Optimizing the Building Product Specification Process Without Overhauling Your Proven Workflows.

In the commercial construction industry, our customer is the building owner, and the building is the final output. Throughout the project lifecycle, the building evolves into a marketplace of ideas, products, and services at varying scale through the ebb and flow of design, tender and facilities management to its subsequent demolition. 

The process from conception to the building’s turnkey moment gradually and sometimes not steadily manifests into a journey quite unique to our great American construction industry. From architects, engineers, and consultants to general contractors to subcontractors, the varying demographics drive an eclectic use of technologies, new and old, still even done with paper, pen, and printers. OH MY! And through all this the product manufacturers and their distributor network work diligently with every member of this generationally fickle network to get their products specified and sold in this grand and unique product and services fair. It is a wonderful show that never ends. Truly, it is, I love it!

This all said, the best buildings are the result of tight design product integration and there is no integration without collaboration and the tighter and snugger and fluid the collaboration, from the beginning to the end of the project, the better the result.

One of the areas where things can begin to disintegrate is the product specifications. Lack of communication and seamless collaboration and clarity on product specifications will lead to gaps and misinterpretations resulting in needless requests for information (RFI)s and the much distained value engineering (VE) of products and a diversion from the owner’s intent. Poor communication results in confusion, wasted time, and unnecessary and unplanned costs.

What are the answers to this dilemma? Well, as one of our top industry academics puts it. “The creation and practice of Interdisciplinary Fluency,” (a common language to be used by the building team) would go a long way toward improved communication.

Another impediment is the still regular use of Design – Bid – Build as a delivery process, over those that foster much more cohesive interdisciplinary communication and coordination, i.e. Integrated Project Delivery (IPD), Design Build, and CM at Risk.

The theory of concurrent, multi-disciplinary communications and decision making has, in an exceptionally low percentage of cases, become a reality. However, in building product research and selection there are very few solutions that are designed to keep those on the building team connected, to ensure that the right products to satisfy the owner’s intent are selected, properly specified, and installed on their project.

Proper use of advanced technology should not be to reinvent the industry workflows, but to track, enhance accountability and serve as an engine of growth to the companies that apply them and enhance the wellbeing of their respective industries. Conspectus Cloud is such a platform.

Conspectus Cloud was created 4 years ago initially to make Conspectus Inc.’s large and rapidly growing product specifications consultancy more efficient by automating:

• Formerly MS-Word macro powered workflows.
• Connecting Conspectus’s team of specifiers empowering them to collaborate on all client projects.
• Connecting Conspectus clients, their support teams, and other contributors such as building product manufacturers to projects for input and assistance.
• The collective editing of Conspectus office masters for overall consistency
• Specification production initiated in UniFormat® based system allowing our team of specification professionals to work in a systems-based environment providing us many options to serve our AEC-O customers: i.e., allowing control over scope, budget, and schedule. It also closely aligns with BIM and the ability to pivot to MasterFormat® as a client preference.
  
  

The Conspectus Cloud platform was created by specifiers, for specifiers. It is now available for use to the AEC-O community.

If it works for us, it will work for others with business models that require product specifications.

The five core tenants of Conspectus Cloud are:

• Community & Collaboration: Conspectus Cloud not only allows cross disciplinary collaboration, but it also encourages it by allowing our users to invite as many resources needed to meet the needs of the project, under one subscription license.
• Transparency: From beginning to the end of the specification process, Conspectus Cloud’s audit trail tracks what has changed, when it changed, and who on the team made the change. This process allows a firm to: Normalize Repeatable Best Practices and Share Valuable Knowledge for the Future.
• Master your Masters: Conspectus Cloud comes with its own continuously updated office master. Our users can upload their existing master (in DOCX format) into Conspectus Cloud for content management and storage purposes.
• Professional Specifier Support: Conspectus Cloud users have access to our deep bench of Conspectus professional specifiers for input and direction. This is especially useful to those new to creating specifications, and those more experienced at writing specifications, but end up at the occasional impasse and just need the “phone a friend” option. We are honored to be here to assist in your efforts.
•  Project Based, Transferable Pricing: Pricing for Conspectus Cloud is based on a firm’s estimated project volume. Our AEC-O customers receive a unit-based, annual price which can easily be included as cost in project proposals, making Conspectus Cloud a profitable business-friendly solution.

Someone once said: “There is no shortcut to sustainable success, operational pliability and proven fundamentals triumph in the end.”

At Conspectus, we believe in making the fundamentals faster, better, and more profitable for our users, not changing them.

We would like to have you attend one of our scheduled tours, or we can work with your schedule and give you a proprietary demonstration of Conspectus Cloud.