Written by Sam Justice, P.E.

Building roads, housing, and other critical infrastructure is a great responsibility taken on by engineers, architects and project owners. Ensuring that these structures are safe and reliable for years and decades is of the utmost importance at all stages of design and construction.

The Challenge of Maintaining Quality in Construction

The design team creates building plans and the associated specification that capture the essence of their vision as they work to write the guiding documents for their project. They make decisions about product types, grades, and take great pains to build into their documents citations of certifications and standards to assure only quality materials are allowed on the site.

However, product competition and budget demands are a concern seen in many projects that can challenge the specifications intended to produce the best possible structure. Substandard “or equal” substitutions can be encountered in the critical moments between design, bid awards, and construction. It is up to the specifying engineers and architects to hold their spec in all phases of the process to ensure the right materials and installation procedures are used.

The Bidding Process and Material Selection

Contractors often produce bids with the materials indicated by the project engineers, but with a critical eye on material and labor costs. Soon after the bid opening or notice of award, bid shopping for “or equal” materials is expected. Bid shopping on publicly-funded projects is disallowed by legislation in some localities, but even when formally disallowed, informally it occurs widely.

The Risks of Specification-Slide

It is common for professional engineers and architects to accept substitutions requested by contractors without full due diligence because of pressures from time constraints, cost overruns, and pressure from contractors to avoid unfamiliar products. This “specification-slide” is not intentional by the design team, but is often an explicit feature of knock-off providers who join the game with inferior products that do not exactly meet the specification, but are promoted as equals. Without intimate knowledge of a product that may be new to a professional, they may not know the factors that make difference between a genuine product and an inferior material specification.

The Importance of Accurate Material Specifications in Complex Projects

Close enough may be acceptable for some sites, but when you consider complex and critical civil works projects, the differences in design strength and performance could be the difference between success and failure. There may also be components of the complete “system” solution (e.g. connectors, load transfer devices or customized accessories) that contribute significantly to the design strength and speed of installation that all providers cannot provide. These copycat providers simply jury rig together their version or ignore appurtenances altogether yet still offer the cobbled together system as an equal.

Addressing Failures and Upholding Standards

When the “or equal” product fails during installation, or worse, during service, results can range from minor to catastrophic. Perhaps the fix is as simple as requiring the contractor to stay onsite longer to install the genuine specified material, or perhaps the consequence is as bad as roadway failing while being driven on or erosion impacting infrastructure downslope, with loss of service, repair or replacement of roads, rails, or building, or potentially direct impact to people. Contractors lose money and time, engineers or architects lose reputation, and project owners have the consequences of those failure on hand.

Pay attention to the materials and products specified, and ensure that they meet the necessary standards, with no concerning disclaimers or fine print. Deliver certainty and build with materials that can be trusted. Hold the specification to the right materials, through all stages, every time.