The supplier has confirmed a twelve-week lead time for the façade glass. The sample board went to the consultant three weeks ago, with the data sheets, the test certificates and the warranty. Since then, nothing. The project engineer has sent two emails and raised it in the weekly meeting. The answer was "it is under review". The order cannot be placed until the submittal comes back approved, and the programme shows the glass going in eleven weeks from now.
Nobody is refusing anything. The submittal is simply stuck, and nobody can say with certainty where.
What the wait costs
A submittal costs nothing while it waits. The cost arrives later, all at once. Long-lead items slip onto the critical path. The trades that follow are re-sequenced, or they wait. The contractor is tempted to order at risk before approval, and if the review then comes back "revise and resubmit", the material is already made.
When the delay is finally argued, the first question is simple: when exactly was it submitted, and when exactly was it returned? A contractor who cannot answer that with dates has a weak position, however long the wait really was.
A façade package with a 12-week lead time is held for 5 weeks waiting for approval, and completion of that zone moves by 35 days. With site overheads of AED 18,000 a day, that is AED 630,000 of time-related cost before any delay damages are discussed. The dates of submission and return decide who carries it.
How it is usually handled
- A submittal log in Excel, kept by one document controller and updated when someone remembers.
- Transmittals sent by email, with the reply buried in someone's inbox.
- Follow-ups by WhatsApp to the consultant's engineer, with no record the project can use later.
- Comments returned on a marked-up PDF, and the resubmission logged as a new item, so the history of the same submittal is split in two.
The log says "under review". It does not say since when, with whom, or when the review was meant to finish.
How Quanto Management handles it
In Quanto, material submittals, shop drawings and method statements sit in the project's registers with their revisions, review codes (A to D), ball in court and due dates. The consultant is invited to the same project and joins free, so the submittal is not "sent and waiting": it is in front of the person who has to act.
- Ball in court shows at a glance who holds each submittal now.
- Due dates show what is late, not only what is open.
- "Waiting on you" lists on each party's home page put the stuck submittal on the reviewer's own screen.
- Reminders arrive two days before a due date and when it is missed, with a morning email summary.
- Revisions keep the history together: a returned submittal comes back as its next revision, not as a new item.
Because every action is recorded in the project log, the dates of submission, review and return are there when the delay is argued, without anyone rebuilding them from emails.
A short checklist
- List every long-lead material and the latest date its approval is needed to hold the programme.
- Submit long-lead items first, not in the order the documents happen to be ready.
- Agree the review period with the consultant at the start, and show the due date on each transmittal.
- Review open submittals every week by who holds them, not by status alone.
- When a submittal passes its due date, write formally the same week instead of chasing by message.
- Keep each resubmission under the same number, with a new revision.
Tomorrow: a delay not linked to its cause.
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