well, you could also say that the contract with the Owner requires the consultants to follow “industry standards” and making up your own numbers doesn’t meet that criteria. I swear, I’ve had times with consultants (and contractors) where I wanted to say “I’m not paying you to think! just do the job!”. clearly I want them to think, but sometimes more effort goes into “thinking” about things that don’t need additional effort, such as making up new numbers – and not enough time goes into thinking about how to coordinate with the rest of the design team. I generally like to require that the consultant use some word processing format that is at least minimally conversant with whatever system I’m using, but I find that no matter what, all the formatting gets lost anyway.
No building has ever failed to perform because the designers failed to
conform to CSI standards. No Change Order ever occurred because the
specifications did not conform to CSI standards. Designs fail because
someone miscalculates; change orders occur because someone does not
coordinate, and vice versa.
Micro managing process rather than focusing on goals leads to failures,
Conforming to industry standards is just a convenient excuse for such
failures.
Unregistered Guest is correct “No building has ever failed to perform because the designers failed to conform to CSI standards.” However, I recently read a post on Linkedin (?) about the plumbing contract bidder who called the Client to let him know that since there was no Division 15 in the project manual he couldn’t bid the job. The Client then passed on his displeasure to the Architect.
Conforming to industry standards (and knowing what they are) is not just a convenience. Try being involved in a lawsuit and sitting on the stand and explaining to the Judge or Jury why your specs don’t conform to industry standards (a prudent standard of care). The fact that conforming to industry standards is a non-issue is totally lost on non-professionals in these situations. They see it as you didn’t do it the way everyone else does it ergo you are wrong.
AIA A 201 says that (and I am paraphrasing here ) the division of the Specifications into Divisions and Sections is for the convenience of the Architect in ensuring that the Specifications are complete. Furthermore, the Contractor is responsible for the division of the Work and the assignment of subcontractors’ responsibility, This is why the organization of the Specifications (and the Drawings) has much more to do with a standard of professional care than it does with with convenience to the Contractor. As a practical matter, most Architects and specifiers will do everything they can to make sure that the Contractor (and his subs) can find the information; however, no one that I know of does a single Division 03 section for all cast-in-place concrete for a project (slabs on grade, structural frame, paving, utility work, etc.) regardless of whether or not there will be a single concrete sub on the job.
I would suggest that design professionals must “micromanage” the organization of construction requirements on the Drawings and in the Specifications to make sure everything is covered which should be one of the primary goals in generating Construction Docuemnts. I would further suggest that the failure to do so has probably caused more than its share of project failures.
Quote from 1964 CSI Format for Construction Specifications:
“There is a pressing need for a national format for consturction specifications. A consistent, national format would prove beneficial to the writer of specifications, to the contractor, and to the material supplier, by makeing it simpler for each to carry out his part of the building process. Suppliers and contractors would find it easier to estimate accurately and to prepare bids competitively. Contractors would also find it easier to control the work during construction. Architects and engineers would have greter assurance that they were properly describing all that they should specify.”
The 1964 commentary goes on to discuss the value of industry-wide consistent organization versus everyone doing their own thing.
Unregistered Guest (Don’t you love unregistered guests expressing opinions of this nature): “No Change Order ever occurred because the specifications did not conform to CSI standards.” Obviously not true. There have been many change orders on many projects because of not following the industry standards (CSI formats). Not following the standards without good reason leads to confusion in communication which leads to change orders.
Following standards does not constrain one from focusing on the goals. It is really just speaking in the language of the listeners rather then speaking in your own language. The more we all communicate within the same organizational structure, the easier it is on everyone involved. There will be fewer miscommunications, fewer problems, and better projects.
I think we’ve all dealt with Contractors or Subcontractors where we’re AMAZED they can find the Project Manual on the site, let alone actually find something in the PM!!
I have to agree, that if had not been for a “consensus” standard like MasterFormat being developed, I can not imagine the chaos with finding information within the industry, let alone within a project!
What I am amazed at is this is coming from an Engineer and not an up & coming “starchitect” trying to make a name for himself by reinventing the AEC industry at a “grassroots” level!!
believe me, the “starchitects” really don’t care about how their projects are organized – but they DO care that the contractor can figure out where everything is.
As someone who has done some expert witnessing regarding documents, I can say that in my experience “following industry standards” is seen as a basic level of competence in terms of preparing the documents. Attorneys (and mediators) don’t know much about construction, but they can read lists of numbers and they can easily recognize if you’re using numbers that are “non-standard”. I would say that would be the first thing that someone is going to get nailed for – you don’t need to be an expert to see “reserved for later use” as part of the Masterformat numbers.
One reason that Division 06 is still a “mess,” and that other anomolies remain in the new(ish) MasterFormat is because of lack of acceptance of an early draft that went much further to fix these things. CSI got blasted for being over-reaching. So they minimized significant changes to Divisions where they could be left alone without creating more egregious conflicts. This is politics, “the art of compromise.”