Key points from today’s article “Audit Reveals School Project in Northwest Overdue, Costly” in the Washington Times illustrates the value of specifications:
…Though the project was supposed to cost $17.1 million … ended up costing closer to $21 million…
…Cost estimates for the project were based on specifications that were only 75 percent complete…
Complete article is at:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20060403-110006-8548r.htm
Thanks Ron,
This is why I am so puzzled about why specs and specifiers are so unappreciated these days.
If the specs were treated more like a complimentary construction document and not an after thought, maybe the owner could have saved $3.9 million.
what the article states is:
"Cost estimates for the project were based on specifications that were only 75 percent complete, so officials had to issue 77 contract modifications that totaled $3.5 million to cover work not in the original estimate, according to the report.
The project was fast-tracked with incomplete designs partly because the school system insisted on building the school in 21 months, when the average school construction project usually takes about 30 months, officials said. "
what that says to me is that the drawings were probably only 75% as well, and the contractor of course bid on only those things on the documents instead of extrapolating what might end up there. this is more an indictment of the fast-tracked construction system than anything else.
Fast
Good
Cheap
Pick two of the above.
If the specifications were only 75% complete, the drawings were probably less than that, given that the average specifier is producing 100% specs on 80% drawings all the time.
Seems like this project would have been the ideal candidate for design/build. The article also states that the Army Corps of Engineers, which ran the project for the DC school system, warned that it could cost 20% more using the approach they chose. It did. The Army Corps is a very sophisticated construction organization, so I would suspect they knew what they were getting into. Here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, we have recently reformed public construction law. It is now possible to do pre-qualified design-build for projects like this.
I have found that weight has a lot to do with the effectiveness of a specification. For a large project I want to produce a heavy specification. I use 20# paper at least and single sided printing if I can get away with it. I also produce a full product/cut sheet binder. Remember Newton’s second law. F=ma (force equals mass times acceleration).
My specs? Have a lot of impact, especially when traveling at 150 feet per second.
To quote despair.com When the winds of change blow hard enough the most trivial of things can turn in to deadly projectiles.
Mark:
What kind of propellant do you use to get your specs up to a speed of 150-fps? … hopefully not from a low-slung roadster from east Tennessee. 
Ron
What is ALWAYS lost in this ‘cost overrun’ discussion is the OWNER’s prior experience with the bidding contractors.
How so? Heavier is better or is lighter better?
In my experience, lighter is better. Being from the old school, I believe that bidders place the spec volume on a scale and the heavier it is the higher their bid. Again in my experience, a short, concise, well written spec brings in much lower bids.
Effectiveness of a specification can be evaluated by (1) tight, accurate bids, and (2) leadership skills and quality of services brought to the project by the construction administrator. The best of specs is a terrible waste if the project is not properly administered and enforced.
Ron
I just read through the IG report. It would take me all day to write all my thoughts about that report, but the difference between the report and the Washington Times article has one curious difference. The IG report refers to a “design concept” that was 75% complete. The Times article refers to “specifications that were only 75% complete.”
Why did the newspaper reporter translate “design concept” as “specifications?”
Newspaper article:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20060403-110006-8548r.htm
Why did the newspaper reporter translate “design concept” as “specifications?”
Heck that’s easy, because they interviewed the Owner and Contractor, not the design professionals.
It never ceases to amaze me the disconnect otherwise bright earnest people have when confronted with the Architect’s disclaimer, “these are only 75% complete, and are not intended for hard bid/buyout or construction.”
Inevitably, the Owner will get a price, and under pressure from the GC to lock in the deal before “material costs escalate” or “labor availability” they will buy out the major trades of a contract. While at the same time, completely forgetting that in so doing, they are guaranteeing change orders to bridge the gap in the incomplete documents.
Once presented with this unsavory fact (via a huge change order or series of them), the Owner will be disgruntled with the Architect and demand all sorts of extensive and expensive value engineering efforts.
It happens way way way WAY too often. Even with savvy, experienced clients.
IF the project was bid, the documents MUST have been “100% complete”. Bid documents by definition are the ENTIRE Contract.
IF the Contractor did not have sufficient information to rely upon in the documents to build the project the Owner wanted, then the documents were “insufficient”.
“Complete” documents can be “insufficient”.
This illuminates the trouble with reporters writing about contractual relationships. Was this project a GC/CM contract?
I’m with Nathan.
… or the misuse or inappropriate use of the fast-track construction system.
Isn’t it also a very good indication of yet another effort that is required by the “specifications writiing industry, organizations and professionals” to both spread the word, and inform? And to do this over a broad range of people, outside the “industry”, not to add credence or prestige to our work, but to lend minimal/basic/fundamental enightentment and uderestanding to those needing it.
Nomenclature,buzz words, and terminology twisted wittingly or unwittingly, like statisitics, can be made to say most anything you want. Truth and accuracy seem to be variables, for some strange reason [ego, maybe!]
30 months to build a school? We do a high school in 20 months from bid around here. Sounds like folks weren’t exactly in a hurry.
For fairly standardized projects like repeat schools for the same school district, it’s not difficult to do a 90% specification at the end of Design Development. Better point fingers elsewhere.
Doug Brinley: How can “complete” documents be “insufficient”? It’s like being “slightly pregnant”. The basic problem with drawings and specifications is that they are always viewed subjectively. One person’s “complete” documents are “insufficient” to another.
This is the basic underlying issue of construction document creation. It is also the reason that: 1. The architect’s name never gets mentioned in the published publicity. 2. News reporters don’t have a clue about what are “specifications” vs. “specifications”.
3. Owners are sophisticated enough to publicize themselves until things go wrong then the architect or engineer gets mentioned.
4. Little if anything in and aorund the beltway can be believed; this includes just about everything except a membership renewal notice emanating from 99 Canal Street; a.k.a. mothership.
5. The only way architects, engineers, specifiers and others who actually do the work can get recognititon is to put it in their contract.
Re: The school project going on the street ahead of it’s time…most likely the designer spent too much budget on decorations, the project architect didn’t make timely decisions, the bosses collapsed their fees to get the project, the worker bees were not give adequate time to finish, and so on…happens all the time, folks. Tragedy is WE NEVER LEARN!