How to Run a Submittal Process That Doesn't Delay the Schedule

The construction submittal process is the workflow for getting products, materials, and shop drawings reviewed and approved before they're fabricated or installed. Run it well and your long-lead items arrive on time and the schedule holds. Run it badly and an unapproved submittal stalls procurement, the material misses its delivery window, and the whole job slips. The submittals themselves aren't hard. Managing the process, who has each one, when it's due, and what it does to the schedule, is where projects win or lose weeks.

Here's the step-by-step process and how to keep it from becoming a delay.

What is the submittal process?

A submittal is documentation a contractor provides to the design team for approval before procurement or installation: product data, shop drawings, samples, or mock-ups. The process is the path each one travels, from identifying that it's required, through subcontractor preparation and your review, to the architect or engineer's approval, and finally distribution of the approved version to the field.

The reason it matters so much is timing. Submittals sit on the critical path more often than people realize, because approval has to happen before fabrication, and fabrication has to happen before delivery. A submittal that's late to approval pushes everything downstream.

The submittal process, step by step

Step	What happens
1. Identify required submittals	Pull every required submittal from the specs
2. Build the submittal register	Log them with required-by dates worked back from the schedule
3. Collect from subcontractors	Subs prepare and send their submittals
4. Review and forward	You review for completeness, then send to the design team
5. Track in the design team's court	Monitor review time; chase aging items
6. Process the response	Approved, approved as noted, or revise and resubmit
7. Distribute and procure	Release the approved version to the field and purchasing

Identify required submittals from the specs

Before anything moves, read the specs and pull every required submittal into a register. Doing this up front, during preconstruction, is what separates a controlled process from a reactive scramble. Miss this step and you discover required submittals one crisis at a time.

Work the dates backward from the schedule

For each submittal tied to a long-lead item, calculate the required approval date by working backward: delivery date minus fabrication lead time minus review time. That date, not the date you happened to receive it from the sub, is the deadline that matters. Tracking against it is what turns the submittal register into a schedule-protection tool. It's the same backward-planning discipline behind a good submittal log.

Review, forward, and track ball-in-court

When a sub sends a submittal, review it for completeness before forwarding, an incomplete submittal sent up just earns a rejection and burns a cycle. Once it's with the design team, track ball-in-court relentlessly. When a submittal has sat in the architect's court past the review window, that's a call, not a note. This mirrors good RFI management: the item always has one owner and a clock.

Process the response and distribute

When it comes back, record the action (approved, approved as noted, revise and resubmit, or rejected), and get the approved version to the field and to procurement. A submittal that's approved but never reached purchasing is a delay waiting to happen.

How does the submittal process protect the schedule?

By making approval deadlines visible before they're missed. The connection is direct: every long-lead item has a date by which its submittal must be approved to hit the delivery window. Manage submittals against those approval deadlines and you can see a procurement delay coming weeks out, while there's still time to expedite. Manage them by submission date alone and you find out too late, when the material isn't going to show up.

Common submittal process mistakes

• Not building the register up front, so required submittals surface reactively.
• Tracking submission, not the required approval date, missing the deadline that matters.
• Forwarding incomplete submittals, which just earns a rejection and wastes a cycle.
• Letting items age in the design team's court with no follow-up.
• Failing to distribute approvals to procurement and the field.
• No single owner, so the whole process drifts.

Every one traces to the same root: the submittal process is high-volume, deadline-driven coordination that slips exactly when the job gets busy.

Submittals vs RFIs: what's the difference?

People mix these up, but they're different tools. A submittal is you proving what you intend to provide, sending product data, shop drawings, or samples for approval before you fabricate or install. An RFI is you asking a question, requesting clarification when the documents are unclear or conflicting. Submittals say "here's what we're planning to use, please confirm." RFIs say "we need an answer before we can proceed."

They often interact: a submittal review can generate an RFI when the documents don't make clear what's acceptable, and an RFI answer can change what you need to submit. Both run on the same discipline of logging, ball-in-court tracking, and deadline management, which is why the same support typically handles both.

Who should run the submittal process?

The PM owns the judgment, which items are at risk, what to escalate, how to recover a slipping approval. The day-to-day, maintaining the register, collecting from subs, reviewing for completeness, tracking ball-in-court, and distributing approvals, is exactly the kind of high-volume work to delegate. A dedicated submittals and RFI virtual assistant keeps the process moving and flags at-risk items before they hit the schedule, while a broader project admin virtual assistant ties it into the rest of project documentation.

The bottom line

The submittal process protects your schedule when you run it as a deadline-driven workflow: pull required submittals from the specs early, work approval dates backward from delivery, review before forwarding, track ball-in-court, and distribute approvals fast. Do that and long-lead items arrive on time. Skip it and an unapproved submittal quietly becomes a schedule delay.

If submittals are putting your schedule at risk, tell us about your projects and we'll map the support that keeps them moving.