By Assoc. Prof. Dr. Porn Virulrak, Independent Scholar in Property Technology [email protected]
CEO of Asset Activator
Vice President of the BIM Association of Thailand
Expert in Digital Twin Technology in Thailand

In our previous presentation, we discussed classic lessons from the absence or lack of updates in construction documents and managing the “as-built” once construction is completed. The absence of an As-Built Document or one that does not match reality can lead to significant damage. Surprisingly, we have already "adjusted" and "accepted" these issues.

Why? And how? There are reasons behind this.
First, you need to understand how As-Built Documents are typically created.

Designers, such as architects or engineers, are the ones who create the As-Built Documents known as Construction Documents, which include details, manuals, and specifications.

Typically, contractors take the Construction Documents to carry out the construction but may create their own drawings for specific parts to detail the construction or explain the methods to the working team. These additional documents are called Shop Drawings.

In an ideal working world, or in theory, contractors should compile Shop Drawings or notes that indicate all changes made during construction into the Construction Documents to form As-Built Documents, which should accurately reflect what was actually built, and submit them to the owner.

However, in reality, this may not happen as perfectly as that. Because
(1) Continuous changes during construction occur for various reasons.

In some cases, changes arise from the owner: the owner may have new information due to business factors or a commercial project that just reached an agreement with a significant tenant, thus wanting to modify the project design. Or they may have just consulted a respected expert, which can happen.

In other cases, changes come from the designers: designers are responsible for creating the Construction Documents for contractors to follow, but sometimes they do not work thoroughly and end up passing problems onto the contractors, creating additional issues that contractors must resolve while also managing customer changes.

Any changes in the world of construction design are not like correcting a typo line by line; they often impact other parts simultaneously and affect the interests of other parts of the supply chain, requiring meetings and dispute resolutions as evidence. Keeping track of these issues is a daunting task for contractors and site supervisors.

In summary, the designs change too much to track and become a complete version in time.

(2) The creation of As-Built Documents by some contractors or site supervisors who lack professionalism
Continuing from point 1, combined with the fact that owners or inspectors are more interested in the building than the As-Built Documents, contractors must deliver a building that complies with the construction documents to the owner. Since buildings are like large, complex machines, they require a "manual" or "documents" to accompany them.

Generally, contractors have the knowledge to create quality As-Built Documents, but some may take shortcuts, thinking that the owner is unlikely to check, or that the inspectors lack technical knowledge to read the drawings. Some contractors may view this document as merely something to submit! Ensuring it is complete and usable is not a priority compared to finishing the building on time and with quality.

Moreover, As-Built Documents are not just construction drawings; they also include manuals for building machinery, such as backup generators, elevators, or various IT systems.

Thus, As-Built Documents come from multiple sources and often arrive in pieces. Just tracking these documents to complete and finish the building puts significant pressure on most contractors. When some contractors realize that the owner does not scrutinize the details of the As-Built Documents or that it is not a condition for building acceptance and payment, they can easily neglect to develop quality As-Built Documents.

In summary, by the time the As-Built Documents reach the owner, they may not be of quality to begin with. On the other hand, for Construction Managers or site supervisors, if they are not genuinely overseeing the work and act merely as messengers, it is guaranteed that the documents received will be messy.

(3) Because there is no one to inspect
Documents pile up like a mountain, especially in large buildings, sent to the building owner or project owner, who is mostly not an architect or engineer; the designers have completed their contracts and are no longer present, and the contractors and CM (Construction Manager) have moved on to other jobs, leaving only the owner and building staff waiting to receive the documents.

If the owner has the manpower, they can hire a premium building manager, an experienced engineer who has worked in large Grade A offices, which is somewhat better because these premium building managers often have systems for document inspection and continue to input details from documents into ERP systems or building management software. However, most will not fill in everything; they will only enter details for maintenance tasks, such as elevators, escalators, and machinery, which are the core responsibilities of building staff. Other aspects will not be reviewed.

As for construction drawings or architectural specifications, they are merely stored away.

If they are in PDF or CAD, they are stored on a hard drive, or worse, on a thumb drive (which can get lost), while paper documents are piled up ‘somewhere’.

This is the typical state of As-Built Document inspection as it occurs in reality. In summary, there is often only “acceptance” without “inspection.”

(4) Accessing and opening information for reading and study is very difficult
In the world of building management, one must accept that drawings are only opened when problems arise that need fixing, not opened regularly.

However, if you ask the staff, “If it were easy to access, would you want to open it often?” the answer is “yes.” Sometimes, when pondering important issues in their work, they want to open it to confirm or analyze problems. But when they think about the burden of opening the drawings, which is quite arduous, they tell themselves it’s easier to just go and check or even open the ceiling.

