ARCOM and e-spec partnership

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Author Message Kenneth C. Crocco Senior Member Username: kcrocco Post Number: 19 Registered: 04-2003 Posted on Thursday, February 10, 2005 - 02:31 pm:    Have you read the press release regarding the ARCOM and e-spec partnership on the home page of this web site? Anyone close to the situation with some thoughts? When will this happen? How does it affect specifiers? Marc C Chavez Senior Member Username: mchavez Post Number: 76 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Thursday, February 10, 2005 - 04:49 pm:    I'd love to see if e-specs works, AND if anybody uses it. I have a hard enough time getting architects to read the CAD standards not to mention the project manual. God forbid understanding materials choice. Most architects treat CAD as a dumb 2-D drafting tool. Attaching intelligence to objects has been around in one form or another since 1987 (at least) and it SITLL is not being used by the profession in general. I don't use it and I'd love to if the overhead for keeping the knowledge "straight" in the "drawings" database was not so time consuming. Arc-info and other GIS systems had early success because the interrelation of primary data in the system generated VALUE in new secondary data. Building system data is not nearly so dense in its generation capability. Oh well we’ll see. Let’s see if BSD can’t get CAD-link off the ground. Anonymous   Posted on Thursday, February 10, 2005 - 05:12 pm:    My boss heard about this "product" and immediately fired me (a CCS). He changed his mind before I could make a mad dash for the door. Randall L. Cox Senior Member Username: randy_cox Post Number: 15 Registered: 04-2004 Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 05:49 pm:    I've seen demonstrations and am not convinced, but I'm not even convinced of the technology we're already using. My problem with the Autocad's "smart wall" technology is the inability to both draw correctly and dimension correctly. This is a bit off topic for this board, but I can't get our drafters to show a wall at its real thickness and then dimension to the critical locations (such as face of stud) inside the wall. They say it can't be done (in the time available). Marc's comment about the overhead for keeping the knowledge "straight" is key. Dennis Hall (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Sunday, February 13, 2005 - 03:31 pm:    There are a couple of stories out there on the ARCOM/e-spec product. First is that it will give up an 80% complete spec. E-spec said they would send me a demo but never did. The second story is that it will only give you a table of contents from your drawings. Others in the know, not at ARCOM or e-spec I have spoke to about this initative are doubtful at this time. But, I think this is a good first step. Only by working throught the problems will it be successful. The long and short of this is that all smart systems still much be maintained and administered. The old adage of garbarge in, garbarge out, still applies. John Regener, AIA, CCS, CCCA, CSI, SCIP Senior Member Username: john_regener Post Number: 204 Registered: 04-2002 Posted on Tuesday, February 15, 2005 - 11:30 am:    Ahhh ... the long anticipated Ronco Spec-O-Matic! Hey, I can put together a Table of Contents and a 90 percent complete draft specification in a day, for projects that I and the project architect do regularly. It's that pesky last 10 percent where all the work is required. So, the Spec-O-Matic will do the draft specifications auto-magically. Big Flaming Deal. There's still that last 10 or 20 percent to be done. And some of those pesky things have to do with regional and project-type construction practices, not to mention building code requirements. On public projects, this is even more pesky because public agency plancheckers want specific information included in the specifications for structural safety, fire & life safety and access compliance. Programming a system that will develop the necessary project-specific requirements is mind-boggling to consider. So, the best to be expected is for the automated program to take the specs "almost" all the way to completion and then human intervention will have to happen. A knowledgeable person ... someone who understands the content and production processes of construction specifications ... will have to take over and make the specifications suitable for bidding and construction. The question really becomes, does the automated program make the overall process of spec production more productive and more accurate? Anne Whitacre, CCS CSI Senior Member Username: awhitacre Post Number: 162 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Tuesday, February 15, 2005 - 03:43 pm:    I've seen two demos of it, and this was also discussed at the last two Masterspec meetings. here's some basic information: E-specs will be using Masterspec Short Form for their specification text and eventually will have access to the full series of documents by Masterspec. E-specs does coordinate with CAD but more so, coordinates with Revit, which is a 3-dimensional drawing tool. By drawing systems for the project, E-specs then loads in the spec sections and selectively edits them based on the information that is progressively shown on the drawings. If you change something, the specs will change as well. E-specs "says" that they will