Here's a brief follow-up to our recent door schedule challenge.

We received a schedule for a new school and it contained 1,706 rows of data, with twelve fields in each row. Ken Carman felt the schedule was a little sloppy and needed a fair amount of clean-up.

Because the schedule was in Excel, it didn't take long to get the data imported into Ken's application. As promised, Ken had a filtered set of reports completed in less than an hour. The output consisted of a door report, a frame report, and four different hardware reports, all with the level of detail required for both contractors and distributors.

The door report was broken down by material, floor, label (e.g. fire) and door type. Ken counted 1,585 wood door openings for a total of 1,914 leaves, 329 of which were paired. Openings were identified as singles or pairs and included the width and height of each door. A total was calculated for each size, leaves per floor and the total count for each door type. This data is especially helpful for materials pricing as well as the cost of installation. Ken also identified a number of instances where the fire ratings of doors were missing or inaccurate.

The frame report is similar to the door report and included a breakdown by material, floor, and type, with quantities for each. A total was provided for each floor and for each frame type. Ken counted 1,647 frames in the schedule, but also identified that windows were included in the opening count, which created a difference between frame counts and door counts.

The four hardware reports provided the quantity of each hardware set broken down by either material, door width, label, or whether it was for a single or paired opening. This report identified the greatest number of errors. Specifically, the counts for single and paired hardware sets did not match the respective counts for single and paired doors. The door material hardware report is useful to the distributor because it helps him determine the cost of door preps for both wood and hollow metal doors. The single/pair data is used primarily to find discrepancies in the schedule, where the same hardware sets have been assigned both to single and paired openings - a common mistake. Ken believes that he identified a number of mismatches between hardware sets applied to the wrong door configuration.

In summary, Ken was able to use his program to process over 20,000 data items, producing accurate counts, in numerous configurations…all in less than one hour. The results clearly demonstrate the amount of time that can be saved in door and hardware takeoff, as well as the opportunity to increase accuracy. Ken also believes that architects should consider using a system like his up front to create their door schedules and publish their schedules in electronic format during the bidding process. Anyone interested in learning more or wanting to see a copy of the reports can contact Ken by email at probsolver@sbcglobal.net

March 12, 2007

Model-based schedules, try it you'll like it!

David Wilkinson

March 8, 2007

Would be interested in receiving a copy of the report. We are always striving to plan and execute our work better.

I've manually entered D/F/H data from contract dwgs into an excel spreadsheet in the past. Very tedious.

I'm curious how the liability side of the data plays out. Typical protocol is to receive "contract documents" then forward onto each respective trade via formal transmittal.

Given technology, how is the raw data from the DFH spreadsheet transmitted so that it is part of the contract documents?

Many thanks for the article.

Jeff Negley
Webcor Builders
San Francisco CA