How to Confirm the Truck Set Is Current

Why this matters

A drawing set is accurate on the day it is issued and starts going stale the next morning. Bulletins move things, the architect answers questions with sketches, and new sheets get added. The set riding in the truck has none of that unless somebody puts it there. Ten minutes at the tailgate before the first cut is the difference between installing what the job now says and installing what it said a month ago, and only one of those gets paid.

This card is the check one tech runs before work starts. The shop-level routine that keeps the set current in the first place is a sibling SOP. See related: The Drawing Revision Control on the Truck SOP. How to read the revision column and the clouds is owned by The Revision Block and Why It Decides Everything; this card uses it.

The vocabulary you need for the check

Revision delta. The small triangle with a number in it, placed beside each change on a sheet and listed in the title block's revision column with a date and a description. The highest number on a sheet is that sheet's current revision as far as the sheet knows.

Revision cloud. The scalloped outline drawn around what changed in a given revision. Commonly only the latest revision's clouds are left on the sheet, so a cloud tells you what changed last time, not everything that ever changed.

Sheet index. The list of sheets, usually on the cover or first general sheet, often with the current revision of each. It is itself a sheet that gets revised, so an old cover sheet carries an old index.

Drawing log or document log. The general contractor's running record of every document issued on the job: sheets with their revisions and dates, bulletins, ASIs, RFI responses, addenda. On most commercial jobs it lives on a project portal or is posted in the job trailer. This is the authority you check against.

Bulletin. A design change issued after the contract, usually as a package of revised sheets with a cover describing what moved.

ASI (architect's supplemental instructions). A clarification or minor change issued by the architect, often as a narrative or a sketch numbered like SK-7, that may not revise any sheet at all. Engineers issue the same thing under other names. An ASI that changes no sheet is the most commonly missed document on a job, because nothing in your set shows it exists.

The check, run on a real morning

A two-person HVAC crew is starting duct on the second floor of a three-story office building. The lead pulls the sheets they will build from today and runs the check before unloading the ductwork.

Step 1: Get the authority, dated today. The lead opens the general contractor's document log on the portal and notes the date it was last updated. If the log is a printout in the trailer, the date printed on it is the one that counts, and a printout older than the newest document you have heard about is not an authority. Skip this and you are checking your set against itself, which always passes.

Step 2: List the sheets you will build from today, with the revision each one shows. Only the sheets that govern today's work, plus anything they reference by callout: the floor plan, the details it points to, and the structural framing plan for the same floor, because duct runs under structure. Read the latest delta and its date out of each sheet's title block, not off the index.

Step 3: Compare line by line, and write the comparison down.

TRUCK SET CHECK - Level 2 duct - date of check: Apr 14
Log last updated: Apr 11

SHEET   TRUCK SET        LOG               STATUS
M-202   Rev 1  Feb 20    Rev 2  Mar 28     SUPERSEDED
M-203   (not in set)     Rev 0  Mar 28     MISSING
M-501   Rev 0  Jan 15    Rev 0  Jan 15     current
M-601   Rev 1  Feb 20    Rev 1  Feb 20     current
S-202   Rev 1  Feb 20    Rev 2  Mar 28     SUPERSEDED

ISSUED AFTER Mar 28, NO SHEET REVISED:
ASI-7 + SK-7  Apr 8   moves diffuser D-14, rm 214

Result: 3 of 5 log lines fail, plus 1 ASI to apply

Two sheets in the truck are one revision behind, one sheet issued with Bulletin 3 is not in the truck at all, and an ASI issued after the bulletin changes the room the crew will reach on its first afternoon. M-501 and M-601 are current. The truck set's own cover showed the index as of February, which is why nobody had noticed the missing sheet: the old index did not list it.

Step 4: Read what each failing line changed before you pull anything. The lead opens Bulletin 3's cover narrative: the 24 by 14 main on M-202 is resized to 28 by 12 between grid lines 3 and 5 to clear a beam that S-202 Rev 2 drops by 2 in, and a new enlarged plan, M-203, shows the shaft area where the main turns down. ASI-7 relocates diffuser D-14 two feet east in room 214. Reading the changes tells the crew what the day's work now is: the fittings already fabricated for grid lines 3 to 5 at the old size do not go up today.

