01
Firm data spine
Fee book, timesheets, QuickBooks / GL truth, project registry, issued document packs. The economics and the paper trail live in one place.
Consulting engineering practice OS
From fee to field.
Fees, shop drawings, RFIs, and monthly billing — the work a PE firm already does — in one system with memory and PE gates those tools do not have.
1 / 5 · Shop drawings
What it is
An operating system for the PE firm — not an AI engineer.
Multi-discipline consulting practice, electrical first, mechanical and construction administration in the same fabric. Three layers, one record. It is not a chat widget. It does not stamp.
02
Practice loop
Desks and agents propose, compare, draft, and surface exceptions. Partners and staff work the queue. Humans decide. Especially the PE.
03
Local firm brain
Grounded in this firm’s issued sets — not generic web text. Forward-only learning. Old contracts are not secretly expanded.
What it does
The week of a consulting firm, in one loop.
High-stakes document and money decisions that only a PE firm owns. Done weekly, under deadline, where a wrong answer is professional risk.
Fee
Price from memory, not folklore
What you bid, what you won, what the job actually cost in hours and net. The next package is justified from the firm’s own history.
Fee desk · won / lost · phase and scope lines
Time
Partner review by pay period
Who filed what, on active jobs versus quiet ones. Not another spreadsheet archaeology session every two weeks.
Timesheets · claimed vs active · billing cycle
Issued set
Review against this issue — only
Shop drawings, specs, RFIs, CCNs. Retrieve the right instrument. Catch coordination misses. Draft the letter. Do not invent obligations from an old project.
SDR · RFI · CCN · site visit · occupancy
Seal
The PE is still the PE
Model output is a proposal, a draft, or a flag. Unknown is preferred to fabrication. The seal is a timestamped human decision.
PE-final · inspectable basis · human override
Modules · same doors as the practice home
Everything on the desk. Named the way the PE named it.
This is the live home IA — not a marketing invention. Construction desks have product stills below. The rest are the same tiles a partner sees after Log in.
On the job
DesignActive rail · living design brief · Forge Risk · agents SpecWrite a spec · sections · issued-set brain · reference library ConstructionShop drawings · RFI · CCN / SI · field / occupancyOne sample job · invented names
A sample mid-rise as the template.
An illustrative multi-year residential job — not a live client file. Names, addresses, and project numbers below are sample only. This is the spine Forge is built to run — design issue, shop drawing, RFI, change, field.
| Forge desk | What ran on this job | Record |
|---|---|---|
| Design issue | Permit, tender, re-tender, re-issued building permit, then IFC. Every later review is measured against that IFC set — not the internet. | Sample permit → tender → IFC |
| Shop drawing · M | Mechanical line items against the IFC schedule. Three PE verdicts only: Reviewed, Reviewed with comments, Revise & resubmit. Resubmits loop back into the same desk. | Sample register · Reviewed / RWC / R&R |
| Shop drawing · E | Electrical submittal record on the same building: switchgear, fire alarm, lighting, generator, metering, transformers. Forge drafts findings; the PE stamp is still the record. | Sample electrical reviews in the file |
| SDR example | Booster pump returned Revise & resubmit — “resubmit per mech. schedule.” That review exposed a wrong incoming-water-pressure assumption. | Sample R&R → Reviewed |
| CCN | Contemplated change notices. Design/cost changes, not chatter. A sample pump review became CCN-04: incoming water assumption revised, pumps resized. | Sample CCN-01 … CCN-09 |
| Site instruction | No-cost clarifications. A wall-box coordination miss became two site instructions, not a redesign by chat. | Sample SI-01 – SI-25 |
| RFI | Field and coordination questions answered against the issued set. Each either SI or CCN, then back to resubmit. | Sample RFI register with PE answers |
| Site visit | Site visit reports as a counted record, not a photo dump. Issued letters stay distinct from “we have evidence a visit happened.” | Sample SVR file · issued letters separate |
| M ↔ E completeness | Same building, two consultant files. Forge holds them as a comparison fixture — mechanical vs electrical set completeness — not one mashed project. | Split job · toggle, do not merge |
| Issued-set brain | Electrical spec chunked for retrieval on this job. Reviews cite this issue. Learning does not rewrite the IFC after the fact. | Sample spec chunks on the tender set |
| Honesty gate | Where Forge and the human PE diverge, the page does not hide it. On a linked electrical bake-off set, Forge was often stricter. The PE still approved. That is the product working. | PE-final · unknown preferred to a fake pass |
Textbook chain
A shop drawing that changed the design.
01 · SDR
Returned
Booster-pump submittal does not match the mechanical schedule. Verdict: revise & resubmit.
02 · Finding
Assumption breaks
Incoming water was carried at 60 psi. Site / resubmittal shows 90 psi. The schedule is now wrong.
03 · CCN
Engineer changes the job
Sample CCN-04. Pumps resized after the pressure assumption broke. Revised drawings issue. Contractor resubmits.
04 · Seal
Reviewed
Corrected submittal accepted. The PE decided. The record is inspectable. Sample names only.
In the product · sample job
Same job. Different desks.
Tabs swap the still. Public pictures stay sample-only — no live client names.
Shop drawing review against the IFC set. Verdicts: Reviewed, RWC, Revise & resubmit.
Where it lives
In the browser. In your hand. In the office.
There is no separate “marketing site product” and “real product.” The practice OS is the web app. The phone carries the same work into the field. Heavy project brains can stay on hardware you control.
Primary
Browser
The most complete Forge. Screen-for-screen the system of record: fee, time, judgment desks, HQ, audit. Sign in on a laptop in the office and you are in the practice.
Web application · multi-tenant · firm entitlement
Field
iPhone & iPad
Native app for the same practice loop — not a dashboard screenshot. Site, occupancy, RFI, time, while you are still on the floor.
Residency
Local firm brain
Large issued-set packs can live on a firm volume. Originals stay read-only. Learning is firm-scoped.
How it helps
It encodes process so juniors cannot chat past the PE.
Copilot and ChatGPT are strong general assistants. Construction platforms optimize for the GC and the owner. Forge sits on the consultant’s side of the desk — the party that stamps, bills professional fees, and answers RFIs under the contract.
Hours that actually bill
Fee stance from won history and accounting net. Quiet project numbers surface before they write off. Time review is a partner job, not a hunt.
Letters that cite the issued set
SDR and RFI drafts grounded in this issue. Fewer clean-pass misses. Less rewriting the same coordination note.
Wrong answers stay visible
Gaps, uncertainty, and dispose / promote ledgers. The system is not allowed to sound sure when it is not.
The firm keeps the brain
No free-for-all training of one customer’s work product into another’s. Isolation is architecture, not a policy PDF.
Who buys
PE principal or managing partner of a small-to-mid M&E firm. Typically the person who still lives in fees, SDR, and monthly billing pain.
Who uses it daily
Partners on desks and queues. Designers on drafts and hours. Accounting on the billing cycle. If it is only opened for demos, it has failed.
Who it is not for
General contractors buying a field app. Teams that want an unsupervised AI engineer. Anyone who needs Forge’s name on the client PDF — outputs stay the firm’s.
The loop
From fee to field.
A client wants a building. The request lands on the engineer’s desk. The engineer opens it, and begins. Forge starts when the engineer starts. It does not replace the engineer. It keeps every moment organized, evidenced — and decided by the engineer.
Next
Ask for a walkthrough.
Forge is in design-partner use with practicing M&E firms. It is not a public self-serve signup. Email us — we will not put a fake “Get started free” on a PE liability product.
Forgengine Inc. · Ontario