CSI Member Spotlights are all about supporting a robust community where construction professionals get together to trade insights for amazing results. Today’s Spotlight is on DIALOG’s Keith Robinson. You can fill out your own Spotlight to be featured here at this link.
Today, in the first spotlight in this new series, we present the second of a two-part interview with DIALOG’s Keith Robinson (you can read the first part of this interview right here).
Keith Robinson
Research and Development | Specifications
Company: DIALOG
Hometown: Edmonton, Alberta Canada
Why are specifications important?
Specifications, when correctly used to communicate design strategies and assign appropriate and well written direction to the constructor, have the power to influence good design and contribute to projects that satisfy the performance expectations of the people who pay for what we all do for a living—the people and corporations who make the construction industry a vital component of the economic fabric of this country and the world.
The power of words is underestimated – goes back to why I joined CSI – the quantity of work and population size dictates that by sheer numbers, the quantity of legal issues will present themselves more often than they do in my country. Progress follows correction of those issues, meaning that the specification is well positioned to offset and diminish the incidence of claims against professionals.
I have a friend twho owns a company that provides alternate dispute resolution. His only goal in life is to provide information to specifiers to reduce his workload. His one admitted failure in life is that he has been extremely successful in finding faults (many times the same fault repeated over-and‑over) within the specification.
If there are people making money from badly written specifications, think about how important the document is, and the power it has to reverse that trend through well-written content to reduce the cost of construction and improve the state of the built environment
How has the process of creating specifications changed in the last five years, and how do you see this process changing within the next five years?
BIM has become a much more influential contributor to specification writing. The company I work for is making the conversion to 100 percent digital documentation and creating connections between the modelled building and the specification.
The importance of the specification and integration with the model has grown and is increasingly evolving. The next five years are presenting special challenges; that by the speed of adoption by constructors, necessitating changes in which very few of us have real knowledge of experience.
What is clear is that doing things the way we have always done them is not working. Change is being forced on us, and the next five years will see a tremendous growth in adaptive strategies to deal with this new reality.
From your perspective, how has the role of the specifier changed over the last 10 years, and how do you see that role changing during the next five years?
The specifier is being used much more as a project resource—early involvement during the early conceptual design phases and continuing through to schematic and design development—to make the published document more accurate and reflective of the design intent.
Designers are challenged in the same way as specifiers—there has been a disconnect between design and the model, many times as a consequence of different digital tool usage. This differential has diminished in the last couple of years very noticeably, diminishing the rework and disconnect that was occurring as a consequence of using different toolsets between the design and production teams.
The next five years will see more collaborative software suites, with what I hope is more efficient transfer of design knowledge and improved communication to the constructor.
What’s the one piece of advice you wish someone had given you?
I was fortunate to have several good mentors, and have benefited greatly from their advice over the almost 40 years of my career. I think the one piece of advice that they did not give was about the inevitability of change, and how quickly that change can occur.
Can you share one piece of advice for individuals preparing for an upcoming exam?
Use the knowledge you have acquired. Do not memorize the content of the lessons, but think of ways to apply those lessons. Knowing how to solve something will be more beneficial to the exam outcomes than remembered phrases and idioms.
Tell us about your daily routine?
First priority à problem solver… I come into the office in the morning, look at my emails and filter out the messages that have identified issues with projects. Followed up with a GOYA maneuver… Get Off Your (my) A-rear-end and engage the person in conversation and discuss solutions and overcome roadblocks.
Check my workload schedules, delegate to others on my team what they can accomplish and challenge them with new concepts to develop their skills. Once everyone is engaged I beetle away on the work I need to get done, making time to address critical concerns through the day.
Communicate with my extended community (CSI and CSC), check-in with the news from various publications and subscriptions, create content for our company’s internal best‑practices specification blog, and basically check the pulse of the world through lunch and spare moments of time.
Talk to friends, spend time down at the rowing club—even in our long dark winter season—spend time with nature to offload and de-stress before going home and spending time with my wife.
What are you passionate about outside of the industry?
Rowing. I love this sport. I coach people. I participate in racing. I pretty much live and breathe rowing (when I catch my breath). I also help out with corporate rowing challenges to help raise money for our local children’s hospital. Our rowing club’s event has raised more than 1.5 million dollars over the last 12 years or so, and popularity of the sport in our city has grown as a consequence.
What’s the coolest project you’ve ever worked on, or are working on now? How might that relate to knowledge you gained via CSI?
Coolest project by far was a seminary, a place where catholic priests undergo their formation. It was a very special project. The archbishop made the concept of construction very palpable to my ideals of sustainability during our company’s interviews with him about durability of materials and how they influence the performance requirements for specified materials. The design principal asked the question, “what is the expected lifespan for this project?”
He responded, “I’m not sure what you mean by that question, what choices do I have?”
We replied, “Typical expectations for institutional buildings would be a predicted life cycle before major renovations of between 50 and 99 years, and greater than 100 years for permanent or post‑disaster buildings.”
He kind of laughed at that and then stated with a wink, “I’m not sure that you noticed, but the church has been around for quite a while…and we plan on being here for a good while yet.”
This is the first and only project that I have worked on that was intentionally constructed with a 500+ predicted life cycle. Materials used were permanent (the chapel was constructed from a single three day pour of pure white concrete) and detailers were very conscious of accessibility to envelope components that need repair during that extended life span.
The specification required close coordination with manufacturers and suppliers, and took more than a year to write. The project manual included innovative approaches to design‑assist and engagement by the subtrades so that their contributions were recognized and contributed in a positive way to the design expectations.
The project confirmed for me that a collaborative and cooperative work environment can be successful in delivering a great project.