The Freedom Works Guide 
to Stress-Free Specs 

Prioritise full-package solutions
You could assemble a specification using information from your supplying company and your installation company – or you could select a two-in-one service provider that installs their own products.  

How does this help you? 

Well, Freedom Works has been installing all of our own products for over a decade now, and our clients consistently point out how much simpler they find our full package solution. For a start, you’ll be cutting down on construction time, improving project efficiency, and minimising the amount of back-and-forth you have with suppliers, which helps reduce the specification workload. You’ll also be able to source documents, drawings, and other information from one company alone, so all your materials will be consistent with each other, enabling easy integration into your specifications.  

Masterspec Work Section Support 
Your supplier should provide you with a product technical statement that clearly covers all required details of the product, such as installation instructions, product limitations, and maintenance requirements. Some providers may also support your specification with detailed 2D/3D drawings or ArchiCAD, DWG, and DXF files. 

It’s great to be given so much information – but it’s absolutely useless if your specification isn’t completely consistent with these supporting documents, because that’s a surefire way to get your consent denied. 

You can check your supplier information piece by piece to ensure consistency, or instead raise queries through the Masterspec Work Section Support portal. The Freedom Works team gets actively involved in the specification process, making edits where requested, and providing any and all details requested by specifiers – so we have first-hand knowledge of how useful this feature can be.  

Initiate key conversations earlier 
By default, many specifiers talk to their suppliers quite late in the detailed design stage, when most of the project plans have already been finalised. This means you miss out on an important set of services. Suppliers like Freedom Works aren’t just here to sell you a product; we have a team of project consultants dedicated to enhancing and supporting your entire project.  

• If you reach out to us earlier in the design process, you can utilise our team’s expertise right from the get-go. This means we can:  
• Provide detailed guidance on the products best suited for your environment, your users, your visual scheme, and your design intent.  
• Organise faster manufacturing and/or supply of key components to expedite the construction process 
• Coordinate with other project partners to address and eliminate any conflicts between our architectural detailing and other planned elements of the project 
• Propose, design, and fine-tune custom details that might be required for challenging or unique environments 

We could go on, but we trust that the point is made: the sooner you engage our team and communicate your design intent, the better the final outcomes for your project.  

Check the website 

Any supplier worth their salt should make it very easy for you to find the resources you need – so have a browse of your suppliers’ websites, and familiarise yourself with the support available to you.  

For instance, Freedom Works provides easy access to all of our technical resources – datasheets, drawings, and more – on our website, alongside a summary of our accessibility and code compliance expertise, and an outline of our supply and installation processes. This should be enough material to get you well ahead on your specification process – plus, as we explain on our website, we respond to most queries within one business day.  

When you see these guarantees on a supplier’s website, take full advantage of them. Download our resources, enquire about our project support capabilities, and make good use of our consultants’ expertise. Specification shouldn’t be a one-person struggle, so treat your suppliers as part of your team.  

When in doubt, ask
Our last point is the simplest one, but also the most important. If you are unsure about anything – whether it’s the ideal colour for a tactile indicator or the fire rating for an entrance mat – just ask. We’re always surprised by all the questions that come our way late in a project; it turns out that most specifiers bottle up their questions for meetings or official documentation requests, rather than just flicking them across immediately.  

If you have a thought, a question, a concern, get it out of the way. Remember, all of these things cause mental clutter, piling up in the brain to make a workload seem stressful and unmanageable. Ask each question as soon as it arises, and you’re likely to notice a difference in your mental clarity and decision-making abilities. 

As always, the Freedom Works team are happy to receive any question, any time – you can contact us.  

Happy specifying!