The job usually goes wrong before it starts—and the signs were there.
Fire drills don’t come out of nowhere. They come from a disconnect between what was discussed in the trailer and what’s actually happening in the field. Elevation mismatches. Missing rigging plans. Unclear install tolerances. A proper pre-job walkthrough catches them before they become chaos.
What gets missed without a walkthrough:
Mounting surfaces unprepared or out of spec
Refractory install zones not yet cured or scaffolded
Conflicts between your delivery and other trade activity
Top-performing distributors do this better than the GC:
Walk the job with field foremen and QA—not just PMs
Review install maps, cure sequences, and material access in real space
Flag conflict zones: thermal, clearance, anchor congestion
Walkthroughs aren’t just a GC task. They’re your chance to verify conditions, not just assumptions.
