The future of MasterFormat: CSI is updating its specifications system, but masonry contractors will still find themselves in familiar territory

Masonry Construction, April, 2004 by Karl Borgstrom

When the Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) established the MasterFormat Expansion Task Team in April 2001, it seemed clear that technical advancements in the industry regarding both practices and products, as well as an expanded focus on the entire life cycle of the built environment, mandated a substantial overhaul of the document.

For those in the industry who may be unfamiliar with MasterFormat's role, it is basically 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 "section numbers" that establish this order.

The widespread use of this master list of titles and numbers facilitates information retrieval and improves communication among parties in construction projects from the building's concept development to its eventual renovation/demolition. It also contributes significantly to projects being completed on time, within budget, to owners' requirements.

With its introduction in 1963, MasterFormat revolutionized the way commercial buildings are constructed. The efficiencies gained over the last 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 these disciplines are able to speak the same language and act together.

Regular revisions reflect a changing industry

MasterFormat has been an evolving document from the very beginning. CSI reviews and revises it regularly. The current version--MasterFormat 95--replaced the 1988 edition.

These regular revisions have sometimes resulted in major changes and other times only minor adjustments. The extent of revision has chiefly been a response to the pace or nature of change in the construction industry. Taken in the context of all previous revisions, it's no exaggeration to say that the changes in the 2004 edition of MasterFormat are the most dramatic ever proposed.

The technology of construction has advanced in leaps and bounds since the mid-1990s. New materials, techniques, and applications are coming on line in every segment of the industry. Think about how much your own job has changed since 1995, with access to the Internet at home and at work, e-mail, and cell phones. Did you operate under a just-in-time inventory delivery system or have ready access to this much information then?

The simple fact is that MasterFormat's venerable 16 divisions can't hold any more information. In many divisions, there is no room for section numbers and places to expand. For more than two years, CSI has been working with a diverse group of individual and organizational stakeholders throughout the industry to reconstruct MasterFormat. The goal was to develop a new edition that addresses these changes in the industry's business and technological environments, while being flexible to adapt painlessly to future developments.

Little change for masonry

Contractors dealing with Division 04 (Masonry) will find little change in their day-to-day lives. The MasterFormat Expansion Task Team determined early on that this division had minimal need for change, especially compared to some of the more "crowded" divisions. And while earlier drafts of MasterFormat 04 envisioned more dramatic changes, those were scaled back considerably based on input from industry representatives.

Plans call for MasterFormat 04 to retain the familiar numbers for the traditional structural and architectural divisions (0314), as in previous editions. The biggest change will be new six-digit numbers for the sections within divisions, replacing the five-digit format used in previous editions.

This change makes room for over 9800 usable sections in each division, which is an increase of more than 100 times the space in previous editions and provides enough room to allow the document to adapt to new construction practices for the foreseeable future. This approach stems from the Task Team's desire to provide MasterFormat users capacity for stable and logical expansion without forcing fundamental changes in the overall framework.

While all the numbers in the new 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 makes sense to long-time MasterFormat users. MasterFormat 95 users also will notice that the flow of information in the new document, especially in Divisions 03-14, is in many ways unchanged. This fact is particularly true in the divisions' "Level 2" sections concerning relatively broad subject matter. For example, contractors used to looking in Section 04200 for Unit Masonry will need to look in Section 042000 in the new version, and so on.

At freer levels than that, the new section numbering system enables the edition to address much more information in greater detail. This approach minimizes the potential for confusion and increases the ability of specifications to be specific, which enhances the capacity for uniform communication and benefits all who rely on specifications to do their jobs.