It is my understanding that a change is not official until a “contract modification” is written and signed by the owner, design professional and contractor (in traditional AIA A201 terms). That is, a Construction Change Directive or a Change Order is executed.
Under alternative project delivery methods, involving a construction manager, multiple prime contracts, phased construction (“fast track”), etc., the contract modification documents and applicable administrative procedures will vary.
Thus, the “change” documents produced by the design professional and/or others must comply wth the conditions of the contract and Division 01 - General Requirements … assuming those actually address the matter in practical terms.
I have seen the narrative as extra work that does not provide any value. The clouds and deltas associated with the change makes it clear what has changed.
I agree with the idea of issuing revised documents rather than a descriptive narrative that describes detailed physical changes to the document. I supplement the revised documents (i.e., spec Sections with revised date in the header or footer) with a brief summary of the changes (“Article 2.2 has been revised in its entirety to specify a dry seal rather than wet seal system;” “Paragraph 2.3.B has been revised to add ACME Widget Co., Inc. as an acceptable manufacturer;” “New Section 49 90 13 - Miscellaneous Stuff has been added.”)
I have found that this saves time and ensures more accurate specifications when the documents are issued for construction.
I’m with John on procedure. Issuing full revised sections (with margin bars, strike outs, and the like) is the appropriate format – back in the “old days” we didn’t reissue entire sections because we didn’t have any way to show changes in a typed version, not because it was better that way. I remember pages and pages of addenda that carefully outlined which words were deleted and which were added, and then cutting out the little lines and pasting them on the blank sheet adjacent to show the changes. What a pain. Its the typed version of clouding the drawings.
I also like to issue the narrative as John describes – for example, if you’re reissuing a casework section that changes the casework standard to “custom grade” from “premium grade” you have to change it in the specs at least a dozen times. The narrative neatly sums that up and doesn’t give the bidder heartburn.
Construction Managers can be a pain in the ass. They generally aren’t good enough contractors to make a profit; they don’t own buildings like the Owners do (or if they work for the Owner, they are an employee not someone who thinks for themselves); and they don’t work on enough projects to know what they are doing on any of them.
just my opinion…
I aggree with John and Anne.
The detailed narrative format is a carry over from the days when specs where written with a typewriter. Only the changed text was included by section #, article/paragraph #. For the obvious reasons. Pre-bid addendums and post-bid changes were printed on colored stock for easy identification. GC cut the revised text from the narrative and pasted in the record set of the project manual. When computers came into play for me (1985), I stopped this practice and reissued the complete sections. Usually a change repaginated the entire section. The previous version was saved (electronically and hardcopy) for an audit trail.