Speaking the Same Language: Company-Wide Consistency in Specifications

Consistency of documentation across projects and project teams within the same organisation is essential.

Inconsistency in drawings and specifications from one project to the next can undermine quality and service delivery.

Here are our top tips for creating consistent company-wide documentation and specifications (you may need a coffee for this one):

Put The Work in Upfront

1. Assign a ‘Champion’:

• Assign a team (if your organisation is large enough) or a person to ‘Champion’ the process of documenting the company-wide methodology of managing specification production.
• Action Steps: Outsourcing to a good Specification Consultancy can also alleviate this role.

2. Undertake a needs analysis:

• Understand the company’s specification needs, volume, frequency, stakeholders, and the types of specifications required.
• Action Steps: Organise stakeholder meetings, undertake surveys, analyse previous specification errors or inefficiencies and identify improvement areas.

3. Define standards:

• Create templates, guidelines, and standards for specification creation. This ensures a consistent look, feel, and quality of documents across the company.
• Action Steps: Identify and design specification templates and formulate style guides regarding font, tone, structure, etc.

4. Establish document naming and numbering conventions:

• A systematic approach to naming and numbering ensures specifications can be easily located, identified, and referenced.
• Action Steps: Identify commonalities in documents (like project name, revisions, date), define clear rules for naming, and regularly update conventions if new document types emerge.

5. Implement Version Control:

• As specifications get updated, tracking changes is crucial, ensuring stakeholders access the correct version.
• Action Steps: Establish clear version naming conventions (e.g., v1.0, v1.1). Using cloud-based specification platforms should automatically save and track versions.

6. Develop Document Workflow

• Specifications deserve multiple reviews before finalisation. A clear workflow should delineate this path.
• Action Steps: Map out the journey of a specification from creation to approval, identify key contributors in each step, and create guidelines for feedback and revision.

7. Setting Quality Benchmarks:

• By setting clear, measurable benchmarks, you ensure the consistent quality of specifications.
• Action Steps: Collaborate with stakeholders to determine quality criteria, and regularly review and update benchmarks based on feedback.

8. Quality Control (QC) and Quality Assurance (QA):

• QC and QC ensure each specification and process meets the set benchmarks.
• Action Steps: Implement peer reviews, use automated tools for grammar, formatting, and compliance checks, and establish a final QC check before any document is sent out.

9. Document Security:

• Protect sensitive company and project data and ensure compliance with data protection regulations.
• Action Steps: Implement user access controls, encrypt sensitive documents, and conduct regular security audits. A good cloud-based specification platform should have document security built in.

The Nuts and Bolts

Now that we’ve outlined a broad process, let’s dive into the nuts and bolts and outline specific initiatives to ensure your specifications are consistent across the organisation.

1. Baseline Content:

• Begin all specifications from a consolidated set of content, which provides the universal point of reference for all projects.
• Action steps: Set up and maintain a centralised specification baseline (database) that is ideally cloud-based, and up to date with the applicable standards and regulations.
• Alternatively, good Specification Consultancies spend their miserable (check reference below for explanation) life crafting and curating specification content that is best in class, best for project, and can make your life much easier.
• Begin all design models from a consolidated set of keynotes, built within a keynote library, which also provides the universal point of reference for all projects.
• Action steps: Set up and maintain a centralised keynote library (database) that is ideally cloud-based, has direct connectivity to the 3D modelling software, and uses intuitive, structured, alphanumerical text.
• Alternatively, good Specification Consultancies spend their miserable (in case you missed it the first time) life crafting and curating keynote libraries which can plug into your 3D model, are meticulously aligned with direct manufacturer content, and can again make your life much, much easier.

2. Get Intelligent with Your Software:

• Are you using disjointed, dumb documents that don’t communicate with one another?
• Action steps: There has never been a better time to invest in a cloud-based software solution that not only houses, manages and facilitates all your specification content, but also links with your model directly and provides you with a keynote library with template product descriptions and can effectively be your project shopping list. Do you want a product description for a fibre cement cladding?

3. Training:

• There’s no point in setting up the best specification production and management protocol in the world if no one knows how to use it – right?
• Action steps: Organise regular training sessions, provide refreshers for each new project as required, provide access to resources for self-training, and foster an environment where the team can ask questions and seek clarification. Again, Specification Consultancies can provide in-house training to all staff as required, along with new hires, and work collaboratively with design teams to help make company-wide consistency a reality.

4. Analyse Trends:

• You’ve assigned a ‘Champion’ and set up all the templates, workflows and libraries one could possibly do, but how do you maintain consistency of product selections and specification patterns across projects?
• Action steps: Leverage analytics provided by your cloud-based specification and scheduling tool. Analyse trends, what product performed well in what application, and build your favourite product database that you know provides the correct certification, warranties, price, and supply chain. If you don’t have one of these, do yourself a favour and get one.

Conclusion:

In summary, cultivating a shared specification culture across dispersed teams is challenging but pays dividends. The solution entails change management as much as process and technology optimisation.

But company-wide consistency in specifications helps your people, brand, and bottom line shine.

Could your company benefit from an external pair of eyes? Perhaps a Specification Consultancy to manage and coordinate your specifications, or utilise a digital cloud-based ecosystem with an in-built keynote structure and product library, that provides product and user analytics?

Then reach out to us, and let’s improve the natural and built environment with every project together.

www.earlymark.com

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What initiatives have you or your business implemented to ensure company-wide consistency? Share your moments of wisdom in the comments below.