Step 5: Check for documents issued after your newest sheet that touch your area. The lead filters the log for anything dated after March 28 (the newest revision date on the comparison), and finds ASI-7. Also check RFI responses: an RFI answered with "see attached sketch" can move work without revising a sheet. Skip this and the set looks current, sheet by sheet, while the work it shows is out of date.

Step 6: Pull the superseded sheets out of the truck, today. Print or download M-202 Rev 2, M-203 Rev 0 and S-202 Rev 2. Mark the old M-202 and S-202 "SUPERSEDED" across the face with the date, and either take them out of the truck or file them in a separate folder marked superseded. A superseded sheet left in the set gets used by the next person who reaches for "the plan," because both sheets carry the same number in the corner. Print the ASI and its sketch and clip it to M-202 Rev 2, then write "SEE ASI-7" beside diffuser D-14 on the sheet.

Step 7: Call when anything does not reconcile, before work starts. The lead's call list for this job is the shop's project manager first and the general contractor's superintendent second. Things that warrant the call: a sheet in the truck at a higher revision than the log shows (somebody has a sheet the log does not, or the log is stale), the same revision number with a different date, a bulletin cover that mentions a sheet the log does not list, or an RFI on your work that is still open on the log. On this job the reconciliation was clean once the three sheets were pulled, so no call was needed; the lead texted the project manager that M-203 had never reached the truck, because whatever kept it off the truck may be keeping other sheets off other trucks.

Step 8: Sign and date the check on the set. Initials, date and "checked against log updated Apr 11" written on the cover of the set. The next person who opens the set knows how old the check is, and if the set is wrong tomorrow the record shows when it was last right.

Where the check forks

The truck set is a tablet set. A synced plan app shows the current revisions only if it synced. The check becomes: confirm the sync date shown in the app is after the log's last update, then spot-check one sheet you know was revised. A tablet that has not been on a network since the last bulletin is a stale paper set with a battery.

The general contractor keeps no log. On small renovation work there may be no portal and no trailer. The authority then is the most recent transmittal from whoever issues the drawings (the architect, the owner's project manager), and the check is a phone call or email asking "what is the latest revision of each sheet in our scope, and has anything been issued since the date on our newest sheet?" Ask for the answer in writing.

The change came verbally. A superintendent says on site that a diffuser is moving. That is not a document, and the set is still current until something is issued. Write the instruction down with the name and date, ask for it to be issued as an ASI or field directive, and do not build it on the spoken word alone. See related: The Paper That Changes a Job: RFI to Change Order.

The check fails late in the day on work already installed. If the comparison shows work in place was built from a superseded sheet, stop work in the affected area, photograph what is installed, and call the project manager before any rework. Whether rework is the crew's cost or a change depends on when the revision reached the shop, which is a record question for the office.

What the check costs and what it saves

The check above took the lead about 12 minutes, most of it reading Bulletin 3's narrative. The duct that would have gone up between grid lines 3 and 5 at the old size was most of the crew's day: two people installing fittings that the revised framing would have clashed with, and the day again to take them down. Twelve minutes against roughly two crew-days is the ratio that makes this worth doing every morning the crew starts a new area, not once a week.

The failure mode the check exists to catch is not the dramatic one where somebody builds off a sheet from the bid. It is the quiet one: one sheet one revision behind, in a set that is otherwise current, with an index that does not know about the new sheet.

How to tell the check worked

• Every sheet the crew builds from today matches the log on revision number and date, or carries a note of why it does not and who was called.
• No sheet with "SUPERSEDED" written on it is in the active set, and no superseded sheet is in the truck without that word on it.
• Every ASI, sketch or RFI response dated after the newest sheet and touching the work area is clipped to its sheet and noted at the location it changes.
• The cover of the set carries the date of today's check and the date of the log it was checked against.

References

• See related: The Revision Block and Why It Decides Everything
• See related: The Drawing Revision Control on the Truck SOP
• See related: The Paper That Changes a Job: RFI to Change Order
• See related: The Title Block Field by Field