INSIDE CSI
Robert Paul Dean, FAIA, FCSI, CCS
Many architectural and engineering firms continue to rely on master guide specifications (MaGS) for assistance in keeping abreast of developments in building products and construction industry processes. These practice aids originated 40 to 50 years ago, to assist design professionals who had heavily relied on printed product catalogs and visits from product representatives for useful specifications data.
Today, the Internet has minimized or eliminated the library of building product catalogs for most firms, and only the largest manufacturers still field armies of product reps. Commercial master guide specifications, on the other hand—originally delivered only in loose-leaf hard copy—are still with us. They have changed significantly from the early years, and the changes will accelerate as Internet search tools evolve and building information modeling (BIM) becomes the modus operandi for architectural practice.
Today, MaGS offer design firms a relatively inexpensive way to keep project specifications more or less up to date and representative of the products and services actually available in the marketplace. The smaller the firm, the more likely it is to rely on the information provided in these tools. Unfortunately, the data provided in many MaGS is neither comprehensive nor completely current.
For the CSI-owned BSD SpecLink-E, the master specifications are the most updated guides available, because periodic file replacement has been supplanted by continuous, online updating on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis. Nevertheless, it is impossible to keep all sections totally current at all times, because there are more than 730 guide sections and many thousands of pages in our database. Further, no commercial product is truly comprehensive, because company resources limit the amount of research that can be conducted. Additionally, because of the amount of text involved, genuinely comprehensive MaGS would be virtually impossible for users to edit efficiently with existing technology.
Another limitation is the fact MaGS cannot prevent specifiers from producing impossible combinations of required attributes. Despite the intelligent linking in BSD SpecLink-E that helps edit project specifications in accordance with the user’s selected choices, no master guide specification can absolutely guarantee any one or more manufacturers will be capable of providing the exact products described in the final documents. In many cases, this is even true of proprietary guide specifications written around the products of a single manufacturer.
Despite the limitations of today’s commercial MaGS, they are clearly better than nothing and are used to one degree or another by a majority of design firms (even when they pay for a subscription sporadically instead of annually). The real question is how these practice tools can be improved to provide more current, comprehensive, and better-coordinated data to avoid generating specifications for products that do not actually exist.
The future of master guide specifications is tied to the Internet and to BIM. There are myriad benefits in having a comprehensive database of building products that can be searched not only by keywords, MasterFormat numbers, and manufacturer and product names, but also by product attributes. Every building product available in the marketplace would be categorized by its relevant properties, so a specialized search engine would be able to quickly find, for example, every roofing product capable of being used on a dead level deck, with a minimum solar reflective index of 0.75, and with a 20-year warranty.
Additionally, the relative cost of the products might allow them to be ranked, from least to most expensive. Each product on the website would have its own BIM objects that could be downloaded and dropped into an electronic building model. These objects, in turn, would be linked to descriptive text that would be automatically inserted into an appropriate specification template for final review and editing.
The scenario described above is not going to happen overnight, but it is coming. We are steadily moving in that direction, with bits and pieces of the system already in place or about to be activated.
Master guide specifications will not disappear, but in order to remain relevant they must continue to evolve with available technology. The need for specifiers will never cease to exist, but the spec writer’s role will inevitably change. I believe specifiers will become the experts who determine which product criteria are important in a particular situation and which values are appropriate for each attribute. Those using the future MaGS will assemble the specifications dynamically from the latest data available, rather than editing potentially obsolete master text.
Robert Paul Dean, FAIA, FCSI, CCS, is president of Building Systems Design Inc., which is owned by CSI and offers the master guide specification system, BSD SpecLink-E. Since 1979, he has written content and prepared updates for every major U.S. master guide specification, including MasterSpec, SpecText, SweetSpec, SPECSystem, PerSpective, BSD SpecLink-E, and even the proprietary guides offered by ARCAT. Dean is also a past member of the MasterFormat Maintenance Task Team. He can be reached via e-mail at rdean@bsdsoftlink.com.
Excellent article, compelling argument.