Standard section structure revisited

In this article John Gelder, Head of content development and sustainability, has a fresh look at the standard section structure being used for NBS Create system sections (where buildings comprise systems – such as flooring systems and lighting systems – which in turn comprise products).

The idea of a standard section structure isn't new. The North American SectionFormat™ (2008), for example, has been around for many years. It defines three, and only three, subsections that will be found in all sections: General, Products, and Execution. NATSPEC, in Australia, and most other national master specification systems also have standard section structures in place. The ad hoc approach of NBS Building is unusual.

The standard section structure used in NBS Create first saw the light of day in the 2001 sections K41 Raised access floors and K40 Demountable suspended ceilings sections, but was primarily developed during prototype work on outline and performance specifications, over 2002. The NBS Scheduler reference specification, launched in 2002, and around 25% of sections in NBS Building have this structure, or something like it. The first product to have this structure throughout, in its fully developed form, was NBS Engineering Services, launched in 2004.

All libraries in NBS Create – Services (launched November 2011), Architecture, Structure and Landscape (to be launched March 2012) – will use this standard section structure in the system sections. The structure of non-system (i.e. building and product) technical sections mirrors the system section structure. Project management sections (Group 00) have their own structures (for more information on the overall structure of NBS Create, refer to the article The new Uniclass Work sections table).

Benefits of a standard section structure

Though each section in NBS Building is structured, the technical work sections generally do not have a consistent formal structure. There are subsections for some topics, and the 100s clauses, the 200s clauses and so on often tend to cover distinct topics. The ad hoc approach of NBS Building means that the sections have individual structures, though you can see a pattern trying to emerge:

There is no real advantage to an ad hoc approach to structure, except that requirements can be grouped as the original author sees fit. But being subjective, and devised on a section-by-section basis, this structure may not always make sense to users, or to a subsequent author. They might have organized things differently.

Other problems arise. If authoring a section from scratch, the author has no framework or checklist to build on. The chances of overlooking something without such an aide memoire are high. The specification as a whole lacks consistency – those preparing or using a work section will have to work out each time where to place or look for a particular requirement, such as tests on the completed system. Finally, it is difficult to spot technical (and editorial) inconsistencies, gaps or overlaps in coverage between sections, if the structure of every section is different.

The standard structure addresses these problems, and ensures a consistent approach to specification regardless of discipline, enabling collaborative working. It also facilitates manipulation of data, e.g. for reporting, and a consistent procurement-specific approach to specification, illustrated in the tables below. Specific to NBS Create, guidance and training is simplified.

The NBS subsections

In the new structure, each system section is organized around up to 7 subsections, as follows:

• System outline
• System performance
• Products (actually held in product sections, but presented here in the systems view of NBS Create)
• Custom-made products
• Execution
• System completion
• System facility management (only implemented for the NBS Create landscape library, for now).

The names of the subsections are fixed, e.g. 'Execution' isn't called 'Tiling' in one section, and 'Concreting' in another. Each subsection deals exclusively with a different subject, e.g. Execution requirements won't be found in the Products subsection.

For buildings, there will be separate sections (rather than subsections) for Building outline, Building performance and so forth. For products, the product sections include only the Products and Execution subsections.

Audiences

The subject matter corresponds to the contractor with different 'hats' on, and to different players. The Products subsection, for example, is of interest to the contractor with its ordering hat on, and to the manufacturer and supplier:

Procurement

The subject matter also allows a systematic approach to specification for different methods of procurement. For design-build, for example, the System performance subsection will be needed, but for construction with full-consultant design, it won't be. Similarly, the structure allows different views and reports to be generated easily. An outline view (e.g. for authoring) or an outline report (e.g. for an outline specification), for example, could comprise just the System outline subsections, across all system sections. The table expands on this explanation – a blank cell (for example) indicates that this subsection needs little or no content for this particular procurement route.

Relationship with the new Uniclass Work sections table

The standard section structure and the new Uniclass Work sections table are inter-related. The one affects the other. This relationship is best illustrated by comparing North American and UK practice.

In the standard section structure used in NBS Create, everything to do with a particular system is described in the corresponding system section. So the list of work sections does not need separate sections for system performance and system facility management (FM), for example.

This is not the case in North America, where SectionFormat has no home for system performance, system commissioning and system FM. Accordingly separate work sections are needed for these topics in the North American list of work sections (MasterFormat™). The system performance sections aren’t even located in the same Group as the systems they serve, all being in Group 01.

We think the UK approach is preferred.

An earlier version of this article was published in NBS Journal 09 (November 2006). For more information on this subject, please contact John Gelder at john.gelder@theNBS.com.

Related NBS information:

Articles:

• NBS Create
• The new Uniclass Work sections table
• The benefits of master specifications

January 2012

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