The reason is that accessing drawings, if they are on paper, requires going to the document storage room, carrying A1-sized drawings to spread out on a table, flipping through hundreds of pages to reach the desired layout. Once they find the layout, they must continue to check against cross-sections or specific details. By the time they understand, they’ve flipped through so much that dust has settled on the documents, and they may be torn.

On the other hand, if it’s a PDF, they have to click around, zoom in and out, and the computer screen may be small, or the machine may be slow. If it’s CAD, the heaviest burden is that it requires specific software to open. If it’s not installed on the machine, that’s it. Or if the company has purchased it in bulk and another building staff is using it, you can’t open it. And when you do manage to open it, the file arrangement in AutoCAD is in Model Space (this gets a bit technical), not neatly arranged in Paper Space. You have to play detective to figure out how the drawings are linked.

For most software used to view drawings, the issue is not about cost, as most drawing viewers are free.

The condition of building managers or staff is that they often come in to take on jobs and must accept that this is all they have to work with, and they must move forward within the existing limitations.

(5) The pile of documents keeps growing
As time passes, building staff who struggle to access drawings will start to lose motivation. From the first day when the drawings were somewhat reliable, as the building owner begins to make renovations, additions, changes, and developments without updating the old drawings, they often create new drawings as new projects.

What happens for the building staff is that they receive another stack of drawings or several stacks, but the old drawings remain there, creating a room full of documents that keep increasing, making it increasingly difficult to use. Because those new documents are not consistent, it’s like files that are continuously updated while the old files remain. The staff must rely heavily on their personal skills to interpret which set is updated, which is old, and which remains the same. They must cross-reference and, as time goes by, it becomes increasingly complex. These problems do not even include renovations where no drawings are sent at all.

At some point, the building staff will say enough; I’ll just guess what’s real. The remaining documents will become trash immediately because they are no longer useful.

(6) Drawings are not in a state to be updated
Some may ask, why wait for the drawings to pile up like a mountain? Why not update them to integrate into a single version for practical use, like updating documents to be current and accurate in accounting or Document Control like ISO?

The answer is that updating drawings or As-Built Documents is a task that requires high-level skills and specialized professionals (those who can draft). Most of these people are expensive, and hiring them just to update drawings occasionally is not cost-effective. Moreover, changing drawings involves knowledge from more than one field, including architecture and various systems, requiring more than one person. While building staff, although they are professionals, their expertise lies in repair and maintenance, not drafting or document management.

Another point is that the condition of the documents is not in a state to be modified at all. If they are PDFs or paper documents, that means ‘no modifications can be made at all.’ In the case of Digital Drawings, such as AutoCAD, can they be updated? In theory, if a professional takes on the task, the answer is ‘they should be able to update them.’ But the problem is that the software needed to edit the drawings can be quite costly.

In the world of software for viewing digital drawings, there is a difference between ‘free Viewer software’ and ‘Editor software that can modify drawings.’ The price of editing software is very high, often requiring annual subscriptions costing tens of thousands. When high costs come into play, both the ‘specialized professionals who are tasked with modifying the drawings’ and the ‘tools used for editing,’ it ultimately leads to the decision not to modify but to let it be as it is. Building owners who are willing to purchase software to modify drawings usually do so because drafting is related to rental spaces that need to be delivered to clients for study and improvement. However, the person responsible for carrying on the work ends up being the building staff, who do not have sufficient skills, resulting in some correct and some incorrect outcomes, limited by their capabilities.

(7) Drawings are not linked to ERP

In the context of moving towards Digital Transformation in every organization, there will be implementations of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to cover organizational management, including accounting, finance, assets, and various activities. Currently, ERP systems have become more affordable, reaching SMEs, and several brands are emerging in Thailand.

Premium-level ERP systems are also competing by introducing various features to expand their base. What used to be just financial accounting is now extending to assets and even real estate or building machinery. As technology ERP reaches the world of building trades, building staff face additional burdens of inputting data into ERP, such as repair reports and confirming various area sizes.

The ERP system is thus a priority for management because it impacts the reporting of the organization’s performance and has become a primary task for staff to complete.

Meanwhile, updating As-Built Documents, which no one understands, gets pushed aside, even though the information for modifying As-Built Drawings is essentially the same as ERP. However, since they exist on different platforms and are not linked, it results in redundant work, needing to adjust both the data in the As-Built Drawings and the ERP data simultaneously.

When staff must also maintain the building, which is the most critical task, and fill in ERP that is crucial because management demands it, managing As-Built Documents becomes a lower priority. Ultimately, it is left undone, piled up as it is.

In summary, it can be observed that these complex reasons create a situation where managing buildings with As-Built Documents in the old world without supporting technology is nearly impossible. Issues of fatalities or injuries, rising costs, conflicts, and corruption in building management arise repeatedly.

But today, we are no longer in the old world. Next time, I will discuss how Digital Twin technology can create solutions for Cloud As-Built.