29 Nov 2007

Meet one of ASSA ABLOY’s specification writers

Contracts as thick as books and drawings that are changed time and again are nothing to a good specifier. Working with building specifications requires a sense of order and a large measure of patience.

Timing is everything when it comes to specifying door solutions. This means entering a construction project at an early stage.

Heidi Sparby, who has worked as a specifier at TrioVing for 10 years, specified fittings for the 1,400 doors in Oslo’s new opera house, which will be finished in late 2007. This is one of TrioVing’s largest specification projects. Estimated work hours for everyone involved in building the opera house – architects, construction workers, painters and such – total 500 years.

“It took me about a year to specify all the opera house’s doors and come up with a solution for each fitting in detail,” Heidi says. “But a lot of time was also spent on changes. If a drawing is changed even slightly, I have to start over and specify new solutions. You can’t simply replace things, since every change affects the price.”

To keep themselves updated on planned projects, TrioVing’s specification team checks trade journals and a database in which all new buildings in Norway are registered. A specifier works with as many as 10 projects at a time. Heidi wrote specifications for 19,000 doors in 2006.

“A while back I was going to specify solutions for a day-care center. I sat down with the staff and we went through each room. I asked questions about how they use the rooms and what an ordinary day is like. That’s how I got enough information to work out good door solutions.”