Basis of Design documentation: the cost of starting every project from scratch

The problem

The 2026 Deltek Clarity Architecture & Engineering study put median utilization at 58.9 percent for fiscal 2025: roughly 41 cents of every labor dollar at a typical A&E firm never gets charged to a project. BOD documentation sits squarely in that unbilled share. The hours spent assembling a BOD (pulling relevant code sections, recalling prior project criteria, formatting system descriptions, aligning with owner project requirements or OPR) are hours that don't show up on an invoice. For a document that most clients neither see nor understand the value of, the engineering time that goes into producing it is disproportionately high.

The deeper problem is inconsistency. When BOD documents are built project by project from memory or repurposed templates, engineering assumptions vary across the team. A senior engineer's approach to system selection criteria for a laboratory HVAC system may differ from a project engineer's interpretation of the same guidance. Terminology drifts. Standards get applied inconsistently. Those inconsistencies don't stay in the BOD. They migrate downstream into specifications, equipment schedules, and coordination drawings, where they generate RFIs, submittal rejections, and change orders that are expensive to resolve.

Qualis Flow's 2025 State of Data Quality in Construction report found that 95 percent of materials delivery documentation was incomplete, inconsistent, or inaccurate. That data covers site logistics paperwork rather than design documents, but the pattern carries over: information that isn't captured in a defined way at the source doesn't get cleaner later. What gets documented imprecisely at the beginning of design gets interpreted imprecisely for the rest of the project.

What's driving it

The BOD problem is not a skill problem. It is a process design problem. Most MEP firms do not have a defined, repeatable system for producing BOD documents. There is no standardized input structure, no template that pulls from verified code libraries, no mechanism for ensuring that project-specific assumptions are captured explicitly rather than left to interpretation.

The result is that every BOD is a custom document produced under time pressure by whoever is running that phase of the project. The senior engineer who knows the right approach may not be the one writing the document. The person writing it may not have access to the prior project history that would tell them which criteria were contested, which owner preferences are non-negotiable, and which code interpretations require care.

This is a documentation and knowledge management failure. The information exists in the firm. It is distributed across email chains, project files, and the heads of senior staff. It never gets systematically captured in a form that makes the next BOD faster, more consistent, or easier to validate.

What resolution looks like

A well-structured BOD process treats documentation as a workflow, not a writing task. The distinction matters. A workflow has defined inputs, standardized outputs, and checkpoints. A writing task depends on the skill and memory of whoever is doing it that week.

AI tools can support this by pulling from verified code references and standards databases, cross-referencing prior project documentation to surface relevant criteria, and structuring input-gathering from the design team in a way that ensures completeness before drafting begins. The engineer still makes every technical decision. The system ensures those decisions are captured consistently, that no standard section gets overlooked, and that the resulting document is formatted and traceable before it leaves the team.

For a mid-size MEP firm producing 20 to 40 BODs per year, the compounding effect of consistent, thorough documentation is significant: hours recovered at the front end, and reduced downstream friction as the project moves through design, coordination, and construction.

QP brings a systems-discipline approach to this kind of workflow design. The same methodology that produces defensible documentation in regulated engineering environments, where an inconsistent record is a compliance failure, not just an inconvenience, produces consistently better records in MEP project delivery.

The bottom line

A BOD document that takes too long to produce and contains inconsistent assumptions doesn't just waste design hours. It seeds problems into every phase that follows. Addressing this workflow isn't a technology decision. It's a process design decision with a direct effect on project quality and firm efficiency.

If your current BOD process depends on memory and templates copied from the last job, that's worth examining before the next project starts.

Sources: Deltek, 47th Annual Clarity Architecture & Engineering Industry Study (2026): median A&E firm utilization 58.9% in fiscal 2025 (labor cost charged to projects as a share of total labor cost); Qualis Flow, The State of Data Quality in Construction (January 2025): 95% of materials delivery documentation incomplete, inconsistent, or inaccurate