The future of MasterFormat: CSI is bringing its specifications systems into the 21st century, but concrete contractors will find themselves in familiar territory

Concrete Construction, Feb, 2004 by Karl Borgstrom, Greg Ceton

When the Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) established the MasterFormat Expansion Task Team in April 2001, it seemed clear that technical advances in the industry and greater emphasis on the life cycle of the built environment required a substantial overhaul of the document.

For those in our industry who may be unfamiliar with MasterFormat's role, I usually tell them to think of it as the "Dewey Decimal System" of commercial construction. MasterFormat is a hierarchical arrangement of subject titles for organizing construction project information into a regular, standard, sequential order. Each title in MasterFormat is accompanied by a section number, and these numbers establish the order The widespread acceptance and use of this master list of titles and numbers facilitates information retrieval, improves communication among parties in construction projects, and contributes significantly to projects being completed on time and within budget.

With its introduction in 1963. MasterFormat revolutionized the way commercial building are to be constructed. The efficiencies gained over the past 40 years by the industry's use of a common language for written construction information have saved untold dollars as the various professions, trades, and suppliers have learned how to document the process and work from the same script MasterFormat is the means by which those disciplines can speak the same language and act together.

Revisions reflect changes

MasterForrnar has been all evolving document from the beginning. CSI reviews and revises it on a regular schedule, usually every 5 to 7 years. the current version--MasterFormat 95--replaced the previous edition issued in 1988. It's no exaggeration to say that the changes anticipated in the 2004 edition are the most dramatic ever proposed for this document. The technology of construction has advanced in leaps and bounds since the mid 1990s, with new materials, techniques, and applications in every segment the industry.

The simple fact is that Master Format's venerable 16 divisions can't hold any more information. In many divisions we've simply run out Of section numbers and room to expand. So for the past 2 years we've been working with a diverse group of individual and organizational stakeholders throughout the industry to reconstruct MasterFormar. The goal: develop a new edition that can address these changes in the industry's bust ness and technological environments and also be flexible enough to adapt painlessly to future developments.

Little change for concrete

For contractors who deal with Divisions 3 (concrete) and 9 (finishes), very little will change in their day today lives. The task team determined early on that those divisions had minimal need for change, especially as compared with some of the more "crowded" divisions.

Plans call for MasterFormat 04 to retain the familiar numbers for the traditional structural and architectural divisions (3-14) as in previous editions. The biggest change will be new six-digit section numbers for the entries within divisions, replacing the five-digit numbers in previous editions. This makes room for more than 9800 usable sections in each division. That's an increase of more than a hundred times the space available in previous editions, and more than enough room to allow the document to change and adapt to new construction practices for the foreseeable future. While all the numbers in the document will change, the Task Team worked hard to maintain as many references as possible to old section numbers and incorporate them into the new numbering system in an order that will make sense to long-time MasterFormat users. Users will also notice that the general flow of information presented by the new document, especially in divisions 3-14, is in many ways unchanged. This is particularly true in the "Level 2" sections that deal with broad ranges of subject matter. For example, contractors looking in Section 09600 for Flooring will have to look in Section 096000 in the new version. Section 03400 on Precast Concrete will become Section 034000, and so on. At finer levels than that, the new numbering system enables the new edition to address much more information in greater detail. This will minimize the potential for confusion and increase the ability of specifications to be specific.

In the end, we will have new section numbers to reflect new concrete or finish construction practices, and many of the more narrow classifications will have entirely new numbers, but the new edition will still be easy to navigate for those experienced with MasterFormat. Perhaps more importantly, divisions dealing with other subjects, those that often had more confusing organization because of the five-digit numbering system's space limitations, are now much easier to navigate. This will make training new employees and their subsequent use of MasterFormat far more intuitive.

Many of the biggest changes in the new MasterFormat will be in areas seriously underserved in previous editions: telecommunications, integrated building systems, audio-visual, security, public works, and process engineering, among others. The enhancements in these areas allow for far more integrated projects, especially when those projects include multiple types of construction. Some of the improvements include: