Requests for information and submittals are the paperwork of construction. An RFI asks the design team a question the drawings don't answer. A submittal, such as a shop drawing, product data sheet or sample, shows the design team what the contractor intends to build or buy. Neither looks like a big deal on its own. Together, on a mid-size project, they can run into the hundreds or thousands, and every one that sits unanswered is a small delay waiting to happen.
Owners rarely manage RFIs and submittals directly. But the owner pays for the consequences when they go wrong, because a late answer from the owner's design team is usually the owner's delay. This guide covers what to monitor, which metrics matter and how to spot trouble early.
Why owners should care
The design consultants are the owner's consultants. When they take too long to answer an RFI or review a shop drawing, the contractor has a claim against the owner, not against the architect. Kevin O'Beirne, writing for the Construction Specifications Institute in 2022, makes the point directly: delays caused by the owner's consultants are generally within the owner's control, so the contractor may be entitled to more time and money, especially for critical path work.
The volume is real. A Navigant Construction Forum study of 1,362 projects, as cited by Autodesk, found an average of 9.9 RFIs for every $1 million of construction, with a median reply time of 9.7 days. The same study put the average project cost dedicated to RFIs, counting review and response hours, at $859,680. That's U.S. data across a range of project types, so treat it as a benchmark rather than a target, but the order of magnitude is worth knowing. On an illustrative $25 million project, 9.9 per million works out to about 250 RFIs.
RFIs: what to watch
A healthy RFI process answers questions quickly, completely and in the right order. The owner doesn't need to read every RFI. The owner needs a monthly summary that answers five questions.
- How many are open? The total matters less than the trend. A rising open count means questions are arriving faster than they're being answered.
- How old are they? Show the open RFIs in ageing bands, such as under a week, one to two weeks, two to four weeks and over four weeks. The oldest band is where claims come from.
- How fast are they answered? Track average and median turnaround against the period in the contract or the agreed protocol.
- Which ones affect the schedule? Every RFI should be flagged if it holds up work on the critical path or a near-critical path. Those get answered first.
- How many become changes? RFIs that lead to a change order or change directive are a measure of design quality and a leading indicator for cost.
View the data
| Age band | Open RFIs |
|---|---|
| Under 1 week | 22 |
| 1 to 2 weeks | 14 |
| 2 to 4 weeks | 9 |
| Over 4 weeks | 5 |
Look at where RFIs cluster. A run of questions about one drawing area, one system or one trade usually means a coordination gap in the design. It's cheaper to fix that gap with one design clarification than to answer forty separate questions about it.
Watch the quality of the questions too. Autodesk's guide lists good practice for RFIs: one clear problem per RFI, a proposed solution where possible, and a full answer to every part. Contractors sometimes use RFIs to build a record for later claims, asking questions the documents already answer. A high rate of RFIs closed with "refer to drawing" is worth raising with the contractor.
Submittals: what to watch
Submittals are different because they control procurement. Equipment can't be ordered until its shop drawings are reviewed, and long-lead equipment is often on the critical path. A switchgear submittal returned three weeks late can delay energization by three weeks or more.
The key tool is the submittal schedule. O'Beirne describes it as listing every required submittal, when it will be delivered, and how long the design professional has to review it, coordinated with the progress schedule and updated as the job goes. Without one, nobody can tell whether a submittal is late until the material is.
The submittal metrics an owner should see each month:
- Submittals received against the submittal schedule. Is the contractor submitting on time?
- Review turnaround against the specified period. Is the design team returning them on time? O'Beirne reports seeing design teams average 42 days or more, and says averages near 28 days are common. Either is long enough to invite claims.
- Resubmittal rate. The share of submittals returned for revision. A high rate means either poor contractor submittals or unclear specifications. Both cost time.
- Long-lead and critical items. A short list of the submittals that gate the critical path, with status and required-on-site dates.
