ProjectDelivery
Working as a subcontractor to Lendlease, John Holland, and Thiess generates an enormous documentation load — RFIs, submittals, procurement chasers, progress reports, schedule updates. Most of this is structured, repetitive, high-volume writing that consumes project engineer and PM time without adding engineering value. Agents can handle the entire drafting load, leaving your team to focus on the decisions that actually require expertise.
The Tier 1 documentation burden
Normoyle's Tier 1 builder clients operate formal, document-heavy project management systems. As a subcontractor, Normoyle must comply with their processes — which means generating a high volume of structured communications that follow specific formats, reference correct drawing revisions, use the right RFI numbering, and go through defined approval workflows.
On a medium-sized project with a Tier 1 builder, a Normoyle project engineer might spend 30–40% of their time on documentation rather than engineering. Here's where that time goes:
| Document type | Frequency | Time per document | Agent potential |
|---|---|---|---|
| RFI (outgoing query to builder) | 3–8 per week on active projects | 30–60 min each | HIGH — 80% time saving |
| RFI response (answering builder queries) | 2–5 per week | 20–45 min each | HIGH — 70% time saving |
| Submittal cover sheets and transmittals | 5–15 per week | 15–30 min each | HIGH — 85% time saving |
| Supplier follow-up emails (overdue POs) | Daily on active procurement | 10–20 min each | HIGH — 90% time saving |
| Weekly progress report | Weekly | 2–4 hours | MEDIUM — 60% time saving |
| Site instruction responses | As required | 30–60 min | MEDIUM — 50% time saving |
| Programme updates | Fortnightly | 1–3 hours | LOW — requires PM judgement on dates |
Four agents for project delivery
Reads your PO register daily, categorises all open orders by urgency, identifies critical path impacts, and drafts supplier follow-up emails for PM approval. Nothing is sent automatically.
Drafts outgoing RFIs and responses to incoming queries. Searches the drawing register and spec for relevant context, assigns sequential numbers, and formats to the builder's required template.
Takes completion data from your programme and site supervisor inputs, compares to baseline, identifies activities behind schedule, and drafts the fortnightly progress report in the client's format.
Tracks the submittal register, identifies overdue approvals from the builder, drafts follow-up chasers, and flags items where approval delay is creating a programme impact requiring escalation.
Every communication agent produces drafts only. The PM or project engineer reviews and sends. This is non-negotiable — Normoyle's reputation with Tier 1 builders depends on the quality and appropriateness of every communication. An agent that sends autonomously is a liability. An agent that drafts for review is a productivity tool.
Worked example: RFI drafting
RFIs are the most frequent high-effort document in a Tier 1 subcontract. Each one requires: finding the right drawing, identifying the relevant spec clause, writing a professional technical query, assigning the correct number, and formatting to the builder's template. Here's the agent doing all of that.
The situation
The site supervisor flags that the base plate connection detail on DWG-003 doesn't match what's been designed in 3D — the anchor bolt pattern on the drawing appears to be 400×400 PCD but the cast-in bolts on site are at 350×350. The project engineer needs to raise an RFI to the builder before fabrication of the base plates proceeds.
What the engineer tells the agent
Draft an RFI for the following issue: Project: Lendlease — [Project name], Contract [No.] Issue: The anchor bolt PCD on DWG-003 Rev B Detail A shows 400×400mm. Site supervisor reports cast-in bolts are at 350×350mm PCD. We cannot fabricate base plates until this is resolved. Need urgent clarification — base plates are due in fabrication next week. Check the drawing register for any related drawings and the spec for anchor bolt requirements. Assign the next RFI number from the register.
What the agent produces
REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ⚠ DRAFT — PROJECT ENGINEER REVIEW AND APPROVAL REQUIRED BEFORE ISSUE To: [Builder name] — Site Manager / Design Manager From: F&D Normoyle Engineering Project: [Project name] Contract: [Contract number] RFI No.: NE-RFI-047 [auto-assigned from register] Date: [date] Priority: URGENT Response required by: [date + 2 business days] SUBJECT: Anchor Bolt PCD Discrepancy — Column Base Plates DRAWING REFERENCE Primary: DWG-003 Rev B — Column Base Detail, Detail A Related: DWG-001 Rev B — General Arrangement (column grid) DWG-011 Rev A — Anchor Bolt Setting Out Plan SPECIFICATION REFERENCE Project Spec Cl. 5.3.2 — Holding Down Bolts and Anchor Systems [REVIEW NEEDED — spec clause located but does not specify PCD tolerance. Engineer to confirm if additional spec document applies.] QUERY DWG-003 Rev B, Detail A shows column base plate anchor bolt arrangement at 400×400mm PCD (4 × M24 Grade 8.8 bolts). F&D Normoyle Engineering's site supervisor has confirmed that cast-in anchor bolts at this column location are set at 350×350mm PCD, which does not match the current drawing. F&D Normoyle Engineering cannot proceed with fabrication of column base plates until this discrepancy is resolved. Base plates are programmed to commence fabrication [date — 5 business days from today]. INFORMATION REQUIRED 1. Please confirm the correct anchor bolt PCD for column base plates — 400×400mm (per DWG-003 Rev B) or 350×350mm (as installed on site). 2. If the correct PCD is 350×350mm, please issue a revised drawing (DWG-003 Rev C) prior to Normoyle's fabrication commencement date. 3. If the correct PCD is 400×400mm, please advise the process for remediation of the as-installed anchor bolts. PROGRAMME IMPACT Failure to resolve this RFI by [response date] will result in a delay to base plate fabrication and may impact structural steel installation scheduled for [date]. Normoyle reserves the right to claim any resultant delay costs if resolution is not provided within the requested timeframe. Submitted by: _________________ Date: _________ [Project engineer — to sign before issue] This RFI is subject to review and approval by a Normoyle project engineer before issue to [Builder name].
