of every required submittal, its contractual submission due date, the date it was actually submitted, the design team’s review status, any comments requiring resubmission, and the approval date. On a well-managed project, the submittal log is updated in real time and reviewed at every project meeting.
The construction manager’s specific responsibilities in submittal management: identifying all required submittals from the contract documents before construction begins and creating the initial submittal log; incorporating submittal durations into the project schedule so that the schedule reflects the actual time required for each long-lead item from submittal through delivery; monitoring submission dates against the required dates in the schedule; tracking design team review turnaround against the contractually specified review period; and escalating overdue reviews before they become schedule impacts.
Design teams have a contractually specified period to review submittals, typically 10 to 14 business days for standard submittals and longer for complex shop drawings. When design teams do not respond within their review period, the construction manager must escalate. A submittal that sits in an architect’s review queue for 30 days without a response while the affected scope is on the critical path is a construction management failure, not just an administrative delay.
The Resubmittal Cycle
Many submittals require resubmission after the design team’s initial review. The architect or engineer reviews the submittal, identifies conditions that do not conform to the specifications or design intent, marks their comments on the submittal, and returns it for revision. The contractor revises the submittal based on the comments and resubmits for a second review cycle.
Each resubmittal cycle adds time, another review period, another wait for the design team’s response. A submittal that requires three cycles of submission and review before it is approved may have consumed six to eight weeks of calendar time. When that submittal is for a long-lead item, the total time from initial submission to approved delivery can exceed the original schedule assumption by a wide margin.
The construction manager’s role in managing resubmittal cycles is to ensure that the contractor’s resubmissions address all of the design team’s comments, not just some of them, so that each resubmission cycle moves the submittal toward approval rather than generating additional comments that require another cycle.
Submittals as Quality Control
Beyond their schedule function, submittals serve a quality control purpose. The design team’s review of a concrete mix design confirms that the proposed mix will achieve the specified strength and durability. The review of a window submittal confirms that the proposed product meets the specified performance characteristics. The review of a structural steel shop drawing confirms that the fabricated steel will match the structural engineer’s design intent.
When submittals are bypassed, when materials are ordered and installed without design team review, the quality control mechanism fails. A GC who installs windows that were not approved through the submittal process may be installing a product that does not meet the specified performance requirements, creating a deficiency that is not discovered until commissioning or, worse, until the building is occupied and the windows are leaking.
Construction managers who enforce the submittal requirement, who reject materials installed without approved submittals and require the GC to document approval before proceeding, protect the owner’s quality interests alongside the schedule management function.
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