At the center of the building process is what is actually being built, and that comes from specifications, combined with drawings. CSI past Board Chair Ron Geren has a unique perspective on how specs work, how standards like MasterFormat and OmniClass organize them, and how specifications form the basis for construction data and processes. Ron explains how the standards fit together, and how they've been leveraged to create Crosswalk.
Learn more about Crosswalk here: https://www.crosswalk.digital
[00:00:00] Hugh Seaton: Today, I'm here with Ron Geren, former board chair of CSI, Ron, welcome to the podcast.
[00:00:09] Ron Geren: Thank you.
[00:00:11] Hugh Seaton: Ron, you're one of our most esteemed subject matter experts, and I wanted to ask you to start from the beginning and talk to me about what specifiers do.
[00:00:21] Ron Geren: Well specifiers their role is to take the information that the architects are putting together. And, or I should say architects, or engineers, specifiers support both design professions. They take the information that the architect is putting together, the materiality aspect of it, and try to establish the quality of those materials.
The drawings themselves tend indicate where things go, what the size, shape of the material is. However, there is not much information about what that material entails or what that component entails. So I specification needs to define what that material is, in regards to either performance, certain characteristics, maybe even limit it to various sources various manufacturers.
And it also gets into the installation. Of the material and component itself. And so a lot of that, you know, you just can't put all that kind of information on the drawing. So it would just overcome the graphic nature of the drawings. So a specifier is one of those persons, either as an independent specifier or as an in-house specifier, working as an employee for an architectural or engineering firm.
And they would take that information from either their client or the architects, the design team, and develop the specifications to support the project that they're designing. So a day in the life of a specifier would be gathering that information from the design team, researching the types of materials that are being proposed, and looking at their potential characteristics and sometimes maybe even advising the design team in the direction of applicable types of products. And then they'll take that research and then put that into a specification form that is then published by the project in a project manual, which contains the specifications plus other related construction documents, generally like bidding and contracting information, or we call procurement documents.
And that information then is published along with the set of drawings. And then when the contractors put their bids or proposals they have all the information they need in order to come up with a price. And then once the project is awarded, the contractor can also then use that information to build the project and purchase the materials based on what the specifications require.
So the specifier is constantly looking at all the materials on the project. What their applications are, how they interface with other materials on the job site, because some materials are more compatible with some materials and not others. And so you have to take a look at that as well. And then once they put the specifications together, then they kind of advise the design team during the procurement process when substitutions come in. Then they can take a look at those substitutions to see if they meet the intent of the specifications, the requirements of the specifications.
And then during construction, the same thing will happen. They may be allowed to have substitutions during construction. The specifier will help the design team and going through those substitutions may even help out during the process of reviewing submittals that come in from the contractor before they are actually integrated into the project.
So the specifier is pretty much involved throughout the entire duration of the project. However, the bulk of their effort is during the design process, primarily in the construction documents phase, although they do get involved in the earlier phases of design, like schematic design and design development, where the design is starting to take shape and there needs to be some type of written documents to kind of describe the types of materials are going in. These are not going to be used for construction purposes. They're more or less necessary in order to convey the design intent to the client.
And so that information may or may not be developed by the specifiers, especially at schematic design when they have what they call like preliminary project description that organizes construction information on a more elemental basis rather than very detailed information.
And then at a design development where the design gets a little more refined. There's a little more focus on the materiality of the project than an outlined spec can be generated to it starts to take shape of the final specifications, but only very basic information is included in that outline spec.
[00:05:35] Hugh Seaton: Really interesting. And for listeners who don't know what a three-part spec is, can you describe what that is?
[00:05:42] Ron Geren: Yeah. The three part spec is basically a very generic term for what CSI publishes as SectionFormat. SectionFormat is published by CSI, it defines the three part specification; part one: general, part two: products; and part three: execution.
And in the part one: general, you have all your administrative type information in there would talk about submittals, payment options. If there's, if the item being specified in that section is subject to an allowance or a unit price or something like that. Then there's also a project conditions, quality assurance items that can be defined right up front and the specifications.
And part two: products. This is essentially the meat of the specification. This is where the products under that particular specifications section. The products will be described in their characteristics, basic performance requirements. It would also address any shop fabrication that needs to be done. If it's something that's not manufactured, but fabricated in a shop, like casework, then those shop requirements would be specified.
Any finishes applicable to the product. And this is generally a shop applied finish, or a manufacturer applied finished. And so that we'll get into all the details of the products themselves. And at this point, it is just focused on the products, it doesn't get into the physical installation of those materials out at the job site.
And that's where part three, execution, comes in. So once the products and materials are delivered to the job site, part three execution then describes how the product gets installed into its final place on the project. And it'll cover certain requirements about the installation.
