Specification Selection – A Team Decision
As the government moves to introduce BIM and encourage a team approach to construction, Michael Latham must be pleased to know that his recommendations are being adopted a mere 17 years after he made them.
Back in 1994 Sir Michael Latham published “Constructing the Team - a review of procurement and contractural arrangements in the UK construction industry”. Two of the key recommendations he made were that the government should take a lead and there was a need to improve the link between design and construction. 17 years later, thanks to the efforts of Chief Construction Advisor Paul Morrell, it is finally happening.
One of the drivers of change is the adoption of BIM for all government projects over £5 million. To be fair, the technology of BIM was not available when Latham published his report. But this technology promises to make building design more of a team approach.
At the moment the individual members of the team have tended to work in some isolation. In the worst of cases the Quantity Surveyor proposes a cost for the project which does not allow for certain aspects, the Building Services Engineer designs services which will have to pass through structural elements and the Architect fails to design in access panels which mean that in years to come, when services need repair or unblocking there is no way to get to them without damaging the building structure. Very often these problems have to be solved on site by the Contractor, creating delay and cost. BIM promises to solve all of this, allowing the complete building to be viewed at the design stage, identifying areas of conflict and allowing them to be resolved before construction begins.
It will be some time before we know if this will happen, or how the members of the construction team will work together. Until then it is important to understand how each of them influence the selection of products and what they want from the manufacturer.
Most organisations’ specification sales effort tends to be focused on the Architect, who is the most visible when it comes to product selection. The other members of the team receive much less attention. For example, what about the Specification Writer? There are specialist organisations who take on this role on behalf of the Architect, they focus on the detail of specification writing to produce robust and unambiguous specification documentation, allowing the Architect to concentrate on design. Very often this role merges into other tasks such as project management and will be delivered by the Quantity Surveyor.
With the advent of CAD the need for someone to take quantities off drawings reduced and the role of the Quantity Surveyor changed. To survive companies had to take on new roles. In addition to specification writing and project management today’s QS will be providing advice in a number of areas including procurement, value engineering, infrastructure and sustainability. This makes them an important influencer in decision making.
Finally we have the Engineer. Very often they will focus on performance specifications, leaving the Specialist Contractor to decide on the materials to use. But they will be overseeing the work and ensuring that it will perform. So they also have an influence on product selection.
When it comes to sustainability we are also seeing a number of professions claiming this as their expertise. The Building Services Engineer probably has the highest profile in this area, but the Quantity Surveyor is also laying claim to this expertise.
Any manufacturer creating demand through specification selling needs to be aware of these relationships and promoting the benefits of their products to all of the decision makers in the design team. They must also be moving with the times and as the recent RIBA Insight report “What Specifiers Want from Product Manufacturers” highlighted, providing BIM objects.
CIMCIG are holding an afternoon seminar “The Changing Face of Specification” when an Architect, Specification Writer, Building Services Engineer and Quantity Surveyor will explain their roles. The seminar will also explain the impact of BIM as well as looking at some of the communication channels used. Taking place at The Building Centre in London on 22nd September for more details visit http://www.cimcig.org/events.php?id=305
|
Chris is founder of Competitive Advantage Consultancy Limited which specialises in market research and training for the construction industry. He is also a member of the organising committee for CIMCIG, the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s Construction Industry Group
View original article
First Published: August 2011 in RIBA Insight
|