What's the best way to generate specifications these days? 1

[Mike Mike]

For the past 8 years I've used Deltek masterspec and edited word documents to suit project specifics, but I'm wondering if there's a better way in terms 1. time consumption 2. license fees and 3. quality of specifications.

Seems like there are a bunch of other paid options out there, although some of these might be obsolete/redundant: Spec Point, Masterworks, e-spec, Spec cloud, Speclink cloud, Specbuilder, Conspectus Cloud.

In addition to paid services, I had a couple other ideas: 1. I asked chatGPT to write some specs for me and this seems like it could be a viable route too. Does anyone have experience using AI to generate specs? 2. for some specs I think it might be easy to copy high quality and relatively up to date specs. for example, isn't the second half of the masonry code that nobody reads, ACI 530.1, just a masonry spec? Don't governmental and quasi-governmental organizations make certain specs available? pardon my ignorance, I haven't spent much time digging yet.

A few more details: 1. I understand I will need to review and rework output via any of these options 2. I'm currently with a small firm doing mostly minor residential/landscaping jobs, so we don't do specs yet, but we are planning on taking on bigger commercial projects soon

 

[dik]

About 20 or 30 years back, I started to develop a relational database system for specs... it was just too big a task. I can see with AI that a similar approach could be used.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[JAE]

I'd just start with a MasterSpec of each section you typically need and edit it to your liking, your locale, and your construction community.

The re-editing of an already self-edited document usually doesn't take that long from my experience.

 

[Mike Mike]

dik, that does sound like a monumental task, and I might not be smart enuf to make a robot do it for me

JAE, yes, that's a good option and the one method I do have some familiarity with. my understanding is deltek currently offers specpoint/masterspec together for a yearly fee, a few thousand bucks for our firm size. we're kinda hoping one of the free options might cost less than a week of labor to get to the level of the masterspec output.

btw I thought this discussion was helpful if any of you have some free time for reading:

https://discus.4specs.com/discus/messages/23/9732.html?1683914915

 

[lexpatrie]

I think back when I was working from prototype specifications I got from Los Alamos or Sandia National Labs. I'd rather rework something out in the wild than leave it to a computer program that's been taught on a bunch of fiction books that is attempting to somehow heuristically guess what a specification looks like. If you had enough experience you could see the holes and errors and fill them in, but I don't think I'm at that level. All the stuff I did was in Word, I had this set of headings that would actually work correctly for about eight months so I could copy the styles into the document I found and format it correctly.

If you can get a hold of some Hotel prototypes they usually have short form "on the drawings" specifications, including arch. On the drawings specifications are still pretty common in the Structural Engineering discipline drawings, to me.

 

[Mike Mike]

seeing random specifications for magic spells within my rough carpentry certainly would be cause for concern. but eventually we will all have to get comfortable with reviewing robot output or get out-competed, maybe not this decade but some day.

I tried to track down hotel prototypes on the googler and failed, maybe we will chase some hotel work and ask them to send us prototypes, or else if you have any handy plz send

 

[Brad805]

It is sad that NMS master spec is about all you have for options. It has not progressed much in 20yrs, and is flaky. One thing is for sure, it is far more expensive now. It is best to have people dedicated for the editing task. I know some Architects sub this work out.

 

[Mike Mike]

uh well we are actually in the US, but that is interesting. in canada could you get specs from the companies/softwares I listed above? or do you have to buy NMS? Is NMS maintained by canadian tax dollars? does canada subcontract the maintenance work out?

 

[lexpatrie]

As to Hotel prototypes, some of them are behind passwords that you have to more or less ask for via email. IHG I think works that way, and there's if you're into it, a certification process for a few of them and then you can be listed (somewhere?) as somebody who's familiar with them.