Generally it kind of defaults to the manufacturers installation instructions because one manufacturer’s product is not installed exactly the same way as another manufacturers. But there are some things you want to focus on here. Primarily if there's tolerances involved in the installation, you want to make sure that the final product is involved within a certain range tolerance range, so that it's not too out of whack, so to speak.
And then there may be a certain field quality criteria that you would address such as inspections, special inspections testing. So once it's already in place, you want to go through and make sure it's actually performing the way it's supposed to in its installed location.
[00:08:23] Hugh Seaton: So is part of the job of the specifier then to know where the building is being constructed, and then go look up and say, “okay, I'm going to go research and make sure that we understand what inspections and testings are necessary for that jurisdiction.”
[00:08:38] Ron Geren: It's a little more general than that. There are testing inspections that are required by local building departments. That's usually dictated by the building code. And so there may be certain times where a local jurisdiction would have specific requirements for testing and inspection. That would be one part of that.
The other part would be, just to make sure that what you're getting is... what you're getting, and what you specified. And so there may be certain tests and inspections that as a specifier you want because you just want to make sure that it will actually perform. And it may be in addition to what the city requires for their inspections.
Sometimes the jurisdiction really has no concern about the installation of certain items. And so they don't have a minimum testing or inspection requirement, but the design team, in wanting to make sure that what is installed will actually work, may require those quality assurance or quality control type tests.
[00:09:46] Hugh Seaton: That's really interesting. And talking about prefab and, well, you really didn't say prefab, you said fabrication, which made me think of prefab. Sometimes that's under means and methods, is that sometimes also you know, under the specifiers domain.
[00:10:01] Ron Geren: Oh, oh yes, definitely. There's a lot of things that can be done in the shop and not in the field because you can con[trol]... I mentioned tolerances. Tolerances are easier to control in a shop environment than in the field environment.
And so where a tolerances are really important, specifying shop fabrication may be necessary and almost made a requirement. Some specifications will allow the option for the contractor to either do it in shop or in the field. And if they do it in shop, there may be additional requirements maybe a what they call source quality control type inspections, where before it's actually delivered out to the jobs.
The quality control inspection is done at the shop to make sure everything is fabricated properly before it's delivered to the job site. And then once it's out on the job site, then there may be some additional quality control, the field quality control requirements.
A good example of this is some types of curtain wall systems, especially those with what they call structural sealants that hold the glass in place. And a lot of those are fabricated in the shops because it's just much easier to control the quality of the installation when it's done in the shop. So, the fabrication can be done in the shop. You can do a source quality control inspection and testing of the materials in the shop itself. Once those passed and they're delivered out to the job site and then each of those curtain wall panels are then set into place into their framing and then once they're set into place. So you have a field quality to control that will come in and test the entire assembly to make sure that there are no leaks. Whether water comes in or air can leak out or anything like that. So that's one example.
And then there's prefabrication that even goes at a grander scale where you're looking at almost entire room assemblies can be fabricated in a shop and then brought out to the job site and set into place and which this may even span over several sections of the project manual, the specifications sections, whereas the curtain wall section, for the curtain wall prefab, that would be addressed in one section. Let's say, for example, you have a restroom... bathroom component that's shop fabricated.
You've got all the plumbing and you've got all the electrical. You've got the fixtures themselves. Sometimes the interior finishes, doors, ceilings, floor systems. All these components are all specified in various parts of a project manual and then all come together to create that prefabricated unit that is then delivered out to the job site installed.
So that gets a little more complex of an area of specifications.
[00:12:49] Hugh Seaton: Earlier you talked about when substitutions are made, they'll often come back to the specifier and, and have a discussion and decide on what the way to go forward. Sometimes if you're talking about prefab, it's not obvious that the contractor that wins a bid can handle this versus that.
So do you find that sometimes when the winning contractor is able to do more with prefab and modular, that that's how that shows up is they say, well, not only can we handle the spec as written, but we can actually do some of this in a different way. And they come back and say, this isn't just means and methods.
This is actually impacting how the spec is written. Is there, is that interplay... are you finding that as prefab and modular become somewhat more popular? That that is that how that works.
[00:13:33] Ron Geren: Some contractors do that as a means and methods. In other words, the specifications may be silent on that particular aspect.
But the contractors seeing the benefit of doing that in a prefab methodology, they have the right to do that for means and methods. And as long as the final installed product meets the requirements of the specifications and the drawings, then there should be no issues between the contractor and the architect with that particular method.
And that is primarily the decision that a contractor will make, it's not necessarily dictated to the contracting team. And if it's a, let's say a competitive bid type project and one contractor is very well versed in prefabrication and they can reduce costs that way, then that's a competitive advantage for that particular company.
