| Author |
Message |
David Axt, AIA, CCS, CSI
Junior Member
Username: David_axt
Post Number: 60
Registered: 03-2002
| | Posted on Monday, September 30, 2002 - 01:08 pm: |    |
A project manager asked me to put together a set of DD specs. I typically do not produce DD specs. I write a PPD (Preliminary Project Description) using Uniformat (ugh!) as a starting point. My PPDs usually are more than just an outline spec and are a bit more specific than they probably should be at the Schematic Design Phase. After the PPD is completed I blast right into the Construction Document specs.
In speaking further with the PM, he wants spec sections that are basically Part 2 - Products and no Part 1 and 3.
What do you guys do for DD specs?
Thanks. |
Robin Treston
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, September 30, 2002 - 11:14 pm: | |
I do "outline specs" for the DD phase quite frequently - there are alot of Owner's that require them (ie: one University that I do work with). I include a brief product/system description. I can email you a couple samples if you want. Let me know. |
Tracy Van Niel
New member
Username: Tracy_van_niel
Post Number: 9
Registered: 04-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 01, 2002 - 07:46 am: | |
David:
DD for us depends on who the project is for. Working with CM's on private hospital projects, DD tends to be a progress printing of CD's completed to date. However, most State of Ohio work and public university work (such as for Ohio State University), requires a formal DD submittal. OSU indicates they want to see manufacturers, model numbers, and materials listed and identified. In order to try to eliminate duplicate effort going into CD's, we try to complete as much Part 2 information as possible. As far as section format is concerned, we still keep the 3 parts. Part 1 identifies the scope of work, mock-ups, and warranties (since those are cost items), Part 2 as complete as possible, and Part 3 is identified as "not used".
Hope that helps.
|
David Axt, AIA, CCS, CSI
Junior Member
Username: David_axt
Post Number: 61
Registered: 03-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 01, 2002 - 04:38 pm: | |
Thanks for your replies.
I am concerned about writing a PPD. Then starting all over and writing outline/dd specs. Then starting all over again and writing final CD specs.
Ideally it would be efficient to write only one spec and refine it at each phase rather than writing three separate and different specs.
David |
Anne Whitacre
New member
Username: Awhitacre
Post Number: 20
Registered: 07-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 01, 2002 - 05:53 pm: | |
David: I do DD specs all the time, and used to do them when I was consulting, as well. I think its a good tool to get the project started and thought about.
I would agree with Tracy with the exception that I sometimes have some items in Part 3 -- if we have a particularly fussy installation, there may be some items in Part 3 that will affect cost as well. Often I find that DD specs are used for GMP, or other pricing, and they have to at least provide enough information to make the pricing actually mean something.
This is a cost issue for the office -- and you should make sure your fee has enough in it to provide for separate submittals/documents at the various phases. I know that often DD level drawings have to be started over when CDs start, so the specs get handled the same way.
A. |
Phil Kabza
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 01, 2002 - 09:18 pm: | |
I've been an Outline Spec advocate in our firm. The several project managers who are using them are pretty enthusiastic about their value to the team. Owners will review them, while they seldom give us much feedback on a full project manual. They help orient the team and improve discipline coordination.
While they do have real hours and costs attached, they tend to shorten time spent on the CD project manual, so they likely pay for themselves in billable hours terms, not to mention the potential for improved coordination.
I agree with Anne's approach that any Part 1 or Part 3 issues that might add unexpected cost to the work of a section, such as curtainwall water spray testing or mockups, should be noted in the Outline Spec. |
Richard Hird
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 10:23 am: | |
In response to Davids Axt’s comment that he finds publishing a PPD spec as doubling the effort I recommend the following technique. (I use Word Perfect, 5.1 believe it or not, so the terms are from that system. The point is "this is not a new software capability". You can do the same in Word Perfect 9.0. If you use Word, well good luck.)
Select you specification sections as you would on a CD spec; whether master or previous projects. Do not mess with the draft sections any more than necessary;, maybe eliminate the obvious and add what is known. Then use “Mark for Merge” to select what you want to include in your PPD spec. After marking, generate a merge file list at the end of the section which can be printed, or pasted, for your PPD Spec The merge file is plain text. You can mark section headers Parts, Article headings etc as you want generate you PPD format, they just won’t automatically renumber. I use macros, but it is no big deal to manually renumber.
