General contracting
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Appointed party
A provider of information — a consultant, subcontractor or supplier — appointed by a lead appointed party, usually organised into a task team.
As-built drawings
Drawings, prepared from the contractor's marked-up site records, that show the work as actually constructed, including changes and field deviations from the design.
Building information modelling (BIM)
The use of a shared digital representation of a built asset — its geometry, properties and related documents — to support design, construction and operation decisions with reliable information.
Change order
A written amendment to the construction contract, signed by the owner and contractor, recording an agreed change in the work together with any adjustment to the contract price and time.
Clash detection
The automated checking of a federated model to find places where elements conflict physically, violate required clearances or conflict in time.
Common data environment (CDE)
The agreed single source of information for a project or asset, used to collect, manage and share each information container through a controlled workflow of states, statuses and revisions.
Critical path method (CPM)
A scheduling technique that models a project as a network of dependent activities and identifies the longest path through it — the critical path — which sets the shortest possible project duration.
Deficiency list
A list, prepared at or near substantial performance, of work that is incomplete or does not conform to the contract documents and must be corrected before completion.
Design-bid-build (DBB)
The traditional delivery method in which the owner first has the design completed by consultants, then invites contractors to bid on it, then awards a separate construction contract — usually for a stipulated price.
Design-build (DB)
A delivery method in which one entity, the design-builder, contracts with the owner to provide both the design and the construction under a single contract.
Federated model
A combined model assembled from separate discipline or package models, each of which remains owned and maintained by its author.
Final payment
The last payment under a construction contract, certified once the work is complete, deficiencies are corrected, close-out documents are delivered and lien periods have expired.
General contractor (GC)
The firm that contracts directly with the owner to build the project for an agreed price, hires and coordinates the trade contractors and suppliers, and controls the site.
Lead appointed party
The party appointed directly by the appointing party that coordinates information management for its whole delivery team.
Operation and maintenance manual (O&M manual)
The handover documentation that tells the owner how to operate, maintain and repair the building's systems and equipment, including product data, maintenance schedules, warranties and contacts.
Pre-installation conference
A meeting held before a trade starts a complex or critical installation, bringing together the contractor, the installer, the consultant and often the manufacturer to confirm requirements, conditions and inspections.
Prequalification
A procurement step in which an owner assesses firms' experience, capacity, safety record and financial standing before inviting a shortlist to bid or propose.
Progress payment
A periodic payment, usually monthly, to the contractor for the value of work completed and materials supplied during the period, less holdback and previous payments.
Request for information (RFI)
A formal written question from the contractor to the design consultant asking for clarification of the contract documents — typically about design intent, an apparent omission or a conflict.
Risk register
A living log of identified project risks, recording for each its cause and effect, likelihood and impact, owner, response and current status.
Shop drawing
A drawing, diagram or set of details prepared by a contractor, trade or supplier to show exactly how a specific part of the work will be fabricated and installed.
Stipulated price contract
A construction contract in which the contractor agrees to perform a defined scope of work for a fixed total price, adjusted only through the contract's change provisions.
Submittal
Information the contractor provides to the consultant for review during construction — shop drawings, product data, samples and similar — to show how the work will meet the contract documents.
Trade contractor
A specialist firm that performs one part of the work — such as mechanical, electrical, masonry or curtain wall — under a contract with a general contractor, construction manager or owner.
Transmittal
A cover record that accompanies documents, drawings, samples or other items sent between project parties, listing what was sent, to whom, when and for what purpose.
Virtual design and construction (VDC)
A project management method that uses integrated, multidisciplinary models of the product (the facility), the organization and the process to plan and control a project against explicit, measurable objectives.
Warranty period
The period after handover — commonly one year in standard Canadian contracts — during which the contractor must correct defects in the work at its own cost, separate from longer manufacturer or extended warranties.
Work breakdown structure (WBS)
A hierarchical breakdown of the entire scope of a project into progressively smaller deliverables and work packages that can be estimated, scheduled, assigned and tracked.
Going further
BIM Collaboration Format (BCF)
An open buildingSMART standard for exchanging model-based issues — comments, viewpoints and the affected elements — between BIM tools without exchanging the models themselves.
BIM execution plan (BEP)
The delivery team's plan explaining how it will carry out the information-management aspects of an appointment, in response to the exchange information requirements.
Change directive
A written instruction from the consultant, signed by the owner, directing the contractor to proceed with a change to the work before the price and time adjustments have been agreed.
