Our Market Research, Analysis and Forecasting regularly survey the industry to help inform our product developments. In recent years we have shared this knowledge and wrapped it up with insightful articles and opinions in the form of our reports.
In May 2017, two of these reports are being published pretty much at the same time (you wait ages for a bus and two come at once!).
The first of these is our Specification Report - the BIM Report will follow shortly.
This is completely free - but don't forget to leave your email address when you download it so you can receive our weekly e-newsletter:
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www.thenbs.com/knowledge/nbs-specification-report-2017
Some snippets from the report below...
Interesting to see that the specification may be modified, at least on some projects, at each stage of the plan of work. In the majority of cases, it is a document that develops at least through the developed design stage and the technical design stage. In a third of all projects it continues to be updated throughout the construction stage inline with any variations. So this suggests that industry attitudes to writing specifications at the last minute before to complete a tender package are perhaps changing.
The importance of writing tight performance specifications to set out the requirements for contractor-led projects or projects with elements of contractor design is clear. Also good to see (I think) that 42%
disagree that specification writing is a chore :)
The main causes of difficulty are interesting. Looking at the main cause of difficulty - substitution of product decisions by the contractor is the biggest cause for concern. The article by Mark Taylor from Allies and Morrison reflects on this. Badly coordinated information in the drawings and specifications is the second biggest difficulty. I wasn't wanting to do much of a plug for NBS solutions in this blog post - but we
do have
plug-ins for a number of design tools that help here and are free for NBS users.
Amogst the articles and comment pieces we hear from specifiers and also manufacturers. It is worth remembering that when specifiying manufacturer products, most leading manufacturers have technical support departments who really understand their subject matter and are there to be a member of your project team.
Finally, there is a number of pages at the end of the report introducing some of the NBS Technical Team. These are the construction professionals who have spent years working as specifiers on real life project and have since joined NBS to research, author and maintain the template clauses and guidance that is in our products...
So please download the report. Share your opinions on social media. Maybe pass the report around your colleagues and discuss the topics in your office:
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www.thenbs.com/knowledge/nbs-specification-report-2017
(and watch this space for the upcoming eagerly awaited BIM report)
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