produce a "80%" spec. I think its more like 50%, but having the drafters load up the spec file for my later editing is a wonderful time savings -- I think it will allow me to put more effort into the final edit of the specs rather than simply the compilation of them. They will send you a 30 day demo if you ask them nicely. Of course an automated program doesn't make the specs more accurate, but if I can find something that will do the basic file compilation, and the first cut at the editing, it saves me about a day of just production time, and allows me to pay attention to the holes in the documents, and the finer editing. I could say that our drafters should be able to compile the spec and do the first edit -- but they don't. In an office like ours, where there are few dedicated spec writers and a lot of people on the boards, I like the idea of some of the preliminary work done for me. There will be a demo of this at the CSI convention in April, by the way. J. Peter Jordan Senior Member Username: jpjordan Post Number: 39 Registered: 05-2004 Posted on Tuesday, February 15, 2005 - 07:44 pm:    I have observed over the years an inability (unwillingness?) of people "on the boards" to use the correct terminology. It seems the more we rely on them to get more specific, the more they tend to screw it up. When I rely on a Project Architect or a Project Manager to go through and build a preliminar table of contents, I invariably get both suspended acoustical tile ceilings and suspended acoustical panel ceilings (I can't get anyone to call it anything other than ACT, acoustical tile, on the Drawings). I am reminded of working in another state where CMU was routinely referred to as "hollow tile." They only produce a 80 percent spec that is 80 percent complete with incorrect information. Another real issue has to do with what architects are actually doing when they do "drawing." When we draw in the initial stages of a project, a high level of ambiguity is required because we have not made all of the decisions. All of the ambiguity should be resolved by the end of the CD phase and the Drawings are more precise and less ambiguous (still highly abstract). As long as I have been working for architects, there has been a desire to "leverage" design drawings by using them for construction drawings. The "CD people" are always cussing the "design people" because they are not organized or dimensioned properly; duh! Although such a strategy may be obviously efficient, organizing design drawings as if they were CDs with all the attendant attributes represents, in my view, a failure to recognize that a different type and level of information is being generated and communicated during the early stages of building design. I agree with John that I can generate a relatively complete set of construction specifications before the end of schematic design--hell, I can generate a lot of sections if you just tell me the building type and location. I also recognize that the wall drawn as a 6-inch wall may well become a 4-5/8-inch gypsum board partition or a 5-5/8-inch CMU partition or even a 4-inch aluminum-framed interior storefront as the design is refined. This refining may, unfortunately, occur rather late in the CD phase. Floor plans drawn (or plotted) at 1/8-inch scale will most likely be read either way which is why we have dimensions and we dimension to one face or the other or to the center line. When a graphic system prevents the input of graphic representation because the specification of the representation cannot be determined, I suggest that we have a serious problem. Incidentally, When I viewed VersaCAD in the mid-1980s (which required specification before drawing), my first reaction was that it was a CAD system designed by a spec writer. I would suggest that however we might believe that this could improve construction documents, this is not the way buildings are designed, and, perhaps, not the way they should be designed. Vivian Volz Senior Member Username: vivianvolz Post Number: 19 Registered: 06-2004 Posted on Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - 02:06 pm:    One of the best concepts I heard at last year's CSI Convention was that specifiers have to learn to live with the ambiguity of the design process in order to participate in design dialogue. Hear, hear, Peter, for reminding us of that. I look forward to seeing the demonstration this year, but I'm wary. It doesn't take me all that long to pull the sections myself, and I'd just as soon not have to throw away all the spurious ones (like acoustical tile) before getting started. Does anyone know whether Arcom is hoping this will replace Linx? I love Linx for some products, like fireproofing. I don't expect enough description on our typical drawings to do that section for me, unless the system is smart enough to assume you'll need cement-based fireproofing if you have any structural steel, but you'll need intumescent mastic if you have structural steel that isn't clad with gypsum board or GFRG... I think it may still take a human to know that. Richard Howard, AIA CSI CCS Senior Member Username: rick_howard Post Number: 43 Registered: 07-2003 Posted on Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - 10:27 pm:    Anything that forces the folks doing the drawings to start thinking about specs gets my vote. If I can get more consistency in drawing notes and more interaction with the