Construction Industry Trends
June 2005
Revising MasterFormat: Q&A with Greg Ceton
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As technical programs manager with the Construction Specifications Institute (CSI), Greg Ceton has been involved in the revision of MasterFormat from the beginning.
Q: Why did CSI decide to revise the 1995 edition of MasterFormat?
We have a regular revision cycle for all of our documents, and MasterFormat traditionally has been revised every five to seven years, depending upon the needs of the industry. In the initial fact-finding phase of the revision effort, our task team found a number of what we called Division 17s. Prior to the release of the 2004 edition, MasterFormat had 16 divisions, so whenever an area or sector of the industry was underserved by MasterFormat, people would create a 17th division to meet the needs of their project. These additional divisions contained everything from communications and building automation infrastructure to track work and light commuter rail components such as fixtures and signaling. This slow fragmenting of the standard indicated to us that there were a lot of unmet user needs out there.
Q: Did you use a lot of the Division 17 information when you revised MasterFormat?
One of the things the task team did early on was work to get a number of outside organizations besides CSI and CSC—Construction Specifications Canada—represented on the task team. We invited experts familiar with this additional content to participate and make sure that it was addressed. We also made sure that our current users were well-represented on the task team. Then, in a final step to include as many knowledgeable eyes and minds as possible, we put everything up for public commentary, which resulted in literally thousands of comments incorporated into the process.
Q: So did you expand the scope of the standard?
The task team decided early on that in order to address some of the new basic needs of building construction projects, such as communications, building automation, and electronic security, we would need to expand beyond 16 divisions. Since we were doing that, we decided it made sense to expand the standard’s capacity to cover all types of construction. We wanted to make it possible to use MasterFormat for any type of project, regardless of whether it was an office building or an oil refinery. We also expanded MasterFormat so that it would be useful for post-construction activities, and be a way of organizing facility information for the entire lifecycle of a project. This aspect of MasterFormat 2004 Edition has found favor with a lot of owners and facility managers, especially those who have a lot of large or complex facilities to manage.
Q: What about residential projects?
Because MasterFormat has been used primarily for commercial and institutional building construction, that’s where it’s most well known. But that doesn’t mean it’s not applicable or useful for residential construction. In fact, it’s regularly used for the construction of multi-tenant residences, and is also often used for custom homebuilding projects, many of which approach commercial construction in scale. The area where it’s not widely used is single-family residential construction, but we do think it has the potential to be a useful tool for residential developers. In fact, in the near future we plan on creating a version of MasterFormat that’s geared specifically to single-family residential construction.
Q: Even though you’ve expanded MasterFormat, what happens if people need to add their own content?
That’s the beauty of MasterFormat. It’s an incredibly flexible standard. In other words, it’s a standard that allows for non-standard applications. If people don’t find the title or number that applies to them or to what they’re trying to specify, they find an area where we’re getting close to the idea and they create their own number and title in that area. It still works the same way it always has.
However, I do think you would be hard pressed to find an entire division-level concept that was unaddressed with MasterFormat 2004 Edition. We’ve worked very hard to cover all the broader concepts of construction in the 34 divisions we’re using. We’re also in the process of introducing a regular review schedule to support future expansion and improvements. This review process will encourage industry feedback so that we can continually improve MasterFormat in a timely manner and save users from having to create their own numbers that inevitably lead to dissonance with the overall industry. We also have recently teamed with IHS to provide MasterFormat users with an online subscription service to deliver the updates that result from the reviews.
Q: What has been the reaction to MasterFormat 2004 Edition?
We’ve seen a lot of interest and a surprisingly fast adoption rate. The area where we’re seeing the most interest is among the sophisticated owner groups, such as universities and federal and local governments. Starting in 2006—or even earlier—a lot of state governments will be insisting that projects be specified with MasterFormat 2004 Edition. And the federal government is also making the transition. I think 2006 will be the breakwater year to make your transition. If you wait until after 2006, then you’ll be behind the curve.