Corps of Engineer Projects

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Author Message Robin Treston (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Tuesday, January 04, 2005 - 01:03 pm:    I have been asked to propose on a corp of engineer project, which is an unfamiliar sector for me. Can anyone summarize the particulars of working on this type of project and any additional efforts that might be expected, so I can determine if it is a project I want to pursue. Thanks. David Axt, AIA, CCS, CSI Senior Member Username: david_axt Post Number: 405 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Tuesday, January 04, 2005 - 02:11 pm:    I have not done a Corp project for years, but I think that they still require the specs to be done in Specsintact program. This means a TON of work. There are firms around the country whose whole workload consist of coordinating and producing Specsintact projects. http://specsintact.ksc.nasa.gov/ I am so glad that my firm does not do military/government work. Anne Whitacre, CCS CSI Senior Member Username: awhitacre Post Number: 150 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Tuesday, January 04, 2005 - 02:45 pm:    Robin: I haven't done a Corps project in a long time either, but in general the projects themselves aren't that hard, but the requirements (3 products, all the federal requirements, various restrictions on products) require a lot more time to prepare the specs than a comparable project in the private sector. Verify if they require Specsintact and get a separate fee for the preparation of the documents if they do (find someone who specializes in that work -- it won't be cost effective for you to do it); verify the number of submittal packages; and be prepared for a long period before you get paid. Don Harris CSI, CCS, CCCA, AIA Senior Member Username: don_harris Post Number: 26 Registered: 03-2003 Posted on Tuesday, January 04, 2005 - 04:41 pm:    The learning curve for Specsintact is steep. We did one project years ago and the specs were tedious to edit. Anne is correct, if you haven't used it before it probably will not be cost effective. Curt Norton, CSI, CCS Senior Member Username: curtn Post Number: 75 Registered: 06-2002 Posted on Tuesday, January 04, 2005 - 05:00 pm:    Robin, You should also review an older thread on this topic. http://discus.4specs.com/discus/messages/430/1107.html If the link doesn't work its under "Computers, the Internet and Networking"/"Govenment Specs" Richard Howard, AIA CSI CCS Senior Member Username: rick_howard Post Number: 40 Registered: 07-2003 Posted on Tuesday, January 04, 2005 - 05:44 pm:    I did a project last year for Wright-Pat AFB that went through the Corps. Everything you read above is so true. Specsintact has been revised with an easier interface, but you still need to have an understanding of those metatags at the beginning and end of each piece of text in order to work efficiently at editing. It is nothing like word processing. It more closely resembles working in HTML. The tags in Specsintact allow a whole host of powerful functions to be automated. However, if just one tag gets deleted by accident, the output will be corrupted. Military guide specs are fairly comprehensive, but some things are in odd places. The writing of sections for things not covered by the masters requires much more research than you would normally put into writing non-military work because almost everything must be written as a performance spec. Ironically, our contract required us to submit a record set in Word 6.0 after the construction was complete. The text converter provided with Specsintact made a real mess of the Word files so we gave them a set of PDFs as well. Margaret G. Chewning CSI CCS Senior Member Username: presbspec Post Number: 40 Registered: 01-2003 Posted on Wednesday, January 05, 2005 - 07:39 am:    I'm working on a Corps job right now as a second tier consultant. The Architect (for whom I work) was hired to do just the architectural portion of the project with the Corps engineers doing the front end, and other disaplines inhouse. Coordination has been... interesting to say the least. Regarding SpecsIntact the WordSpec function has been removed. So all submittals are in SpecsIntact and PDF files. A lot of how the job will proceed depends on the knowledge and skill of the project manager you are assigned to and how your lines of communication are set up. If you haven't used SpecsIntact, RUN! If you have used it in the past and have a working knowledge of previous recent editions, It may be worth looking at. Just my 2 cents Tobin Oruch, CDT Senior Member Username: oruch Post Number: 11 Registered: 04-2003 Posted on Thursday, January 06, 2005 - 04:09 pm:    A better URL for CoE Specs is http://www.ccb.org/docs/ufgshome/UFGSToc.htm NASA also uses SpecsIntact as David's link shows, but the one above is USCoE. Richard L. Hird P.E. CCS Senior Member Username: dick_hird Post Number: 16 Registered: 02-2004 Posted on Sunday, January 09, 2005 - 07:19 pm:    Since I am use to reading and using hidden codes, I find specs intact is nothing more than a different set of codes. If you turn them on, Specs Intact it is a very useful program. On the other hand if you just use to WYSIWHYG , SpecsIntact will not work and you ought to decline the work or find someone that knows how.