And they can go in with a lower bid by using a prefabricated means and methods. And then other contractors who were planning on doing field installation for everything may have a higher labor cost associated with that, higher waste cost as well, and may not end up getting the bid.
[00:14:53] Hugh Seaton: That's really, really interesting.
Now you mentioned, or you've used the word “sections” a few times, which makes, makes me want to now ask you to explain a little bit about MasterFormat.
[00:15:02] Ron Geren: MasterFormat is a classification system that CSI developed back in the sixties to organize construction information. And it was initially intended to organize the way specifications are published for construction.
Prior to the development of MasterFormat, the architects and engineers wrote specifications and they'd use their own format for structuring that. And then a contractor going from one job to the next would not know exactly where all the information is because it may be in one location in one architect's office and then a completely different area in another architect's office.
And so it was very hard to find information and would end up being time consuming. So the development of MasterFormat back in the sixties created 16 divisions. And that was pretty much the extent of it. They had the typical division eight for doors and windows. And so everybody knew that in division eight. If you're looking for a door and window, you go to division eight of the project manual. That made it easier, you didn't have to look from cover to cover in order to find where all the doors and windows were specified.
And then MasterFormat has grown over the decades. And now we have more than just divisions. We have individual numbers and titles within those divisions and those numbers have changed over time. Primarily there were a five digit number up until the 1995 edition. And then in 2004 CSI made a major change to MasterFormat because the old 16 divisions five digits used for the numberings system just, there was not enough capacity there for all the materials and technologies that were coming into the construction industry. And so CSI expanded MasterFormat to include 50 divisions, 49 of which address specifically construction specifications. The other division focuses on non specifications, such as procurement and contracting requirements.
And within those 49 specification divisions, there are multiple numbers and titles that break down into specific what we call work results. And a work result is essentially a material or a product plus the labor to install it. So for example carpeting is a division nine material in a MasterFormat... don't know exactly what the number is right off the top of my head, but the type of carpeting specified would be dependent upon what the architect wants, whether if it's a carpet tiles or rolled bod loom carpeting, that would be specified in that carpeting section.
So that'd be one material. But that's just the carpeting itself or the carpet itself. There may be other materials and all, such as adhesive to hold it down. There may be a pad underneath it. There may be a little transition strips associated with the carpeting, installation tack strips.
So whatever is necessary for the installation of that. All those materials would be specified within that section. And then... but if you delivered all those materials to the job site, here's the role of a carpet. And then here's the padding and here's buckets of adhesive.
You still don't have carpeting yet because it's not installed. And so you have to apply labor to it, to actually install all the materials that were specified so that you end up... now what we call the work result of final product of carpeting installed in the building. And that's what MasterFormat does, is it organizes work results into a classification system that makes it easy to find that information when you need to look it up.
[00:18:57] Hugh Seaton: And it's worth underscoring something that, as soon as I say it, will be obvious, but there are hundreds of things that go into a building. I was going to say, I'm trying to be trying to be conservative here, but really it's an absolutely impossible task if you need to find something without MasterFormat to really guide what you're looking. And to your point in a modern building where you've got thousands and potentially millions of items going into it, you can imagine how impossible it would be for one company to communicate with another, in this case, the design and architecture team and then the specifying team, and then the, well, I mean, those are kind of two, one unit, but... into a contractor and then subcontractors. I mean, there's multiple entities that go into building a building and without something like MasterFormat to guide you, it's hard... to say the least.
[00:19:50] Ron Geren: Most project manuals could end up with anywhere from a 100 to 200, maybe even more specifications sections, looking at the entirety of the project manual, which includes mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and all the specialties. In addition to what the architect provides. As an architect, myself and writing specifications, many of my projects exceed 100 sections just for the architectural part of it.
And so you can imagine with all the mechanical, electrical, structural and all the other consultants added onto that, you can be well over 200, almost 300 sections. And to ask a contractor to be familiar with every single page within that project manual from cover to cover is going to be a daunting task, especially when they have to go in and find something.
Imagine that project manual thousands of pages and trying to find out where the requirements are for an adhesive that holds on the rubber wall base on a floor system.
[00:20:59] Hugh Seaton: Right.
[00:20:59] Ron Geren: You know, you could be going through thousands of pages because you don't know where that is, but with MasterFormat, you can narrow that down to division nine immediately. And then within division nine, if you're familiar with the organization of the sections within that chapter, you can very quickly go to that individual section that addresses floor base. So you don't have to spend hours searching thousands of pages, just to try to find that one small material requirement.
[00:21:29] Hugh Seaton: Yeah. And it's, it functions like an index, right? I mean, you don't have to familiar would be great, but even if you're not, you just go look at a reference of what, of how MasterFormat works and you can, you can figure out what numbers and titles to look for to find what you're looking for.