project team, then it will make my job easier and the end product better coordinated. I don't see how this can be a bad thing for spec writers. William C. Pegues, FCSI, CCS Senior Member Username: wpegues Post Number: 345 Registered: 10-2002 Posted on Thursday, February 17, 2005 - 03:54 pm:    This might work great for a small firm, or for a company that is new, or that has no long term clients that have their own particular ways of wanting to see something specified. In short, for anyone that currently uses the short form MasterSpec (or the long form if they make it work that way) with no internal custom edits it will be fine. But if you have a corporate history for the way of doing things including alternative pathways based on different positions taken on an issue, then we have a problem. If you have a variety of long term clients (those that have been with us for many years) who have distinct preferences for materials or methods of using those materials, then we have a problem. We have our masters loaded with custom edits lie this. And it is so easy to maintain since its just simple editing - and as soon as smoething new comes along it is copied into the master version with appropriate notes about what or who it is for. I am adding something to several parts of our masters on any given project. Any system that can't handle that kind of information on the fly is just not going to make it unless you are just willing to dump your corporate history. We don't and never have used master spec or any other master. We developed our own. It will be interesting to see how they market it to me when I walk up for a demo at the convention. William Anonymous   Posted on Thursday, February 17, 2005 - 05:41 pm:    I'm the CAD Manager for a large A/E firm and we've just purchased eSpecs. We're very excited about the product for a variety of reasons. In my opinion the most overlooked difference eSpecs offers is that the specifications are a DATABASE - not a series of Word or WordPerfect files. This closely mimics the advances our design teams are making using building information modeling (BIM) tools, which is to say that the data is becoming more centralized, thus more efficiently managed. Our talented and experienced spec writers are getting excited over the scalability, customization, collaboration and versioning control eSpecs will bring to their department. The links to Autocad, ADT and Revit are merely a bonus. I completely agree with one of the previous posts in that this product will bring a closer understanding of specifications to the design team. Much in the same way our BIM tools encourage a better sense of constructability earlier in the design process. The design model export merely takes a swipe at the TOC, then pre-defined relationships established by the spec department take over and form up the rest of the specs. For example, if a masonry wall is placed in the design model and exported to eSpecs, the specs for CMU, mortar, reinforcing, flashing and waterproofing will be included. All totally customizeable based on your preferences. My $0.02 James Van Phil Kabza Senior Member Username: phil_kabza Post Number: 91 Registered: 12-2002 Posted on Friday, February 18, 2005 - 04:58 pm:    In response to Vivian, William, and Anon: The eSpecs module will be sold as an add-on to CAD software seats and also as a free-standing database-driven specification editor. I understand that eSpecs will serve as the next generation of and replacement for LINX. So firms that wish to establish drawing/specification linkage through CAD keynotes tied to eSpecs may do so. Those that prefer the old model with entirely separate drawing files and specification data files may also do so. eSpecs will contain a keynote file based specifically on Masterspec section content, the first software available off the shelf with an adequate keynoter. The new eSpecs/Masterspec database will differ from LINX in several ways, the most important one (for me) being the specifier will be able to edit the content of the database from within eSpecs, something not possible in LINX. That means that the content of eSpecs can be customized on a master or project level. This somewhat addresses the issues William raises, although given the level of development of his master system/drawing team relationship, the tool just may not offer that much for him. However, a less technically-developed practice (and I think that is about 80 percent of firms out there) stands to gain from the built-in coordination available from this solution, even before they invest in building a BIM model with drawing objects linked to specific materials such as James Van describes. As with LINX, eSpecs is intended to be an 80 percent editor, not a finished spec generator. Technically competent CAD users will be able to identify specification sections, make basic product type selections, and tie the drawings to the primary specification section materials through the use of keynotes. The specifier, entering and editing the same file, will be able to identify errors made in keynoting, correct them (although I doubt this is an automated function at this time) and "detail" the section at the appropriate time in the project. I agree with James Van above, having built a similar model in ADT a couple of years ago. The more specialized the practice, the more these tools will automate the process. For a firm like ours, with 12 studios