Pre-construction services has become a big part of my work as a general contractor, a trend that I believe is a big step in the right direction. But it's given me greater awareness of a situation that's also been growing - subcontractors who are called in to provide their expert advice regarding most appropriate product/system selections, maybe come to a couple of meetings, give some unit pricing for budget purposes.  These trade experts hope they will receive the job, that maybe we won't even bid out.  But we almost always do bid it.  The project where competitive bidding isn't necessary is a rare one these days.  Why doesn't our industry pay consulting fees for this expertise?  The EXPERTS deserve to be recognized as such, and treated with the respect they deserve. 

My first thought was - we, the industry, need to discuss this. 

Then, at CONSTRUCT2014, I attended a presentation titled: "Designing Contractors: The Project Team's Guide to Design-Assist, Delegated Design, and Design-Build, Design-Build" presented by Vivian Volz, CSI, CCS, of the San Francisco Chapter.  It turns out this is a topic that hits a nerve, and goes deeper than I realized. Door hardware companies are employing specifiers full-time, some of whom do nothing but build the door hardware schedule for the architect for FREE - no contract, no fee, no insurance, and no liability.  Then a pre-cast concrete manufacturer raised his hand - in his region, they are also asked to provide this design work up front, for FREE - no fee, no contract, no insurance and no liability.  Wow, this is about more than taking advantage of competitive companies who are willing to do some work for free. Life-Safety, the Owner, and the architect's practice may potentially be at risk when situations like this occur in our project development process.  We, the industry, urgently need to address this issue.