What are the hazards of construction using white diagrams?

Construction based on plain drawings is not protected by law, and the client may refuse to cover the costs resulting from design changes.

The regulations state this, and any modifications made without proper design will result in orders for corrections, with the owner bearing the responsibility. However, in most cases, such things happen at the request of the client. After all, it’s the client who provides the designs, and the need to meet deadlines is also usually a requirement set by the client. The contractor, in turn, keeps urging the client to provide the design drawings!

It is often the client who is eager for progress, but it is the construction party that ends up bearing most of the responsibility

The construction team arrives at the site with its manpower and equipment, but is unable to start work. Meanwhile, the client is eager to see progress. Under such circumstances, the design institute provides drawings without any principles or restrictions (usually marking “FR” or “for reference” on them). The supervisor turns a blind eye as well. With all parties colluding, construction begins using these unapproved drawings. Although the construction team assumes significant risks, the additional costs incurred are ultimately reimbursed by the client.

Sensible people, this is what we usually see. Of course, the most serious issue is building without approval: lol

White drawings for construction projects and those for equipment manufacturing are undoubtedly a double-edged sword for the construction or equipment manufacturing units. In today’s construction industry, there is a considerable amount of such white drawings that have not undergone review, coordination, approval, or archiving by relevant specialists. While this may speed up the progress of projects, it also creates significant risks in terms of quality, safety, operations, and production. This is especially true for small design firms, which often have fewer large-scale projects to work on, less experience, and staff with lower professional skills, thus creating even greater hazards. A large number of projects are won through low-bid bidding, with construction and equipment manufacturing units submitting bids based on white drawings or rough estimates. If they proceed with construction at such low costs, they will inevitably suffer losses; most such projects end in losses. Although this seems to save costs for the project, it actually goes against the principles of scientific market value, leading to a vicious cycle of low prices and poor quality. Over time, this results in cut corners in construction. How can we talk about \"quality as the foundation of long-term projects\" in such circumstances?

Design institutes are forced to provide the project owners (the constructors) with preliminary drawings of the construction work for the following reasons: 1) The owners, eager to keep things on schedule, request that the design institutes supply such drawings, but they are unable to provide the design institutes with the necessary design inputs at that time (such as information that should be provided by equipment suppliers). To protect themselves and avoid responsibilities and risks, the design institutes are compelled to provide preliminary draft drawings based on assumed conditions (usually indicated in the drawing version column as “FR” or “for reference”, or with a note stating that certain aspects are still pending). But the owner was eager to use it as construction drawings and required the contractor to build according to them. 2) The design institute believes that the scheme requested by the owner does not comply with current relevant regulations, codes, and standards, yet the owner insists repeatedly that the design institute prepare drawings based on that scheme ； In order to protect itself and avoid liability and risks, the design institute, after negotiating with the client and reaching a compromise, came to an agreement according to which it was forced to provide draft drawings without any signatures, endorsements, or official seals, as required by the client; the client would be responsible for any consequences that arose from this.

I took a quick look at the replies; most of them focused on the problems on the part of the construction party. Admittedly, that is one aspect of it. The slow procedures in design institutes these days are also a major problem. Last November, we were working on a project: starting from the bid opening date, the design institute was unable to prepare the coordinate maps, and by the completion deadline it still hadn’t come up with a concrete plan. The client kept pressing the contractor to accelerate the work. The constructor has no blueprints, making things extremely difficult. Construction keeps pressing the design institute for the drawings every day. The design institute uses various excuses to shirk responsibility. The final result: the completion date was set for January 10th. Only a portion of the blueprints were made available on January 15th, with most of them still in draft form. Importantly, many changes were made to the blueprints. During the holiday season, a group of workers was kept on site to make up for the delayed progress. After a rough calculation, due to the changes and delays in scheduling, the entire project basically won’t make any profit.

Anyone can modify a plain diagram – you make a few changes, I make a few changes, and the overall appearance of the diagram changes significantly. As for axonometric drawings of pipes, sometimes differences in CAD versions can result in discrepancies in the information printed out