by Susan B. McClymonds, AIA

Everybody should be aware by now that the Construction Specifications Institute has launched its new expanded version of the industry-wide system for organizing data, MasterFormat 2004 (MF’04). Although the contents of divisions 3 through 14, the “architectural divisions, remain basically unchanged, there are fundamental revisions in the numbering structure to allow, for instance, for more space within the divisions. Moreover, the MF’04 has been expanded from the original 16 divisions to encompass 50 divisions overall, which will help greatly to bring order to the rapidly expanding and increasingly complex realm of building design, construction, and operation.

This transition to MF’04 is something that cannot be ignored, although I have encountered a measure of resistance in meetings I’ve attended over the last few years and in courses I’ve taken and taught on the subject over this past year. It may be a bitter pill to swallow, but, approached with planning and resolve, converting to MF’04 will result in a fresh and necessary start to a new and promising integrated practice where everybody on the building team is—literally—on the same page.

Everybody into the pool
So, who needs to start converting first? The answer is: If the owner and architect start a project in MF’04, every consultant, contractor, cost estimator, and product manufacturer—in short, everyone on the project—has to have its MF’04 organizing protocol established and be conversant in its use. There will, by necessity, be a transition period when some projects—certainly all those already well under way—will use the 16-Division MasterFormat. It simply isn’t practical to try to make a switch after the construction documents phase has begun. Depending on the size and complexity of existing projects, this transition period can reasonably be estimated at two to three years.

Virtually every architecture office will have to learn the new system and make the transition to it, be it a one-person firm with 10 books on the shelf that uses Masterspec straight off of their diskette, or a multi-office international practice with its own proprietary specifications and financial management systems. It is probably true, though, that the larger firms are the ones that will be more likely to hire someone to come in and reorganize their library in a couple of days, where the smaller firms will probably be able to fit this into their overall workload. But everyone has to do some type of reorganization and deal with this new database system.

The good news is that model specifications providers and product manufacturers already have begun their transition and are offering resources to help architects, engineers, and contractors make the move as well. For more information, refer to the accompanying table for a list of providers that have new tools in place and a schedule of proposed implementation plans for those still scheduling their conversion sequence.

Step one: the implementation plan
Evaluate the what, who, and when of moving over to MF’04. Focus on your firm’s readiness: what functions and tools will be affected, what personnel will need to be brought up to speed, and when will you need to implement each element of your overall plan. Once you have all your data collected, you know what you’re dealing with, and your plan is ready to put into action, it is time to look at the specific projects that will use MF’04 first. And then you execute it—no delays, no excuses, just do it.

As an example of evaluating the what:

• If you do in-house specifications, obviously that will be affected.
• If you do keynoting on your drawings to tie specifications to the drawings and show where your drawings information can be found in the specs, that needs to be changed.
• If you have a product data library—no matter how you store it, in loose or bound hard copy or on your computer—that will definitely have to be changed. And nearly every architecture firm in the country has that application.
• And if you any kind of project integration and management, that also will be affected.

In short, if you have any databases that use the MasterFormat organizational structure, you’ll have to change them. And that includes expanded services a lot of architecture firms provide, such as cost estimating and facility management. If you do any interoperability; if you use or are looking to use building information modeling (aka, BIM), obviously that will make the expanded, coordinated cross-discipline attributes of MF’04 absolutely crucial, because the BIM database controls that whole process.

And that’s the beauty of this new organizing system. MF’04 is a tool that allows us to prepare to go into the future and do the kinds of things that we are just beginning to realize in terms of a single computerized building-model database that everyone from the client, design architect, consulting engineers, accountants, banks, regulators, fabricators, contractors, subs, and all subsequent facility professionals can use seamlessly now and into the future.

Evaluating the who
Technical staff who deal with any of the “whats” we just discussed need to know what is expected of them and need the resources to fulfill those expectations. Management needs to understand the top-down commitment that will be required to make the transition happen. Your in-house design staff will have to know how their myriad in-house and outside tasks, work flow, and responsibilities will work within their daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly cycles. Your in-house administrative staff who actually do the filing and word processing all have to be thoroughly familiar with the new MF’04 structure. All your consultants, whether you work with them on a regular basis or just on a single project, will have to know the new MasterFormat and how you use it, because everybody has to be on board. Likewise, other parties in the delivery process, such as construction managers, developers, and anyone else you work with will have to be up to speed with you on use of MF’04.

