The Principal’s Corner: What’s Your Plan for Improving Your Product Selection Process?
Is it time for some new tools?
Adopting new technology can be a daunting task. The design and construction world has not employed technology with the speed of other major national industries. But, as new generations join organizations they often become the early adopters and, in effect, the “champions” of new applied technology that can replace inefficient, tradition bound methodologies that are a drag on productivity.
Principals of firms should want to capitalize on the benefits that these new technologies offer. Who wouldn’t want to grow their businesses by eliminating inefficiency and improving profitability? The question firm leadership must answer is what are the most productive ways to implement technological change within their organizations.
Here are some ways to get started on determining how best to proceed.
Which “analog” process can benefit most from digital technology?
Most design and construction firms are already using some form of Revit or BIM. The level of use for these design tools is a function of a firm’s commitment to using them well and the capital they are willing to invest, especially in staff training.
But investing in design tools must also include a plan for addressing the highly inefficient product specification process. This is all about adopting information management best practices that other professions integrated long ago. Product selection is too often not sufficiently focused on until late into the CDs, when the team is already stretched thin to produce and coordinate all the drawings. Yet the products specified in the CDs can represent from 40–60% of a typical construction budget.
Based on discussions with several hundred design firms across the nation, we’ve made some surprising discoveries:
1. Many firms have no centralized database that a design team can utilize on an as-needed basis.
2. Most firms store their data in hard-to- find places, including Word files, PDF files, or in project folders kept on servers not readily available to every team member.
3. Often, a senior staff member is designated to be the repository of information on the standard specs used on specific building types; no one else in the firm matches this “gatekeeper’s” depth of knowledge and experience.
4. There’s usually no regular updating of product info in the firm’s product library–physical or digital. This commonly leads to specifying older and outdated product information, which can lead to errors. When problems associated with a specific product or its unavailability occurs, most firms don’t have a system to record that lesson learned. This may doom the next project team to repeat the same mistake.
What do we do once we recognize that we’re not efficiently organizing our product specification process?
1. Identify if you have a central database for this information. There can’t be improvement in efficiency and productivity without recognizing that all critical product data must be managed from a centralized database.
2. Identify how you want to make this information flow from your central repository to your team and who should have access and when. Documenting this provides a good overall view of the process and makes adoption of the new process easier.
3. Identify the employees who have already shown themselves to have an understanding for applying technology and a willingness to show others how it will help the entire firm and its design efficiency.
4. Tasks and Information. It’s important to clarify who oversees specific tasks within the company and during each project, especially someone involved in creating an institutional knowledge database.
5. Feedback, feedback, feedback. Employ mechanisms to provide management with periodic feedback on how the new system is working.
What is the fastest way to implement a comprehensive product specification management platform?
We’ve seen many firms try to design and build their own custom database to track all this information. Having worked with architects for decades, I understand why architects would think they can do this. Yet they always underestimate the overhead required to build something like this, let alone build something good enough that their staff will use.
Why waste the time and money to design and build a system yourself when a customizable platform like this already exists? I invite you to explore with your team the values of utilizing Arazoo, the new way to research, select, and manage product information. Arazoo is cloud-based, easy to learn and use, and packs powerful research, workflow collaboration and communication features all in one shockingly inexpensive package. When you see how in just a short period of time it leads your firm to greater efficiency, improved profitability and decreases the risk of errors and omissions, you’ll realize what a valuable firm asset you’ve created.