The engineer described the issue in a 6-line prompt. The agent searched the drawing register, found three related drawings, identified the spec clause, assigned the RFI number, structured the query professionally, included the programme impact statement, and produced a complete draft. What would have taken 45–60 minutes took 90 seconds of agent processing and 5 minutes of engineer review. On a project generating 5 RFIs per week, that's 3–4 hours saved every week on this task alone.
Production-ready RFI agent system prompt
ROLE You are a project documentation assistant for F&D Normoyle Engineering. You draft RFIs and RFI responses for project engineers to review, approve, and issue to Tier 1 builders. YOUR TASK When asked to draft an RFI or RFI response: 1. Search available drawings for all relevant references 2. Identify applicable specification clauses 3. Assign the next sequential RFI number from the register 4. Draft the RFI in Normoyle standard format 5. Include programme impact statement if fabrication is affected 6. Flag anything you could not confirm from available documents MANDATORY RULES - All RFIs are DRAFT — status never changes to ISSUED by you - Never assign a number already used in the RFI register - Always reference the specific drawing number AND revision - Always request a response date (default: 2 business days; URGENT items: next business day) - Include programme impact if fabrication dates are affected - Tone: professional, factual, non-adversarial Normoyle's relationship with Tier 1 builders is a long-term commercial asset — language must reflect this at all times - Never make claims or admissions about Normoyle's liability without engineer review — flag for legal review if in doubt RFI FORMAT (all fields required): To / From / Project / Contract / RFI No. / Date / Priority Response required by: [date] Subject: [concise, specific] Drawing reference(s): [number, revision, detail label] Specification reference(s): [section and clause] Query: [clear, numbered questions] Programme impact: [if applicable] Submitted by: [blank — engineer to sign] Footer: standard Normoyle review disclaimer WHAT YOU DO NOT DO: - Send RFIs or any communication to external parties - Commit to revised delivery dates or programme changes - Accept or reject proposed solutions on Normoyle's behalf - Make any statement that could be construed as an admission of fault or acceptance of liability
Worked example: procurement tracking
Steel procurement is one of the highest-risk areas of project delivery. Late deliveries cascade — if the steel isn't in the workshop, fabrication doesn't start; if fabrication doesn't start, installation is late; if installation is late, the Tier 1 builder may impose delay costs. The procurement agent's job is to catch late deliveries before they become programme problems.
The daily procurement status report
Each morning the procurement agent reads the PO register and produces this report for the PM — who reviews it over coffee, approves the draft emails, and sends:
DAILY PROCUREMENT STATUS — [Project name] Generated: [date 8:00am] · PM review required before any action ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚠ CRITICAL (overdue + on critical path) — IMMEDIATE PM ACTION ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PO-2025-041 310UB46 — 24 lengths @ 9m Supplier: InfraBuild Penrith Contact: [name] — [phone] Due: [3 days ago] Status: Not received — no update from supplier Programme: CRITICAL PATH — required for Frame 3 fabrication starting [date in 4 days] Action: Draft supplier email ready for PM approval [see Email Draft 01 below] Escalation: If not resolved today, programme delay of 3–5 days likely. PM to consider notifying builder. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚠ OVERDUE (past due date, not critical path) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PO-2025-038 Powder coat — batch 2 (balustrade panels) Supplier: [Coater name] Due: [2 days ago] Status: Not received — supplier confirmed "end of week" per last phone call [date] Programme: Float available — 5 days before installation Action: Monitor — no email required today ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ DUE TODAY ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PO-2025-044 M24 anchor bolts Gr 8.8 — 120 sets Supplier: Hobson Engineering Due: Today Status: Delivery confirmation received yesterday Action: Confirm on receipt — update register ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ AT RISK (due within 5 days) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PO-2025-046 16mm plate Gr350 — 2.4 tonne Supplier: BlueScope Distribution Due: [3 days] Status: Order confirmed, no delivery advice received Action: Draft courtesy check email ready [Email Draft 02] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ EMAIL DRAFT 01 — PO-2025-041 (CRITICAL — for PM approval) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ To: [supplier contact] <[email]> Subject: URGENT — PO-2025-041 — Overdue Delivery — 310UB46 Dear [name], We are writing regarding Purchase Order PO-2025-041 for the supply of 310UB46 × 24 lengths @ 9m, with a scheduled delivery date of [due date]. As of today this delivery has not been received and we have not received a revised delivery advice. This material is on the critical path for our fabrication programme and its absence will impact our installation commitment to our client. Please advise by return: 1. Current status of this order 2. Confirmed delivery date 3. Reason for delay If delivery cannot be confirmed for [date], please contact [PM name] on [phone] immediately. Regards, [PM name — to complete] F&D Normoyle Engineering ⚠ DRAFT — PM to review and send. Do not forward as-is.
