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> The article makes a few assumptions I disagree with - one of which is that the projects they list being over-time and over-budget are because of builder productivity rather than the primary contractors over-promising to win a large contract.

I’m guessing this explains most of it.

It’s common in the construction industry to compete during the bidding phase by underestimating the time and cost of the project, then making up for it with change orders later. It’s so pervasive in some domains that contractors feel they have no choice but to play the game to get contracts.

The smart buyers employ people who know how to manage contractors and construction companies with contracts that make time and budget overages less profitable for the company. The catch is that you need someone on your side watching the work so they don’t try to cut corners to get the job done. It’s difficult.

At smaller scales, it’s common for contractors to bid more projects than they can handle and then rotate between them, tending to the clients who complain the most. They’d rather overbook their calendar than have gaps in between projects.

Construction and contracting are not fun industries to deal with. Having known reputable contractors is very valuable, but the good ones are often booked out a year in advance.

And I agree about the other oddities in this article. I don’t even know if hand drawn building plans would be allowed in modern towns. Usually a licensed engineer is required to draw and approve the plans and there aren’t many licensed engineers still doing this who don’t use CAD.

> It’s so pervasive in some domains that contractors feel they have no choice but to play the game to get contracts.

Do you mean to say big gov IT contracts ?

We are on HN after all.

> It’s common in the construction industry to compete during the bidding phase by underestimating the time and cost of the project, then making up for it with change orders later.

This is called change order abuse. Sometimes the contractor actually has an inside person receiving kick-backs or bribes where they can purposefully underbid while knowing in advance that they will be able to make it up with change orders (which will be approved by the inside person)

> This isn't my experience in the UK (I design warehouses and have worked with lots of primary contractors).

I've heard about the New Engineering Contract (NEC) system that is supposedly used a lot in the UK:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Engineering_Contract

* https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/NEC4

This is where (AFAICT), contracts are standardized templates, and it is only 'amendments' that are custom for the project: blueprints, bill of materials, timetables (for staging payments), etc, are custom on each job. This (supposedly) allows for fewer lawyers to be involved, and only the 'technical' stuff needs to be looked at.

How pervasive is NEC? Useful at all?

The US has something similar, the American Institute of Architects has standardized construction contracts that are in wide use.

My experience with "hand drawn plans" doing IT for new retail locations in the US has been interesting. It's not my specialty, but we've had a few clients open 40+ new locations country wide between them with varying budgets, timelines, industries, and GC's.

I need to interface with the electricians, carpenters, HVAC, and the GC on every project. None of them have the same drawings and none of their versions are the latest from the architects and engineers. The architects or engineers are also very expensive, so they rarely get brought back in for updates to drawings once unless it has to do with code / regulatory approvals. This ends up with the client's latest real drawings being a jpeg screenshot of the original plans that they just email blasted to everyone.

All the vendors and boots on the ground definitely have a version of the CAD floorplans, but it was whatever they decided to print out 3 weeks ago when they got this job on their calendar. The workers have just been marking it up by hand since then. This is where a lot for the confusion, delays, and change orders come from. I don't know if this is just what to expect with budgets less than a few million, or maybe it's just retail style projects, or maybe my clients attract poor quality vendors (I guess that says more about me). The only time with no major problem was when one client stuck to one GC over the course of 20 new buildouts. They eventually figured out how to wrangle all their subs together.

> This ends up with the client's latest real drawings being a jpeg screenshot of the original plans that they just email blasted to everyone.

Just ask the client to go ask for the DWG, 9 times out of 10 you will get it. Might be different in the USA but that’s my experience in the uk. If there is only paper, we have a CAD guy who can quickly transfer it into CAD in about an hour (there is software specifically for this).

I think it’s just endemic to the industry. Even on high budget work with full time project managers we’ll find the subs on site working from an ancient drawing superceded months ago, or a sketch made on a wall by people discussing an issue. A good foreman is worth their weight in gold.

There was a YC company called Plangrid trying to address this, until they got bought out by autodesk.

I think the distinction is not hand-drawn with eg a pencil and ruler, but drawn-by-a-hand via CAD software.

There's plenty of beautiful CAD plans that don't hold up in the real world (this is why as-builts exist). I feel like there could be a scripted tool to check things like code compliance and stop people routing conduits through beams etc.