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Successful highway construction is measured by cost, time, safety, and quality. One further measure of success is the quantity of Request for Information's (RFI) submitted and their impact. An RFI is a formal written procedure initiated by the contractor seeking additional information or clarification for issues related to design, construction, and other contract documents. The RFI process was identified as an important best practice for the delivery of major highway project and as a significant source of benchmarking and metric opportunities. Implementation of an RFI process is considered to be an integral part of successful project management for construction projects because it improves communication between the construction, design, and project management teams. The ability to quantitatively measure the performance of the RFI process has the potential to identify areas of concern within a project, to breakdown the reasons for why an RFI is submitted, and to understand the expected submittal rate of RFIs. However, there are no studies completed on the quantitative evaluation of the RFI process for highway construction. Even though the procedure for using RFIs has been documented by State Highway Agencies (SHAs), there are currently no available benchmarks or metrics identified as performance measures for use within the RFI process for major highway projects.

"Geochemical and geophysical investigations were conducted in late 1991 and early 1992 at an excavation in the southeast corner of the Senate wing of the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to locate the original cornerstone laid ceremoniously by President George Washington September 18, 1793. The strategy of the search was to detect the presence of a silver plate that, according to a 1793 newspaper article (The Columbian Mirror and Alexandria Gazette, September 25) was placed at the base of the foundation trench prior to lowering of the cornerstone upon it."---from the lead paragraph.