Advantages: You select only the content you want to publish in the PPD. Your original sections are left intact for the CD specification refinement. You can also rework items in the sections, if you need to change the PPD spec. If you use masters and want to a lot of PPD Specs you can leave the “Marking” in the master. For one of my Zoo clients I “marked for merge” their masters and can generate a PPD Spec within an afternoon.
This does not solve the problem of starting, stopping and restarting later, so I charge for a PPD spec. But it does allow you to save some effort and keep track of decisions. |
Joe Back
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 12:03 pm: | |
Good discussion. I have pondered this question and have come to the conclusion that (with apologies to CSI), there are only two formats necessary for project specifications. During schematic design, a preliminary project description is necessary and valuable to the project team and the client. For the design development phase it makes sense to start editing/creating the final 3-part specification sections.
Following the CSI format for preliminary project descriptions is desirable and advisable. It is even possible to create a master preliminary project description that can be easily edited for each project. In fact, the design team can often edit/create this phase of specification on their own with the specifier acting more as a technical advisor/coordinator, rather than as a sole-source word-processing agent. One other thought: has anyone ever encountered a client that knows what the term "preliminary project description" means? Most (maybe 99.9%) refer to any type of preliminary specifications as "outline specifications." Maybe CSI should do away with what they describe as "outline specifications," and move that term to describe what they now refer to as "preliminary project descriptions." Just food for thought and discussion.
During design development, although it would be nice to create a custom outline specification per CSI recommendations, few clients want to see it in that format (in my experience). It is also very costly to produce a custom outline specification that will, essentially, be thrown away when starting the construction document phase specifications. It is also rare to actually request and receive adequate fee to cover such an exercise.
Therefore, for the DD phase, it seems to make sense to start with the masters you intend to use for the final specifications and start the editing process based on information contained in the preliminary project description (or outline specification if my suggestion is accepted) and gleaned from drawings and interviews with the design team. Using MS Word (I think WordPerfect has a similar feature), it is easy to "Track Changes" with highlights, cross-outs, underlines, color (any number of options). Clients, cost estimators and others seem to prefer this approach. It allows them to see what is proposed to be deleted or added, and with the understanding that these are not the final specifications. The other major advantage is that cost estimators and the client can see the intended extent of your specifications even though all decisions are not yet made. All the fussy Part 1 and Part 3 stuff is available right from the start for everyone to see. And, the best advantage of all is that as the project progresses into construction documents, sections already established can simply be completed as decisions are finalized. Previous marked changes can be accepted or rejected with the push of a key (literally) and new edits can be marked so that all parties can see the new decisions that have been made.
Now, lest any of you think that I have never done this before, please let me assure you that I realize the process is more difficult than the simple explanation above would suggest. But I still think it is the best way of creating specifications throughout a project that build and expand on previous information without throwing out entire documents. During the old typewriter cut and paste days, it probably made little difference if you created a separate specification format for each phase of the project because you were basically forced to start over at each phase anyway. Were CSI's formats created during that era? |
Tomas Mejia
New member
Username: Tommy
Post Number: 2
Registered: 07-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 08:07 pm: | |
The type of D.D. spec depends on what it is going to be used for.
If the purpose is to discuss and decide on proposed products and systems, our office prefers the short paragraph version. Listing the Section number and describing the products and items that effect cost or require special consideration results in a document 10 to 20 pages long. This works extremely well when you have people (as in administrative or hospital remodel) who are not in the design profession but have input in the project. Very easy to discuss and comment on at a weekly meeting.
Our office has also done the masters method Joe describe. Unfortunately due to the amount of paper one has to read, we rarely get productive comments during the D.D. phase. There tends to be more comments in Division 2 and by the time were in Division 9 the comments are non existent. The other problem is that your master D.D. spec may contain too much information which doesn't apply because you included possible design solutions.
|
|
4specs.com Home Page
Closed: New threads not accepted on this page