View the data
| Step | Weeks |
|---|---|
| Prepare submittal | 0–3 |
| Consultant review | 3–5 |
| Revise and resubmit | 5–7 |
| Second review | 7–9 |
| Fabricate and deliver | 9–19 |
| Install | 19–21 |
The resubmittal loop is the hidden schedule risk. Each round adds a review period plus the contractor's revision time. A submittal planned for one review that takes three can lose six weeks before a single item is ordered. Build at least one resubmittal into the plan for complex packages, and make sure the review periods in the specification are realistic for the design team's capacity.
Responsibility is shared, and the log proves who did what
It isn't only the design team that causes delay. Contractors submit late, submit incomplete packages, or bundle hundreds of submittals at once and then claim the review period was too short. O'Beirne notes that standard U.S. contract forms put obligations on the contractor to provide and follow a submittal schedule, with consequences when it doesn't. Ontario forms and specifications vary, so check what yours say.
That's why the logs matter. A good RFI and submittal log records the date received, the date returned, the reviewer, the action taken and the revision number. O'Beirne points out that logs usually capture receipt and return dates, so compliance can be shown. When a delay claim arrives, that log is the evidence. On programs we've supported, the owners who defended delay claims well were the ones whose logs were complete and whose monthly reports had flagged late reviews at the time, not reconstructed them later.
Setting turnaround periods that work
A single review period for everything rarely fits. O'Beirne notes that a short, simple submittal might take two or three days, while a large multi-discipline package needs far longer, and that a fixed period tends to become the default for every item. His sample specification asks for at least 14 days for engineer review, with more time for large or complex submittals.
A more useful approach for owners is to agree tiers at the start of the job:
- Urgent RFIs that stop work on site, answered in a day or two, with a phone call first and the paperwork after.
- Standard RFIs and simple submittals, with a short fixed period.
- Complex or multi-discipline submittals, with a longer period agreed item by item in the submittal schedule.
Then check the design team can staff it. A consultant who signed up to 10-day reviews but has one mechanical engineer on the job will miss them in the busiest months. It's better to find that out in the kickoff meeting than in a claim. Ask the contractor not to batch submittals, too. Fifty packages delivered on one Friday will blow through any review period, and the log should show who caused that.
Practical consequences for owners
- Late RFI answers are owner delay. If the design team is slow, the extension of time and the cost usually land on the owner, who may or may not be able to recover them from the consultant.
- Slow submittals push procurement. Equipment lead times start only after review. A late review on a long-lead item can be worse than a late RFI.
- RFIs predict changes. A rising number of RFIs answered with design changes is an early warning on cost. Feed it into the forecast. Our guide to managing change orders covers the next step.
- Owner decisions are part of the queue. Some RFIs need an owner decision on finishes, layout or operations. Those need a named owner contact and a turnaround commitment too.
What owners should do
- Set turnaround periods in the contract and the consultant agreements, and make sure they match. A contractor promised 10-day reviews and a consultant who agreed to 21 is a claim waiting to happen.
- Require a submittal schedule at the start of construction, tied to the baseline schedule, with long-lead and critical items flagged.
- Ask for a one-page monthly RFI and submittal summary: open counts, ageing bands, turnaround, resubmittal rate and critical items. Put it in the monthly report.
- Escalate anything in the oldest ageing band at every project meeting, with a named person and a date for each.
- Keep the logs complete and contemporaneous. They're your best evidence if a delay claim arrives.
Go deeper: the RFI workflow and turnaround metrics and submittals and shop drawings.
The bottom line
RFIs and submittals look like administration, but they're where design problems, procurement delays and owner-caused delay claims start. Owners who watch a handful of metrics every month, especially ageing and turnaround, catch problems while they're still small. Owners who don't usually find out from the contractor's claim.
Want a second opinion on your project's RFI and submittal performance? Book a 30-minute call with Benjamin R. Consulting.
Sources: Kevin O'Beirne, Construction Specifications Institute, Shop Drawings and Submittals: Timeliness of Submittal Reviews (2022); Autodesk, Construction RFI: A Comprehensive Guide and Template (citing Navigant Construction Forum). The ageing and submittal examples are illustrative. This article is general information, not legal advice. Get legal advice on your contract and specific circumstances.