Who decides when to start
The next logical step is that you have to look at which projects will be affected. There are several driving forces behind that:
Owner-driven demand. A lot of owners now are saying they want their projects done in the new MasterFormat structure, and they’re already driving the decision to go with that format for their projects.
Existing jobs. As mentioned, if a project is in the construction documents phase, it cannot practically be changed. But early on in a project for which the team is amenable to MF’04 adherence, it is possible to cross out and re-categorize budget entries for time and money and start organizing the project data to conform to the MF’04 structure.
Architect-driven impetus. On one project I just was employed on for specification writing services, my client, the architect, decided on their own that the project will be in MF’04.

As the architect, you also have to consider the workload and the timeline for your clients and consultants, because everyone has to be on board to do this. Again, you can’t have part of it in the 16-division format and part in MF’04. You have to look at your staff to see if you need to hire a consultant. Or you can reconfigure and train in-house. Either way, you have to look at how much it costs, figuring in the bottom line for everyone. Still, if you can absorb the conversion into your regular projects, then you’ve got it made.

Treat conversion like any other project
When should you start? You need to start now. Everyone needs to start now. So developing a plan is the most important thing that I can urge people to do immediately. Treat it like any client-driven project. Set a schedule with deliverables and an ultimate deadline. And be serious about it. Stick to your deadline. Assign responsibility. Assign a project manager. And empower that person to succeed. Make sure that they have the staffing and other resources they need to make this happen. And the firm has to buy into it, too. Align the task with the industry rollout, which almost everybody is publishing now. I really think people will come on board fairly quickly now. When the expanded MasterFormat was perceived as a distant threat out there, everybody believed they could push it aside by ignoring it. But now that all the major spec-writing organizations, product-manufacturer representatives, and financial-information providers are publishing with MF’04 in mind, it’s pretty clear that it’s time to understand this and get in front of it.

True, there are still naysayers, just as a lot of people wouldn’t switch to CAD and said they never would. I know maybe five people now who have never embraced CAD and are still hand drafting, but they’re all over 70 years old. So everybody eventually is going to have to come on board, whether they grumble or not. And the way I present the issue to architects and engineers is to point out what a wonderful opportunity MF’04 presents for them. First of all, there is a distinct place now for each type of data to be located. Engineers won’t have to coordinate endlessly with engineers of other disciplines about whose stuff went where because there was no space for it. And architects don’t have to tussle with specialty engineers when somebody tries to invent a personal Division 17 to put their own systems into because there was no other place to put it.

Engineers, in particular, will benefit because there are so many engineering disciplines out there with so much information, and they only had three divisions. And, finally, making the transition presents a wonderful opportunity for architects and engineers to review and update the technical contents of their specification sections and other databases they may employ. Since you’re going to have to renumber them, you might as well update them.. You do it once, and you have a better product to offer.

The future of the profession
I’ve been asked to present on MF’04 at several schools of architecture, including my local school, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute School of Architecture, so the professors can understand what’s coming. In schools of architecture you often have professors who aren’t practitioners—they’re theorists or teach other portions of the professional curriculum. I see this as an opportunity to reach out and show that the practicing architects can be enlightened leaders as well and share their information with others who don’t yet have these resources within their own groups. I also teach the specifications and contracts class in the professional-practice course at RPI, and the students are really interested in specifications and the way they’re organized. They’re interested in ideas like this new database. They understand the need for constantly upgrading one’s computer knowledge and having distinct places to locate and organize information. These are the future leaders of our profession. If they see the value in embracing new tools and technologies, so should we.

I urge and challenge all of my colleagues in the architecture profession to come on board with MasterFormat ’04, make the transition, and lead the charge in the implementation of MF’04 in the industry of the built environment. Embrace the future of our profession.

Align Your Transition Tasks with the Industry Rollout

Product data publishers

• Sweets Catalog File—’06 Edition using MF 2004 publishes late ‘05; online in July ‘05
• Reed Construction Data/First Source—’06 Edition using MF 2004 in late ’05
• 4specs.com—Now; toggle between old and new editions

Cost data publishers

• Reed Construction Data/RS Means—’06 edition using MF 2004 publishes late ’05
• McGraw-Hill/FW Dodge—’06 edition using MF 2004 publishes late ’05; online in July ’05

Other software and standards

• National CAD Standard—Now
• Timberline—Now; toggle between editions

Owner requirements

• GSA—MF 2004 mandatory in Sept. ’05
• States—Many states (including Ohio, Louisiana) MF 2004 recommended and preferred; will be required soon

Other notable owners

• Disney, GM, City of Charlotte by Jan. 1, 2006
• University of Texas: Soon
• BART in San Francisco: Now

Check with your clients!

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