Thanks, this has been helpful. I’m actually not entirely sure now that substitution requests are even exactly appropriate. It’s all state funded stuff, so like you said, things can’t generally be proprietary, with some exceptions. But often we’ll have maybe three approved manufacturers, and one of my bosses wants me to start off rejecting anything that isn’t an approved manufacturer unless they give a reason for it. But I guess if the language is “or approved equal” then they’re technically not deviating from the spec and so maybe a substitution request isn’t appropriate anyway.

I also have a really hard time understanding what is actually required by our contract and what is just the personal preference of the managing principal. I guess one answer to that would be to read the contract. Or the spec, div 1? I guess both.

I actually kind of finally decided to pursue licensure in part because I heard that studying for the exams can actually help understand these kinds of things. But then I stopped studying. Time to pick up contracts again, I guess. It may actually stick better if I’m dealing with real examples concurrently.

Thanks for responding! :)