Procurement agent system prompt
ROLE You are a procurement tracking assistant for F&D Normoyle Engineering. You monitor the purchase order register and help the project manager stay ahead of delivery risks. DAILY TASK (run each morning) 1. Read the PO register — all open orders 2. Categorise every open PO: CRITICAL: overdue AND flagged as critical path OVERDUE: past due date, not received DUE TODAY: delivery expected today AT RISK: due within 5 business days ON TRACK: all others — no action needed 3. For CRITICAL and OVERDUE items: - Draft a supplier follow-up email - Reference PO number, item description, due date - Request revised delivery date and reason for delay - Tone: firm but professional — not aggressive - Save draft — DO NOT SEND 4. For CRITICAL items additionally: - Flag clearly at the top of the report - Include programme impact assessment - Note if PM should consider notifying the builder 5. Output the daily status report: - Summary counts by category - Detail table: CRITICAL and OVERDUE items - AT RISK items with due dates - Draft emails for PM review MANDATORY RULES - Never send emails — drafts only, for PM approval - Never close or modify PO records directly - Never commit to revised delivery dates with suppliers - Never contact the builder directly about procurement issues without PM instruction - Always include the PM's name and phone number in drafts [left blank for PM to complete if not in register] - Flag if the same supplier has multiple overdue orders
Progress reporting agent
Weekly and fortnightly progress reports to Tier 1 builders are a contractual requirement — and writing them from scratch is one of the most time-consuming recurring tasks in project administration. The progress reporting agent takes your programme data and site inputs and produces a complete draft report in the client's required format.
What the agent needs
- Programme baseline (CSV export from MS Project or Primavera) Export your programme as a CSV with columns: activity, planned start, planned finish, planned % complete. The agent reads this as the baseline against which actuals are measured.
- Actuals input from site supervisor A simple weekly form — can be a text message, email, or shared spreadsheet — with actual % complete per activity and any issues or delays noted. The agent reads this and compares to baseline.
- Previous report Upload last week's report so the agent can maintain narrative continuity — referencing previous achievements, tracking issues that were ongoing, and avoiding contradicting what was reported before.
- Client's required report format Different Tier 1 builders have different templates. Upload a blank copy of the required format and the agent will map its content into it.
PROGRESS REPORT — [Project name] Reporting period: [Monday date] to [Friday date] Contract number: [No.] Submitted by: F&D Normoyle Engineering Prepared: [date] · DRAFT — PM review required before submission 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Fabrication of Frame 3 structural steel is progressing well, currently 2 days ahead of programme following resolution of the anchor bolt RFI (NE-RFI-047) earlier this week. The outstanding risk to programme remains the delayed delivery of 310UB46 sections (PO-2025-041, now 5 days overdue) which are required to commence Frame 4 fabrication next Monday. This has been escalated to InfraBuild and a revised delivery confirmation is expected by [date]. 2. PROGRAMME STATUS Activity Plan% Actual% Variance Status ────────────────────────────── ───── ─────── ──────── ────── Frame 1 — Fabrication 100% 100% 0% COMPLETE Frame 2 — Fabrication 100% 100% 0% COMPLETE Frame 3 — Fabrication 60% 75% +15% AHEAD Frame 3 — Surface prep 20% 10% -10% BEHIND Frame 4 — Fabrication 0% 0% 0% AT RISK Base plates — all frames 100% 100% 0% COMPLETE Installation — Frame 1 40% 40% 0% ON TRACK 3. ACHIEVEMENTS THIS PERIOD · Completed Frame 3 structural fabrication ahead of programme · Resolved anchor bolt PCD discrepancy (RFI NE-RFI-047) — revised drawing DWG-003 Rev C received and issued to shop · All base plates delivered to site and signed off 4. ISSUES AND RISKS Issue Impact Action Owner Due ────────────── ────────────── ────────────────── ─────── ──── PO-2025-041 Frame 4 fab Chasing InfraBuild [PM] [date] 310UB46 delay delayed 3–5 days — revised ETA req'd Frame 3 surface 2-day delay in Subcontractor [PM] [date] prep behind finishing sched notified, overtime authorised 5. NEXT PERIOD PROGRAMME · Complete Frame 3 surface preparation and painting · Commence Frame 4 fabrication (subject to 310UB46 delivery) · Continue Frame 1 installation on site · Submit Frames 1–2 inspection records for client sign-off 6. PHOTOS [INSERT SITE PHOTOS — shop fabrication and site installation] Submitted by: _________________ Date: _________ [Project manager]
Connecting agents to your existing tools
The delivery agents don't require replacing any of your current project management tools — they connect to what you already use. Start with file-based connections (the simplest), then upgrade to live integrations as confidence grows.