Commissioning (Cx)
A quality-focused process that verifies and documents that a building's systems are designed, installed, tested and able to operate as the owner requires, and that operators are trained to run them.
Completion (total performance)
The statutory milestone, after substantial performance, at which a construction contract is deemed complete because the remaining work or correction of known defects falls below a small threshold set by lien legislation.
Constructability review
A structured review of design documents by people with construction experience to find problems with buildability, sequencing, access, cost or safety before the design is issued for construction.
Construction adjudication
A fast, interim dispute-resolution process for construction payment disputes, in which an adjudicator issues a decision within weeks that is binding unless and until it is overturned by a court or arbitrator.
Construction lien
A statutory claim against an improved property (or against holdback funds for public property) that unpaid contractors, subcontractors and suppliers can register to secure payment for services or materials supplied.
Construction management (CM)
A project delivery method in which the owner engages a construction manager early to advise on cost, schedule and constructability during design, and to manage the procurement and execution of the work through trade contracts.
Contemplated change notice (CCN)
A written request from the consultant or owner asking the contractor to price a proposed change before it is approved; it does not authorize the contractor to do the work.
Cost plus contract
A construction contract in which the owner reimburses the contractor's actual costs of the work plus a fee, which may be fixed or a percentage, sometimes capped by a guaranteed maximum price.
Critical chain project management (CCPM)
A scheduling and control method, based on the theory of constraints, that removes safety time from individual task estimates and pools it into shared buffers, then manages the project by monitoring how fast those buffers are consumed.
Exchange information requirements (EIR)
The information requirements that an appointing party (or lead appointed party) sets for a specific appointment: what information is to be delivered, to what standard, when, and how it will be accepted.
Holdback
A percentage of each payment that the payer must retain under lien legislation — 10% in Ontario — until the period for registering construction liens has expired, as security for subcontractors and suppliers.
Integrated project delivery (IPD)
A collaborative delivery approach in which the owner, designers and builder work as one team, usually under a single multi-party agreement, sharing risk and reward according to project outcomes.
Last Planner System (LPS)
A lean, collaborative production-planning system in which the people who directly supervise the work plan it together, commit to what can be done, and measure how reliably they keep those commitments.
Level of development (LOD)
A numbered scale (LOD 100–400, plus 500 in some frameworks) describing how far a model element's geometry and information have been developed — and therefore how much other team members can rely on it.
Look-ahead schedule
A short-interval schedule, typically covering the next three to six weeks, that breaks upcoming work into detailed tasks so constraints can be identified and removed before the work starts.
Master information delivery plan (MIDP)
The delivery team's combined schedule of all information to be delivered for an appointment, compiled by the lead appointed party from the task information delivery plans.
Non-conformance report (NCR)
A formal record that identifies work or material not meeting the requirements of the contract documents, and tracks the proposed correction, its approval and its resolution.
Project information model (PIM)
All the information — models, documents and data — produced and managed for the delivery phase of an asset.
Prompt payment
Legislation that sets mandatory deadlines for paying construction invoices down the contract chain and gives unpaid parties fast remedies, such as adjudication.
Ready-for-Takeover
A contractual milestone introduced in CCDC 2 (2020) that marks when the owner can take over the work, reached once specified conditions — including certified substantial performance and occupancy permission — are met and verified by the consultant.
Responsibility matrix
A table that allocates information-management tasks and information deliverables to the parties and task teams responsible for them.
Schedule baseline
The approved version of the project schedule, frozen as the reference against which actual progress and changes are measured.
Statutory declaration
A sworn written statement by the contractor, provided with payment applications or at close-out, declaring that its subcontractors and suppliers have been paid and that there are no outstanding claims, except as listed.
Substantial performance
The point at which the work is ready for use, or in use, for its intended purpose and the remaining work is below a threshold set by lien legislation; it starts the lien period and the release of holdback.
Supplemental instruction
An instruction from the consultant — usually drawings, specifications or a written note — that clarifies or adds detail to the work without changing the contract price or contract time.
Task information delivery plan (TIDP)
A task team's schedule of the information containers it will produce, with responsibilities and delivery dates, for one appointment.
Tender
A formal, competitive bid submitted in response to an owner's call for bids, offering to perform defined work on stated terms; also the process of calling and evaluating such bids.
Unit price contract
A construction contract priced on rates per unit of work (per cubic metre, tonne, linear metre and so on), with payment based on the quantities actually installed and measured.