The Value of High-Quality Electrical As-Built Documents

Roles and responsibilities

Roles and responsibilities vary from company to company, depending on talent and proficiency of the professionals involved, but the objectives should stay the same — regardless of specific application. Contributing parties can be broken down into three groups: engineering, design, and construction.

Engineering and design usually occur within the same company to streamline the efforts between these two groups; thus, this article will refer to engineering and design groups as engineering/design. For continuity, we’ll describe individual functions of each group, but focus primarily on the relationship between construction and the engineering/design groups.

Engineering — Engineers are responsible for producing a specification, which comprises calculations, drawings, and additional documentation that, if followed within tolerances, will define the boundary conditions necessary for the electrical systems to operate as expected.  Engineering should specify the equipment, configuration, separation requirements, and cables necessary to work correctly as required by applicable codes and standards. Engineering also provides legal binding oversight to the design and construction process. Its overall objective is to provide witness and bear responsibility that the project has been evaluated to a certain set of codes, calculations, and standards that will be the basis for safe operation of the facility within a certain life expectancy.

Design — Designers have the responsibility to detail the physical attributes of the electrical distribution system. Working within the engineering requirements for the project, the design team details how the engineering specification may be successfully applied to the specific project site. This includes determining equipment mounting, raceways locations, routing characteristics, and other details that are used to physically build the electrical system as engineered. The design team produces drawings, details, and other documents to identify the physical conditions that will comply with the engineering specification for the project application. This includes evaluating conditions like hazardous location compliance, ambient temperatures, and cable pull methods.

The design team also must verify the correct application of construction is used for each of the specific field conditions of the facility. Typically, the design team bears the responsibility of physically changing the approved for construction (AFC) documents to the agreed upon as-built condition during the final phase of the project.

Construction — Construction personnel are tasked with following the design within tolerances and verifying the field condition is within the boundary conditions of the design basis of the project. Construction groups must safely install the individual electrical system components using the AFC documents as a guide. If it isn’t possible to implement a particular electrical system as detailed in the engineering/design documents, then the construction group is expected to communicate this to the engineering/design group as soon as possible.

If a deviation from the original approach is approved  — and if an official engineering change document isn’t produced — then the construction group must provide as-built drawings that reflect the actual field condition of the installation. The construction group also should mark up engineering/design documentation to reflect the actual field condition, whenever possible.

Documents

The intent of specific documents should be to show how to construct something and eventually illustrate how it was actually constructed. As a project progresses, it’s important to recognize what state a document is in relative to a particular point in time within the project. Verifying that a document has been approved or released for construction is a start, but it’s important to verify that construction personnel are working with the latest revision of the applicable documents in real time.

Here are some standard industry descriptions of document states:

Approved for construction (AFC) — These documents are engineering/design personnel’s best attempt to provide the information necessary to accomplish a project before the construction and procurement processes begin. The objective of AFC documents is to provide construction and procurement groups with the details necessary to build a facility that would be within the engineering/design basis if followed.

Basically, if the end condition of the installation is within this engineering/design basis, then the facility would be approved and guaranteed by the engineering/design teams to satisfy all the applicable codes and standards within the client’s contractual requirements.

When the AFC drawings are officially released, this means the engineering/design team has approved that construction and work may begin on the project. Procurement and construction will work to build the facility to these documents. As construction implements these AFC drawings, there likely will be the need for interpretation of the intent of the AFC documents and potential deviations from the AFC documents.

This is when communication between project engineering/design teams and construction becomes vital. It’s critical for the field teams to verify that construction is within the boundary conditions of the engineering/design basis. If not, it’s important to reach a solution that is constructible yet also has an engineering/design basis that meets the applicable codes and standards requirements. If this communication is done well, then the final installation will be constructed within the approved engineering/design basis.

Communicating with the engineering/design teams at this time in the workflow accomplishes a few value ends. First, the engineering/design teams have the opportunity to produce a constructible engineered design or clarify the AFC approach. Second, communication could eliminate re-construction and unnecessary demolition. Lastly, working together in this capacity reduces the risk associated with working outside the engineering/design basis for the project.

AFC documents typically are identified by an AFC stamp in some form located on the document. These documents may be revised to facilitate an engineering change. The expectation is that official engineering changes are documented via tracked and trended revisions to the original AFC document.

As-built — If AFC documents are used to start a project, then as-built documents are used to finish it. The objective of as-built drawings is to provide an accurate representation of the field condition while documenting that the field condition is within the boundary conditions of the engineering/design basis for the facility. These drawings should be an all-inclusive, single-source resource that communicates the specification of the engineering/design basis while conveying the specific physical existence of these engineered systems within the specific facility.

