Bridging the gap: Translating technical specs into work packs and site activities in construction with AI - Superior

In construction projects there is a persistent translation gap.

We talk about the same project in two different languages.

What is to be delivered in the contract documents and design basis:

Specifications and requirements
Standards and norms
Drawings and models

How it is actually built and controlled for execution and production:

Work packs and work fronts
Disciplines / processes and subcontractor responsibilities
Activities, resources and schedules

Between these two, something important has to happen:

Tender and contract documents have to be translated into execution descriptions every single time.

Most of the time, that translation lives in spreadsheets, mark-ups and people’s heads.
It is time-consuming, fragile, and comes with a very real risk of scope gaps and misunderstandings.

That is a problem in both tendering and execution.

The translation problem in construction projects

Specs, drawings and technical descriptions describe what needs to be delivered.
Work packs, activities and schedules describe how you are actually going to build it.

In between, there is a big manual job:

Reading through technical documents and trying to group requirements into logical work packs
Mapping those work packs to disciplines, areas, BOQ items and contractors
Keeping that structure up to date as documents, designs and assumptions change

This work is often tribal and time-pressured. A few key people sit with the real understanding of how the design maps to actual work. Everyone else relies on their interpretation.

Errors or gaps here show up as:

Mispricing and wrong quantities in tenders
Scope holes, double counting or unclear boundaries between trades
Execution issues when site teams realise that what is written and what is planned do not quite match

The contract may be clear. The schedule may be detailed. But if the translation between the two is weak, risk quietly builds up.

Why this matters in tendering

In tendering you are trying to answer a simple but difficult question:

Can we deliver this scope, at this risk level, for this price?

If the translation from technical scope to work packs is weak, several things happen.

Pricing is based on incomplete or misunderstood scope. Activities are planned without fully seeing the technical constraints they must satisfy. Risk reviews only see part of the picture, because the connection between requirements and work fronts is fuzzy.

You can end up with:

Items that were never properly priced because they were not clearly attached to any work pack
Risk that is hidden inside vague “general” items instead of linked to specific activities or areas
Procurement strategies that do not match how the work will actually be executed

In practice, this means you might win with a price that does not reflect the real effort, or lose because you had to price uncertainty too conservatively.

Why this matters in contract execution

The same gap shows up again in delivery.

Site teams think in terms of areas, systems, work fronts and activities. Contracts and specs think in terms of clauses, sections and technical requirements.

If you cannot clearly map what is written to what is done, it becomes hard to:

See which obligations apply to a specific work pack or activity
Do quality assurance against the correct requirements
Track the impact of design changes, RFIs and variations on time and cost

Change control is especially exposed. A small modification in a spec or drawing can affect multiple work packs, subcontract scopes and tests. If you cannot see that quickly, you either miss change, or you react too slowly.

The result is more firefighting, more time spent tracing requirements manually, and more room for disputes.

How an AI partner helps bridge the gap

This is where the right kind of AI can play the role of a project teammate.

Not by replacing planners, engineers or site managers, but by doing the heavy reading and structuring work that is hard to do manually at scale.

An AI teammate focused on this problem should:

Read technical specs, requirements, drawings and related documents
Help group and structure requirements into work-related categories: systems, zones, activities, work packs
Connect those requirements to contractual obligations and, where relevant, to BOQ items and responsibilities

From there, you can use the same structured understanding in two places:

In tendering for risk review, execution planning, pricing and procurement
In execution for planning, control, QA and change impact analysis

Instead of constantly re-translating specs into “work language” on the fly, you have a shared, structured view.

Use cases: how Work Packs are actually used

1. Bid management – overview early

For bid leads, the point is to get a real overview early – not on day ten.

With Work Packs in Volve, you can:

See all relevant work packs for the project in one place
Use AI summaries to understand scope, constraints and assumptions per pack
Get an initial view of key risk drivers tied to each work pack

That turns the early phase from “everyone reading their own documents” into a shared, structured overview of what this project actually contains.

2. Disciplines and process owners – detail where it matters

Discipline and process owners do not need everything. They need clear detail where it matters for them.

Work Packs let them:

Focus on selected work packs that touch their area or system
Run tailored questions inside those packs (“show me all requirements on X”)
See all requirements with references back to the underlying spec and contract text

Instead of digging through hundreds of pages, they see a filtered view of their obligations and interfaces – with a click back to the original wording when they need to verify.

3. Subcontractors and partners – the right information, less noise

Subcontractors price and plan based on what they are told. If that information is noisy or incomplete, problems show up later.

Using Work Packs as the basis for scope towards subs means you can:

Share only the relevant work packs and disciplines for their scope
Give them clear requirements and boundaries per pack
Provide a better basis for pricing, risk sharing and clarifications

The result is fewer scope holes, fewer double counts, and a cleaner starting point for both offers and later discussions.

4. Quality assurance – safer execution

Quality isn’t just about having a plan – it’s about checking the right things against the right requirements.

With Work Packs, you can:

Control the work against the relevant requirements for each specific work pack
Identify deviations and decisions directly against the governing contract text

Instead of generic checklists, QA is anchored in the actual specs and contractual obligations for that part of the work. That makes execution safer, and documentation stronger when questions come up later.

Where this fits in your workflow

This is not about a separate “AI phase”. It is about strengthening work you already do.

During tendering, you can use Volve to:

Structure technical requirements and obligations into contractor-friendly work packs
Review scope, boundaries and risk per work pack or discipline
Check that your planned execution model and pricing actually line up with what the documents say

During execution, you can use the same structure to:

Trace from an issue or change back to the relevant spec and contract text
See which work packs are affected by a change, and what that means for cost and time
Support QA by making it clear which requirements each work pack must satisfy

The idea is simple: use AI to keep the link between contract language and site language alive and visible, instead of relying on one-off spreadsheets and memory.

What we do at Volve

At Volve, this is exactly the problem space we are building into.

Our work pack approach is a new way of working with tender and contract documents:

Automatic structuring – Volve groups relevant content per work pack, with associated disciplines and processes, and clear definitions.
Dynamic interaction – you can zoom out for a quick overview or go down into detailed requirements and measures, using a multi-level interface.
Better risk control – it becomes easier to see scope, boundaries and risk per work pack and discipline.
Team collaboration – teams can share, review and build dynamic “sheets” for different project areas, and integrate their own checklists.

This is the first big step in a broader direction for Volve: connecting contractual and technical documents all the way to how work is actually carried out.

Because in the end, that is the gap that defines a lot of risk and value in construction: