Wacky startup info

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Author Message Chris Grimm, CSI, CCS, SCIP, LEED AP BD+C Senior Member Username: chris_grimm_ccs_scip Post Number: 479 Registered: 02-2014 Posted on Wednesday, June 05, 2019 - 12:45 pm:    Does anyone else find their time increasingly going to validating startup information? My practice has been to study the drawings & other info, developing a draft TOC, often even at proposal time, flagging questions. I then turn this over to the designer to respond. If I get good input, I reduce their price significantly because I won't be writing as many throw-away specs. But I'm faced with drawings having more confusion in the first place, and their marked up TOCs being full of conflicting or misleading stuff. Padding it with helpful notes only helps a little because they do not seem to take time to read it all then. I could spend every waking hour trying to make sense of the results, before I even get down to spec writing, so that's not so good. One thing that shows signs of promise though is putting it all in terms of something that is meaningful to the designers during SD: I'm offering a project-tailored keynote list usable in Revit (and AutoCAD Architecture is next on my list). This is what I am starting to give them instead of a draft TOC, because they are more likely to use it early on, and they like me helping them pick the right stuff. It kinda makes me their help desk. That's great, actually. Of course they can still throw in a few wrong things, but I can possibly help them catch it sooner. Then more of my time goes to actually writing the specs and less sorting out wacky info for proposals & starting the specs. Anybody have other suggestions? Greta Eckhardt Senior Member Username: gretaeckhardt Post Number: 92 Registered: 08-2013 Posted on Wednesday, June 05, 2019 - 01:23 pm:    My suggestion is not very original but it is based on sound thinking over the years by specifiers, estimators and other people in this business. And I think it builds on what you are already suggesting. In my experience, the best way to document design intent at SD is to describe construction assemblies and systems using UniFormat as a structure, because it is too early to make meaningful use of the listing of MasterFormat sections in a TOC. If the keynote list you mention is organized by UniFormat that sounds perfect. Chris Grimm, CSI, CCS, SCIP, LEED AP BD+C Senior Member Username: chris_grimm_ccs_scip Post Number: 481 Registered: 02-2014 Posted on Wednesday, June 05, 2019 - 01:45 pm:    When it comes to editing a UniFormat TOC or PPD, historically they have balked like I'm making them do everything twice. If they do not know that staining/transparent finishing is for over wood & not for over CMU and stucco, I doubt that UniFormat or anything can help them. (Except me watching over their shoulders? It is good that they even mentioned what it was being used for!) They meant a water-repellent/anti-graffiti coating. But strangely they had marked that as a NO in Division 07 and they marked the staining a YES in Division 09. There is no field-applied wood staining/finishing on this project. I do plan on adding a tab to my spreadsheet with an expandable UniFormat TOC, and making it update the MasterFormat TOC preliminarily. This does seem like a great idea for the major exterior and interior assemblies. But when it comes to the nitty-gritty items though I think UF has no advantage and it does become a duplication. Are we to keep updating both formats throughout the project? If not, then UF is a throwaway. If it is a throwaway, nobody reviews it. Even back when I used to promote it a lot, that was what the designers did, just ignore it until later when it becomes MasterFormat time. I can try to make my updates to either tab become bi-directional but that is more a database thing than a spreadsheet & formulas thing. I can also look for ways to glean assembly codes from the model for when I am starting up their UniFormat TOC in the first tab for them. Chris Grimm, CSI, CCS, SCIP, LEED AP BD+C Senior Member Username: chris_grimm_ccs_scip Post Number: 482 Registered: 02-2014 Posted on Wednesday, June 05, 2019 - 01:47 pm:    I wouldn't be miffed about just one item incorrectly & inconsistently edited like this. It is becoming the norm that they get it nearly all wrong and I constantly clean up the mess instead of even writing specs! Chris Grimm, CSI, CCS, SCIP, LEED AP BD+C Senior Member Username: chris_grimm_ccs_scip Post Number: 483 Registered: 02-2014 Posted on Wednesday, June 05, 2019 - 02:02 pm:    Another of literally a hundred examples on this project: They deleted elevators in TOC markup even though there are clearly elevators on the drawings (they would do that whether it is UniFormat or MasterFormat that they are marking up I bet.) When I asked them why, and I asked for speed, capacity, BoD, and finishes to write the spec, they just sent me 28 pages of shop drawings instead. Which I will comb through to try to find a few pieces of info for my spec if any. What do other spec writers do in these situations? It seems like a huge time-sink. The project is Owner-Build with CMa. I bet the designers do not want to give any meaningful input and just want the CM to comment on the specs so they do not have to do as much -- but I tell them, for that to happen, there has to be a meaningful, actually edited set of draft specs. On a recent project where I gave them the specs less edited so they could get that input, the contractor just proceeded and gave no markups. Nobody said anything to me until I asked for a schedule update and oh now they do not need final specs. Hmmm. Chris Grimm, CSI, CCS, SCIP, LEED AP BD+C Senior Member Username: chris_grimm_ccs_scip Post Number: 484 Registered: 02-2014 Posted on Friday, June 07, 2019 - 02:50 pm:    Resolved this time by conference call and sharing my screen with them so we were all talking about the same thing. Not always possible when some are on vacations. : ) Phil Kabza Senior Member Username: phil_kabza Post Number: 627 Registered: 12-2002 Posted on Monday, June 10, 2019 - 02:33 pm:    Chris: I feel your pain. Our solution that we've been developing for the last several years is a cloud based collaborative outline spec that we review with the architects via web conference at the time they will populate their drawings with actual material notations or keynotes (usually early or mid-DD) and then again when we're ready to create full CD sections (we try to wait until at least 50% CD for this if not later). The outlines are detailed enough for a GMP. At SDs, it's too early to get involved in specifications. If their owner agreement calls for them, we do a TOC that's roughly appropriate to the project type and what little detail we have, and that seems to satisfy the beast. We've never gotten involved with SD PPDs based upon UniFormat. As consultants, we can't charge enough for this work product, and I agree that it's not likely to be read by anyone. This isn't necessarily saving us time, but the collaboration is appreciated by the architects who take advantage of it, and the time is better spent catching issues early in the project instead of via RFI. As for the web conferences involved, our current record is 10 hours for a 90% CD review (with bio-breaks). Anne Whitacre, FCSI CCS Senior Member Username: awhitacre Post Number: 1456 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Thursday, July 18, 2019 - 08:22 pm:    Phil: we regularly (not often, but often enough) have projects where the developer is looking for pricing at SD, and I therefore do a PPD for those projects. I think a systems approach at SD helps validate decisions that come later, and we get input from all of the consultants to put into the document. It is about a 30 hour effort -- not quite a week -- but it does require that the team start to make design decisions. From the PPD, its pretty easy to set up a TOC for the "real" specs. David J. Wyatt, CDT Senior Member Username: david_j_wyatt_cdt Post Number: 306 Registered: 03-2011 Posted on Friday, July 19, 2019 - 08:18 am:    I concur with Anne Whitacre's thoughts above. I am currently managing a five building project with five separate project managers. The owner required pricing at SD. To help me manage the information coming from five PMs, a PPD for each building was the best way to answer the call. The CM was accustomed to using PPDs and is happy with the documentation. As in Anne's comments, it forced the PMs to make some decisions they were not used to making for SD but were perfectly capable of doing so. With a solid Division 01, the PPD, and a list of BOD products, we are moving quickly forward. I know the honeymoon will end sometime, but this seems to be an effective way of managing the expectations of each stakeholder. Chris Grimm, CSI, CCS, SCIP, LEED AP BD+C Senior Member Username: chris_grimm_ccs_scip Post Number: 488 Registered: 02-2014 Posted on Thursday, August 01, 2019 - 06:37 pm:    I greatly appreciate the input so far. The consensus of our preference to be allowed to write a PPD if given the 30 hours is nice. For my issue at hand though, I would not write a PPD pro-bono at proposal time for a project where I am only being called on to write DD and CD level specs.