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A/E Contractor Responsibilities & Requirements
DSC QA Review Process - Phases / Milestones
QA Review Checklists
As a Federal Government organization, Denver Service Center (DSC) is responsible for assuring the quality of design documents. These documents must be biddable and buildable. The regulatory basis for this requirement exists in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) where it states:
Section 46.102 - Policy
Agencies shall ensure that:
- Contracts include inspection and other quality requirements, including warranty clauses when appropriate, that are determined necessary to protect the Government's interest.
- Supplies or services tendered by contractors meet contract requirements.
- Government contract quality assurance is conducted before acceptance (except as otherwise provided in this part), by or under the direction of Government personnel.
To meet this requirement, DSC's Technical Branch developed a QA review process to ensure production of high quality design documents.
Architect-Engineer (A/E) Contractor Roles and Responsibilities
Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR):
52.236-23 Responsibility of the Architect-Engineer Contractor.
As prescribed in 36.609-2(b), insert the following clause:
RESPONSIBILITY OF THE ARCHITECT-ENGINEER CONTRACTOR (APR 1984)
- The Contractor shall be responsible for the professional quality, technical accuracy, and the coordination of all designs, drawings, specifications, and other services furnished by the Contractor under this contract. The Contractor shall, without additional compensation, correct or revise any errors or deficiencies in its designs, drawings, specifications, and other services.
- Neither the Government's review, approval or acceptance of, nor payment for, the services required under this contract shall be construed to operate as a waiver of any rights under this contract or of any cause of action arising out of the performance of this contract, and the Contractor shall be and remain liable to the Government in accordance with applicable law for all damages to the Government caused by the Contractor's negligent performance of any of the services furnished under this contract.
Project Requirements
- Provide design submissions to DSC per the Task Order (TO) Scope of Services (SOS) submission requirements including:
- Provide Quality Control (QC) review showing internal review of drawings, specifications, calculations, and cost estimates.
- Provide responses to DSC QA review comments on the QA Review Comments form, a Microsoft Excel file.
- Except for the Predesign submittal, each subsequent design submittal shall include responses to the previous phase's review comments.
- DSC QA Review process is complete when all review comments have been fully addressed by the A/E Contractor within the 100% Complete Construction Documents (CD) design phase.
DSC QA Review Process - Phases / Milestones
DSC Technical Specialists will typically review Design-Bid-Build (DBB) or Design-Build (DB) projects at these design phases/milestones:
- Predesign (PD)
- Schematic Design (SD)
- DB Request for Proposal (RFP) - 100% Draft & 100% Complete
- Design Development (DD)
- Construction Documents - 100% Draft & 100% Complete
Technical Specialists will also review:
- Division 1 Specifications Construction Submittals
- Other Technical Reports (e.g. Geotechnical, Typographical, Historic Structure Report (HSR))
QA Review Checklists
