Issued for Construction Drawings - Prepare Issued for Construction drawings incorporating relevant addenda or negotiated changes during bid/negotiation phase

Oct 23, 2026

Issued for Construction (IFC) defines a consolidated set of bid drawings and specifications modified to include changes from relevant addenda, alternate pricing options, and other negotiated revisions, intended to match the contract documents in content. The text explains historical methods of producing and delivering revisions, then contrasts modern workflows enabled by word processors, CAD, and large-format printing. It also outlines practical options and key risks when preparing IFC sets, including missing or unofficial changes, temptation to adjust details, and trust implications in case of project disputes.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages4

Reading Time10 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Definition of IFC

History

Pre-digital revision practices

Issued for Construction

From messy cut-and-paste to reproducible PDF sets

Risks and governance discipline

Current Options

Comparing contemporary office practices

Issued for Construction Documents By: Project Administration Resource Committee ©2020, Ontario Association of Architects (OAA) . Management of the Project articles may be reproduced and distributed, with appropriate credit included, for non-commercial use only. Commercial use requires prior written permission from the OAA. The OAA reserves all other rights. Introduction The OAA 600-2013 “Standard Form of Contract for Architect’s Services” in Item 3.1 includes the following: .22 Issued for Construction Drawings-Prepare Issued for Construction drawings incorporating relevant addenda or negotiated changes during bid/negotiation phase. For the purposes of this document, the term “Issued for Construction”(IFC) refers to a set of bid drawings and specifications that have been modified to include all the changes in the documents due to relevant addenda, selection of alternate pricing options, and other negotiated changes. It should be identical in content to the contract documents. Some advice to architects is to call these documents Issued for ‘Consolidation’ rather than ‘Construction’, and infact consolidation is a better term for what these documents represent. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) uses the term ‘Conformed’. This document uses the more common term ‘Construction’, consistent with OAA 600. Often a general contractor will request a set of “Issued for Construction” documents right after contract award. The issue of an IFC set should have been discussed with the client and appropriate provision and compensation included in the client/architect agreement. History In the bronze age , not only before the Internet, but before even CAD, things were different. Many offices prepared specs using electric typewriters, so changing a few words meant re-typing a whole page, and if the page got longer, potentially re-typing the rest of the spec section. Two-sided printing was expensive, so printing was done single-sided, often on dot-matrix printers. Drawings were done with pen or pencil on paper (e.g. 1000H) or later on mylar. Printing was done in-house using a diazo machine. Every office smelled of ammonia. Simple changes to a drawing were relatively simple, but printing was labour intensive and time consuming. Once printed, the revisions had to be couriered to or picked up by the contractor unless the documents were small enough to be sent by facsimile transfer (fax) . Taken together, these factors lead to the practice of issuing letter size revisions to portions of a drawing, and to revising specs by listing the additions, deletions and changes to specific sentences in addenda rather than issuing full sheets or spec sections. Upon receiving the changes, the general contractor would take a set of bid documents along with a copy of all the changes and insert the changes in the appropriate places in the bid documents. This could involve taping or stapling the change to a drawing or to a page in the specification book or literally cutting and pasting the changes line by line. Issued for Construction By cutting and pasting, the contractor assembled a complete and up-to-date set of documents for reference onsite during the construction phase. It was time consuming and the results were messy and somewhat fragile, but it worked. It was a lot of work for the contractors and wasn’t the easiest to use, especially if there were several overlapping changes. Fast forward to the age of word processors, CAD, and large format printers. Contractors realized that regardless of how consultants issued changes, they likely had files with the latest revised version of the drawings and specs. Contractors then started asking consultants to issue the revised documents as an “Issued for Construction” set. Clean. Tidy. Reproducible. Where the architect chooses to create an “Issued for Construction” set for internal use in administering the contract, the effort to prepare, and check PDFs to issue to the contractor

FAQs

What does “Issued for Construction (IFC)” mean in this document?

IFC refers to bid drawings and specifications modified to include all changes from relevant addenda, alternate pricing options, and other negotiated changes, and it should be identical in content to the contract documents.

Why can preparing an IFC set be risky?

Risks include omitting official changes or including additional, unofficial modifications. The text warns that human corrections to drawings or specs—such as hatching, references, dimensions, line weights, or spelling—can create evidence that may be used in claims.

How have revision and document issuance practices changed over time?

Historically, offices retyped specs and made manual, time-consuming revisions that required courier or fax. Modern tools like word processors, CAD, and large-format printers allow contractors and architects to work from the latest revised files and issue clean, reproducible PDF sets.

Oct 23, 2026

Uploaded by A glass of water