Construction plan review glossary

The vocabulary of construction document review, defined the way project teams actually use it—for new engineers, owners sitting in on coordination meetings, and anyone evaluating an AI review tool.

Start for free All guides

Construction plan review is the systematic examination of a project's drawings, specifications, and related documents to find errors, omissions, conflicts, and compliance questions before construction. It happens in two settings: jurisdictional plan check, where a building department reviews a permit submittal against adopted codes, and project QA/QC, where the design and construction team reviews its own set before a milestone. The glossary below defines the thirty terms that come up most in both.

Documents and milestones

Construction documents (CDs): The complete drawings and specifications issued for permit, bid, and construction. The CD set is the legal description of what gets built.
Design development (DD): The phase between schematic design and CDs in which systems, materials, and dimensions are fixed. DD sets are commonly reviewed for coordination before the CD push begins.
Issued for construction (IFC): The revision of the documents the contractor is authorized to build from. When sheets carry different revisions, the IFC issue establishes which governs.
Specifications (the project manual): The written companion to the drawings, organized by CSI divisions, defining materials, products, quality, and execution. Drawings show where; specifications say what and how well.
Addendum: A change to the bid documents issued before contract award. Addenda modify drawings or specifications and must be tracked, because a sheet may be superseded without being redrawn.
Drawing index: The list of every sheet in the set, usually on the cover or general sheets. An index that disagrees with the actual sheets is one of the most common—and most consequential—set-integrity errors.
Revision / delta: A numbered or lettered change to an issued sheet, marked with a revision cloud and recorded in the sheet's revision block. Two sheets showing different data with no clear governing revision is a classic review finding.
As-built / record drawings: Drawings updated after construction to show what was actually built, including field changes. Used for facilities management and future renovation.

Review processes

QA/QC (quality assurance / quality control): The internal process a design or construction team runs to catch errors before documents are issued. QA is the system (checklists, standards, review gates); QC is the checking itself.
Plan check (jurisdictional plan review): A building department's review of a permit submittal against adopted codes and completeness requirements, ending in approval or a comment letter. Performed by plans examiners for the authority having jurisdiction.
Authority having jurisdiction (AHJ): The organization—typically a city or county building department, sometimes a fire marshal or state agency—with legal authority to enforce codes and approve the work.
Plans examiner: The professional who performs jurisdictional plan check. Their comments must be resolved before a permit is issued.
Milestone review: A QA/QC pass tied to an issue: end of DD, before permit, before bid, or before construction. The most effective reviews happen at milestones, when fixes are still cheap.
Constructability review: A contractor-led review asking whether the documents can actually be built as drawn: access, sequence, tolerances, means and methods, and missing information that would surface as field questions.
Peer review: An independent review of one firm's work by another qualified professional, common on structural designs and high-risk projects.
Overlay / drawing comparison: Superimposing two versions of a sheet to see what changed between issues. Useful for version control; blind to conflicts that never appear on the same sheet.
AI plan review: Software that reads the document set and surfaces possible coordination, consistency, and compliance issues for professional verification. Tools differ in scope: some check drawings against a code library, some scan drawings alone, and some—like Groundbook AI—cross-check drawings against specifications, checklists, and code sources you upload. No AI tool approves permits or replaces the responsible professional.

Findings and their consequences

Coordination error: A conflict between disciplines: a duct through a beam, a slab elevation that disagrees with the plumbing plan, an opening on one discipline's sheets and absent from another's. The costliest class of document error because each discipline is internally correct.
Consistency error: A disagreement within or between documents describing the same element: a schedule that conflicts with a plan callout, a note referencing a sheet that does not exist, a door rated differently in the spec.
Omission / missing information: Scope the documents fail to describe: an undimensioned critical clearance, a detail callout with no detail, equipment with no power shown. Omissions become change orders.
Code compliance finding: A possible conflict between the documents and an applicable code or standard. In QA/QC these are framed as questions for the designer; only the AHJ decides compliance.
RFI (request for information): The contractor's formal question when documents are unclear or conflicting. Every RFI costs review time and often schedule; large projects accumulate hundreds, most of them traceable to document errors a review could have caught.
Change order: A contract modification, usually with cost and schedule impact. Document errors found in the field convert to change orders; the same errors found on paper convert to revisions.
Rework: Built work that must be demolished or modified because the documents conflicted or the field proceeded on the wrong information. The most expensive outcome of a missed review finding.
Governing document: When two documents conflict, the one that controls. Contracts establish an order of precedence (often specifications over drawings, large scale over small); a review's job is to surface the conflict so the right professional decides.

Coordination vocabulary

Cross-discipline coordination: Making the architectural, structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire-protection, and civil documents describe the same building. See the fifteen most common coordination errors.
Clash detection: Testing 3D model geometry for physical interference. Related to but distinct from plan review, which works on the issued 2D documents and also catches non-geometric conflicts—ratings, schedules, references, specifications.
Schedule (drawing schedule): A table on the drawings—doors, windows, equipment, finishes, columns—that must agree with the plans that tag it and the specs that define it. Schedule-versus-plan conflicts are among the most frequent review findings.
Detail callout / reference: The marker pointing from a plan or section to a detail on another sheet. Broken references—callouts to sheets or details that do not exist—are pure consistency errors and pure review material.
Sleeve / block-out / penetration: An opening through structure required by another discipline. Openings shown on mechanical drawings but missing from structural ones are a canonical coordination failure.
Submittal: The contractor's documentation—shop drawings, product data, samples—showing how it intends to meet the specifications, reviewed by the design team before fabrication.
Value engineering (VE): Substituting materials or systems to reduce cost. VE changes made late are a common source of consistency errors, because the change lands on some documents and not others.

Reviewing for all of the above across a full set is exactly the first pass Groundbook AI automates: findings come back with severity, discipline, impact, and a link to the exact file, page, and location, for the responsible professionals to verify. See what that surfaced on a real mixed-use set.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between plan review and plan check?

Teams use the terms loosely, but plan check usually means the jurisdictional review a building department performs on a permit submittal, while plan review covers any systematic review of the documents, including a team's own QA/QC before a milestone.

What is the difference between clash detection and plan review?

Clash detection tests 3D model geometry for physical interferences and needs a coordinated model. Plan review works on the issued 2D drawings and specifications, and also catches conflicts with no geometry: schedule disagreements, broken references, rating mismatches, and spec conflicts.

What does QA/QC mean in construction documents?

Quality assurance is the system a firm uses to prevent document errors—standards, checklists, review gates. Quality control is the checking itself: reviewing the drawings and specifications for coordination, consistency, and compliance issues before they are issued.

Can AI do construction plan review?

AI plan review tools produce a first pass: they read the document set and surface possible issues with supporting evidence. Groundbook AI reviews drawings against specifications, checklists, and building-code PDFs you upload, from $50 per project. Professional verification and every final decision remain with the responsible professionals and the authority having jurisdiction.

Put the vocabulary to work on your next set

Set up a review yourself, or book time to talk through your project.

Start for free Book a demo