Spec writing consultants

[Guest]

I am project lead on my department's new hazmat vehicle.  We are one of the largest fire departments in Canada with 47 stations and 1400 firefighters.  We started putting information together in 2009, first very unorganized, but then we started to step it up in 2011.  Regular meetings were the norm.  We had a period where we asked for input from the rest of the hazmat techs, but there was a closing date for their input, in order to keep things running.  Our initial working group comprised of 3 members from hazmat. I was the only one who had been involved in apparatus specs, but that was limited.  As we got going, we brought in another hazmat tech as our computer and IT lead.  We were assigned another member to our group, a former truck mechanic who has been hired by our city as a spec writer.  He has a lot of experience with this, and it certainly helped.  This truck is a very technical unit, and we would have struggled without his experience to write our specs properly.  As it is, we are going to tender in 2 weeks.  So it took 5 years for us to work through everything, and I am sure we will have an excellent truck that will serve the city for a long time.

 

My advice, based on my experience, if you don't have someone with the skill set for spec writing, invest the dollars in someone who does.  It will save a lot of headaches and future hassles.