Knowledge / AEC-native Data
RFIs
Formal requests for information raised during construction to resolve ambiguities or conflicts in the drawings and specifications, with their responses.
An RFI, a TQ on NEC jobs, is a question the project could not answer from its own documents. It names a conflict or a gap in the drawings and specifications, proposes a resolution, and waits for a response that then changes what gets built. Hundreds of them accumulate on a job, each one a small piece of the design record that never makes it back into the drawings. Teams answer new RFIs from memory of old ones. Structured knowledge makes the RFI register something a team can question directly, with every answer traceable to its source.
What Teams Ask of the Data
Has this question been asked before, on this project or a similar one, and what was the answer?
Which drawings, clauses and schedule rows does this RFI actually affect?
Which RFI responses changed a requirement that the specification and drawings still show in their original form?
What is the status of every RFI touching this package, and which are overdue?
Did the response answer the question that was asked, or a different one?
Which RFIs led to a variation, and which should have?
What did the design team commit to in a response that the contract does not cover?
What Generic AI Misses
An RFI is a conversation with context, not a document. The question only makes sense against the drawing it references and the clause it quotes, and the response often says see attached sketch, or refer to revised detail, without repeating what changed. A general-purpose model reads the RFI form, sees a question and an answer, and summarises both without ever opening the sketch or the detail. The summary is fluent and hollow.
The register is also a web of precedent. The value in RFIs is that the same question comes up on the next project, and the answer already exists. A model that treats each RFI as an isolated file cannot find the precedent unless the wording matches, and it cannot tell that one RFI was superseded by a later one on the same detail. Ask it what was decided about the parapet flashing and it will pick whichever RFI mentions parapets first.
What Structured Knowledge Answers
QUESTION
Has the question about the movement joint spacing on the ground floor slab been resolved, and what does the current requirement say?
ANSWER
Yes, in two steps. The original RFI asked whether the joint spacing shown on the structural plan or the spacing in the concrete specification governed, since they differed. The structural engineer's response confirmed the plan spacing and said the specification would be amended. A later RFI on the same slab asked about joint detailing at the column positions, and its response attached a revised detail that also moved two joints. The current requirement is the plan spacing as amended by the revised detail. The specification clause has not been updated and still shows the original figure.
SOURCES
RFI 023, question and response; RFI 058, response and attached sketch SK-14; structural ground floor plan, drawing S-2001 rev C04; concrete specification, movement joint clause.
Illustrative. The project, documents and references are invented to show what an answer looks like.
We onboard a focused slice of your project data, configure the ingestion paths, extract a structured context graph, and build a workflow against the resulting structured knowledge layer.
The Data in Context
An RFI points at drawings and specification clauses and is usually answered with a sketch or a revised drawing. Its outcome shows up in meeting minutes, instructions and variations. RFI drafting with precedent search and project knowledge search both run on the register.
Related Knowledge
Construction drawings
The 2D graphical record of design intent: plans, sections, elevations, details, schedules and title blocks, issued as sheets with revisions.
Construction specifications
The written performance and prescriptive requirements for materials, workmanship and systems, organised by work section (NBS, CSI MasterFormat, Uniclass).
Meeting minutes and decision records
Minutes of design team, progress and coordination meetings, holding the decisions, actions and agreed changes that rarely make it back into the drawings.
RFI drafting and precedent search
Finding whether a question has been answered before, on this or earlier projects, and drafting the RFI or its response from the governing drawings and clauses.
Project knowledge search
Asking questions across the whole project record, drawings, models, specs, contracts and correspondence, and getting answers that cite their source.
Can it draft the RFI as well as search past ones?
Which RFI systems does it read from?
Does it understand responses that only say see attached?