[00:21:42] Ron Geren: That's a very good example. That's like having an index to a project manual without actually having to publish an index to the project manual.
[00:21:51] Hugh Seaton: So I want to spend just a minute on UniFormat. What was UniFormat created for and how does it relate to MasterFormat?
[00:21:59] Ron Geren: UniFormat was created to provide a classification system for building elements rather than individual work results that MasterFormat addresses.
When I talk about building elements we're looking at a broader scope here. For example the building envelope of a building consists of exterior walls, roof systems. It has a superstructure which supports that building envelope and the building envelope may be part of the superstructure.
But at early phases of the of the design project, the architect isn't looking at what kind of adhesives are going to be used to hold something together. They're looking at what am I going to make this building out of? And so you're looking at broad scopes things. So they're looking at what the building envelope is going to entail, what that roofing system is going to be.
What kind of structural system is going to be holding that up? What kind of foundation systems is going to be needed or support that. And then on the inside what kind of wall construction is going to be necessary in order to divide the spaces. They're not getting into the various details associated with each one of those assemblies.
They'll be looking at design decisions of a curtain wall. They haven't decided what kind of curtain wall yet, but they know that maybe a curtain wall system is going to be used. They're going to be looking at a panelized system. So it could be any one of many types of metal wall panels, or could even be a different type of wall panel on the outside of cladding system.
And so they may be looking at all of these ideas. And so UniFormat is organized around those very basic building elements. And you can describe the building at an earlier stage using that type of structure rather than getting down into the weeds of what each individual material is associated with that assembly.
And it’s used primarily right now at the schematic design phase for Preliminary Project Descriptions. PPDs can be used to describe basic design intent of a project at the very early phases of the project. And it can be structured based on that UniFormat classification system. Another use of UniFormat is on Design-Build type projects where everything is performance-based. You're not talking about a particular design yet because that's the whole intent of the Design-Build delivery method is that you turn the project over to Design-Builder. They actually design it and then execute the construction of it.
So there are no drawings, there's no materials or anything associated with it, but the owner's got to convey their requirements to that Design-Build team. And the best way to do that is using an organizational structure like UniFormat to describe the performance characteristics of what the building envelope should be or what that structural system should be what that roofing system should be.
And so talking to establishing requirements for thermal transmission, light transmission for glazing systems, wind loading requirements on building envelopes, air leakage requirements. All of these are performance based requirements, but they don't get into the materiality of the project yet because that's up to the Design-Build team to put together, but they have to meet that criteria.
And it's much easier to explain the criteria of a Design-Build project using UniFormat as its organizational structure.
[00:25:51] Hugh Seaton: That's great. And it's interesting, something that was invented a while ago is now finding new application in Design-Build.
[00:25:59] Ron Geren: Yes, definitely.
[00:26:00] Hugh Seaton: So Ron, I'd like to end with my favorite topic, which is Crosswalk.
Talk to me a little bit about how you see Crosswalk based on what we've talked about earlier with MasterFormat and UniFormat and, you know, backwards compatibility with MasterFormat. Just talk a little bit about how you see that, that adding value.
[00:26:16] Ron Geren: Well Crosswalk... in today's day and age of technology, everything is data driven and all that data can be organized under some type of organizational structure. And, for example, maybe a project starts out in UniFormat and now it needs to transition to MasterFormat and whatever structure are you using for all your information, data structure, you can now easily translate or transition to a MasterFormat by using Crosswalk to make that transition.
And then reverse compatibility, for example I’ve mentioned MasterFormat had changed from five digits to six, to sometimes eight digits under the new organizational structure. So somebody is looking at a current project and they recall, “you know, that oh yeah. We specified that, you know, 20 years ago on a different project, maybe we can go and look up that specification section.” You have no clue as to what section it may have been specified under at that time. You just plug in what the current MasterFormat number is, and then boom, you can find out what a MasterFormat 95 number was, and then it'll help do the research and searching your archives in order to find that particular section.
It can go both ways. And and it would also help with searching. If you're doing product searches and you know, that you're looking for something in as far as the building envelope goes, you can use UniFormat to narrow your search down to building envelope, the building shell, in other words, and find all products that could be classified to support the building shell. And then that may be even a, you want to refine that a little bit more and say, okay, I want to find curtain wall systems within the building shell. And so now you can plug in a it can search that based on a UniFormat number or MasterFormat number.
So it's a way of helping filter this large mass of construction information that's available out there, or it can be made available out there to individuals. Being able to readily access, access that information as quickly as possible.
[00:28:45] Hugh Seaton: Love it. Ron we could talk all day long, but I want to thank you for being on the podcast as ever I've learned a lot.
[00:28:52] Ron Geren: Oh, you're welcome. Joy to be here.