In some cases and even historically, all information was included on hand-drafted drawings. Today, it’s common to have a combination of American National Standards Institute (ANSI) A (8½-inch × 11-inch) letter formatted documents that accompany larger ANSI B- to E-sized documents. Regardless of size, each document should provide an accurate representation of the actual field condition of the facility. This holds true for all aspects of the electrical system installation, including electrical schematics, one-lines, raceways, and specification documents.  Again, it’s the responsibility of construction teams to review AFC documents and create as-built documents that identify specific project deviations.

To verify the accuracy of the final documents, as-built documents should be made for each document within the AFC document package where there is a perceived change. The most solid approach to completing this requirement is to address any changes or deviations from the AFC documents immediately.

Hurdles to overcome

To incorporate accurate as-built drawings, it’s necessary to navigate common obstacles throughout the construction or modification workflow. This holds true for all discipline drawings, but it’s vital to address issues that would produce inaccurate electrical scope as-built documents.

Some typical issues to address at the beginning of a project include:

Communication: As mentioned previously, one of the main factors that contribute to the difficulty of incorporating quality as-built documents is the level of communication and cooperation required between engineering, design, and implementation personnel. To help mitigate these issues:

• Establish a solid line of communication with the individuals who have authority within the different organizations. Staying on schedule is sometimes difficult, and having an open line of communication with decision makers is paramount for time-sensitive situations.

• Establish a consistent communication language to help eliminate re-work and increase efficiency. For example, institute a consistent color legend for as-built mark-ups. Most engineering firms have a solid culture of ownership of project scope, so consider asking about their existing workflow and, if possible, adopt their nomenclature.

Document representation — Throughout the industry, there are many different but acceptable methods to represent electrical systems on documents. Therefore, interpreting the intent of drawings based on representation can be  extremely difficult, depending on an individual’s level of experience with that particular method of representation. This is a minor issue but still should be acknowledged from the beginning of the project. A simple request for additional documentation associated with the engineering/design team’s representation methods will most likely clear up the communication gaps.

Liabilities

In today’s world, contractors are responsible for more than just the brick and mortar portions of a project. Keep in mind these risks associated with building outside of the design basis that potentially occur when mishandling as-built responsibilities:

Risk of system or component failure. There are many cases in which deviating from a design basis can lead to component or system failure. Consequences of deviating from a design basis range from reduction in system efficiency to the worst case scenarios that produce catastrophic impacts, such as loss of life or destruction. Seemingly minor deviations from the engineering/design basis of a system could lead to significant impacts.

Risk of loss due to reconstruction. Almost all professionals involved with electrical installations are affected when reconstruction is necessary. Eventually, root cause analysis may identify a single situation or party at fault, but for installations that need to be reconstructed, a large circle of professionals is impacted by this process. Even if you don’t share in the liability of the failure, there is the undesirable process of re-scoping, re-evaluating, demolition, and re-installation. Clients don’t want to pay twice for an installation due to errors or lack of communication. Also, if rework is needed, the client will likely see schedule impacts.

Risk of future loss of earnings. No one likes to lose money. No matter how competitive your business model, if you experience losses associated with reconstruction, this will probably hit you hard. But there’s another downside to reconstruction that is potentially even more detrimental: losses due to a damaged reputation.

Impacting a client’s profitability, workflow, and/or scheduling via an inability to mitigate working outside of the design basis won’t earn you the credibility needed to win and maintain accounts.

Conclusion

The best-case scenario is to be able to successfully complete a project and deliver high-quality as-built documents to the client. Some suggestions to facilitate this are to recognize and respond to these important project events:

As-built funding — During the project proposal stage, verify there will be adequate funding for as-built incorporation. If at all possible, everyone involved should communicate the value of high-quality as-built documents from an engineering/design perspective. Typically, this budget will depend on the client’s perceived value of or need for as-built documents. Although providing high-quality deliverables to the client is the goal, don’t forget that companies are in business to make money. If engineering, design, and construction teams aren’t being paid to document the as-built condition, then it probably will not be done or not done well.

Finishing strong — There is a common sentiment that a project is completed successfully if the construction was done safely, well, on time, and under budget. Although there are elements of truth to this philosophy, it’s only part of the picture. In most cases, the project isn’t done until the documentation process is completed. Correctly incorporating as-built documents takes due diligence from focused professionals within multiple teams. Remember that one of the most productive functions of incorporating as-built documents is to provide documentation that a professional consensus of the project has been reached, thus validating the success of the project from a legal, code, standards, and technical perspective.                                             

Dawes is a licensed master electrician and electrical inspector working in electrical engineering within Black & Veatch’s energy division in Ann Arbor, Mich. He can be reached at [email protected].