in all market sectors, our focus will be more on achieving an acceptable level of coordination than on achieving standardized production. I've had the opportunity to see this software collaboration develop through a couple of presentations and a focus group in the past year. It's not vaporware - it's being beta tested now. Some of our studios are very interested; others will not be likely to use it. But I think it has a great future; our profession is being driven by the winds of globalization to become more competitive and standardized. This tool could help. William C. Pegues, FCSI, CCS Senior Member Username: wpegues Post Number: 348 Registered: 10-2002 Posted on Saturday, February 19, 2005 - 09:09 pm:    Customizable content, even on a master level, is not really a viable concept for any company master that includes really detailed information - just as it is not suitable to use something like MasterSpec wordprocessing files. When an update comes out, I would have more information related to our office that didn't change to push to the new update than the new update itself would have in new information. The same is probably true for most independent consultants. I think there is a market for these kinds of applications, anyone using MasterSpec currently could benefit from it. A truly beneficial application would have the ability to be a shell into which text could be loaded from any master - and where the updates to the application would be to the shell integration system, not including any specification information. But that is not likely to come from this group of players - there is too much need to market their text. Nothing wrong with that, its a viable market, a need to fill. Just does nothing for me. William Eileen Curtis (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Thursday, March 03, 2005 - 03:23 pm:    I would like to invite you to attend the e-SPECS webinars - Tuesday, March 15 at 1:00 PM Eastern for an Introduction to e-SPECS for AutoCad/ADT and Wednesday, March 30 at 1:00PM Eastern for an Introduction to e-SPECS for Revit. To register go to http://www.e-specs.com/events.html, click on the option to register for either or both seminars. After you register, you will be emailed an invitation with the link and the telephone number. Eileen Marc C Chavez Senior Member Username: mchavez Post Number: 89 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2005 - 12:44 pm:    Well, I saw a demo of e-specs. Not bad, but not great and at only $2500 + per station ;) Their connection to AutoCAD is created by picking through the lists for text strings (including hatch labels etc). Within e-specs they were actually doing some work but the connection to AutoCAD was very simple. Perhaps, given Autodesk’s penchant for changing format, text strings is not a bad idea. It certainly was not a “breakthrough” of any variety. I believe that Linx dumps the MasterSpec documents to “docs” that still have the styles attached. Unfortunately per the demo e-specs dumps rtfs. Rtfs have no styles so you have to write and run a macro to bring them up to speed. To have to do that to a MasterSpec document is tragic. Seriously, it would be fun to play with but the cost per station is such that for a large firm with lots of projects it borders on the cost for AutoCAD. The price needs to be a site license. John Bunzick, CCS, CCCA Senior Member Username: bunzick Post Number: 332 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2005 - 12:54 pm:    The Masterspec Architectural Review Committee has been advised by ARCOM that the word processing file that e-text creates will have all the usual styles in it. John McGrann Senior Member Username: jmcgrann Post Number: 45 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2005 - 05:23 pm:    I also saw the show. It has some potential for our firm and the way we're set up now, but I agree with Marc that some sort of a site license scheme would probably be preferable for many firms, especially those who push the spec production out to the project manager/project architect level. What I did like was the ability to pull in other master specification libraries from both ARCOM and our in-house sources, and the ability to edit the specification documents directly within in the LINX-like interface. Although we sometimes use LINX as a tool to make a quick and rough first cut of a complicated section, it doesn’t get daily (or sometimes even monthly) use. As a $200 add-on to our yearly subscription I feel its worth about what we’re paying for it. We took some time to look into the various built-in features in 2005 ADT. In looking through the Microsoft Access database collection of keynotes they’ve made a good start, but I’d like to see a collection from ARCOM specifically tailored to MASTERSPEC that would be updated as the various specification sections are revised and updated. That would be especially true since the one I’m currently looking at is arranged by MF 1995, and we all know what that means. The Holy Grail will be when someone figures out how to tie this into our various facilities management, cost estimating, and accounting system databases (all of which apparently run on some form of the MS Access engine). The first person to create a commercially viable, automatically linked, and self-populating database that can be sorted by whichever classification system the end user desires might just have something.