| Your tool | Connection method | What's automated | Complexity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Excel PO register | Save as CSV daily; agent reads file. Or connect via Google Sheets if register is in Sheets. | Daily procurement status, overdue flagging, draft supplier emails | Low — CSV file read, no setup required |
| Shared drive (drawing folder) | Agent searches folder by filename. Consistent file naming essential: DWG-003-Rev-B.pdf | Drawing lookup for RFIs, compliance checks, submittal references | Low — requires consistent naming convention |
| Outlook / Gmail | Agent drafts to a text file or shared folder. PM copies and sends from email client. | Supplier follow-ups, RFI transmittals, submittal chasers — all as drafts | Low — no email integration needed at first |
| MS Project | Export programme as CSV (File → Export → CSV). Upload to agent weekly. | Progress report programme comparison, delay identification, schedule narrative | Low — manual export, agent reads CSV |
| Aconex / Procore | Export RFI and submittal registers as CSV. Upload to agent. Full API integration possible later. | RFI numbering, submittal status tracking, overdue approval chasers | Medium — export/import workflow initially; API later |
| SharePoint | SharePoint API via n8n (see Setup guide). Or export lists as CSV manually. | Drawing register sync, document version tracking, submittal register | Medium — n8n connector available |
Hands-on exercise: draft your first RFI
Use Claude.ai Projects with the RFI agent system prompt. You need a past project where an RFI was raised — pick one you remember well so you can evaluate the output against the actual document.
- Set up a Claude Project called "Normoyle RFI Agent" Paste the RFI agent system prompt from above into Custom Instructions. Upload: the drawing register for your chosen project (a simple list is fine), the relevant spec sections, and 2–3 examples of past Normoyle RFIs so the agent learns your format and tone.
- Describe a past RFI issue in plain language Don't try to write a formal RFI — just tell the agent what the problem was in the same way you'd explain it to a colleague. Include the drawing number, what the issue was, and whether there was any programme impact.
- Review the draft against the actual RFI Compare: Did it reference the right drawing and revision? Did it find the relevant spec clause? Is the query clear and professional? Is the programme impact statement appropriate? Is the tone right for a Tier 1 builder?
- Identify two improvements to make to the system prompt Based on what the agent got wrong or missed, add two specific rules to the system prompt. Retest with the same input and confirm the improvements work.
- Try a procurement scenario Add the procurement agent system prompt to a second Project. Create a simple mock PO register CSV with 5–6 orders — some overdue, one critical path — and ask the agent to produce the daily status report. Review the output for accuracy and tone.
Common mistakes with delivery agents
Approving and sending an agent-drafted RFI or supplier email without reading it carefully. Agents occasionally mis-state dates, reference wrong drawing revisions, or use slightly off-tone language. Every external communication must be read before sending.
The agent references drawings from an outdated register. If it cites DWG-003 Rev A when Rev B has been issued, the RFI looks unprofessional and may reference superseded information. Keep the drawing register current — it's the agent's primary source.
Instructing the agent to be "firm" and getting output that reads as aggressive toward the builder. Normoyle's Tier 1 relationships are long-term commercial assets. If an RFI sounds like a legal threat, rewrite it before sending. The system prompt should emphasise professional and non-adversarial.
The agent assigns a number from a register that hasn't been updated since the last session. Always upload the current RFI register before asking the agent to number a new RFI — or check the assigned number manually against your master register.
Sending an RFI without a programme impact statement when fabrication is genuinely at risk. This is one of the most valuable things the agent adds — it prompts the builder to prioritise the response. If fabrication is affected, always include it.
Trying to configure a single agent to handle RFIs, procurement, and progress reporting. Each agent type needs its own system prompt, its own reference files, and its own Claude Project. Keep them separate — it makes each one more accurate and easier to maintain.