/ Resources · Specification support
Specification support.
Vendor-neutral specification templates, engineering-pack structures and protocol selection notes — assembled from the practice's working documents.
- Audience
- For consultants
- Planning items
- 4
- Common mistakes
- 3
- Last reviewed
- 2026-05-17
Specifications written from scratch for every project re-invent the same wheels — protocol selection, BOQ structure, commissioning checklists, witness scope. We publish this resource to make the next specification faster: vendor-neutral templates, engineering-pack structures, protocol selection notes and commissioning patterns assembled from the practice's working documents.
Each section is editable to project specifics. The intent is to make the consultant's specification faster to draft and easier to defend at procurement, without locking the design to one vendor or limiting the scope of competitive bids.
/ Common mistakes
What to avoid
Engineering portal
Related engineering topics
Engineering topic
Protocols
KNX, BACnet, DALI, Modbus, ONVIF — the open standards that determine whether multi-vendor buildings stay coordinated.
Engineering topic
Standards
NBC 2016, IS 2189, IS 14735, EN 54, IEC 62386, IEEE 802.3bt — the published codes that anchor specifications across life-safety, lighting, surveillance and networking.
Engineering topic
Commissioning
Configuration completed before the witness window. Commissioning is the verification milestone.
Engineering topic
Methodology
Design-for-handover, interoperability-first, graceful degradation, fail-safe defaults, lifecycle economics, refresh discipline.
Methodology
Methodology principles this resource builds on
interoperability
Interoperability is a constraint, not a feature
Vendor-lock saves money in year one and costs five times that amount in year seven. Open standards are the starting point.
documentation
Documentation is the deliverable
The installed system is half the deliverable; the documentation pack is the other half. Without it, the system is a black box.
Interoperability
Interoperability matrices relevant to this resource
Interoperability
Fire alarm + PA voice evacuation — the cause-and-effect spine
Fire-alarm panels trigger zoned PA voice messages via a cause-and-effect matrix; both are governed by NBC 2016 + IS 2189/14735.
Interoperability
KNX + DALI — lighting bus to luminaire bus
KNX provides the building-wide control bus; DALI provides per-luminaire addressing and dimming. The two are paired with a KNX/DALI gateway per DALI segment.
Engineering toolkit
Tools that support this work
reference
NBC Compliance Checker
Building height, type and occupancy in — list of mandatory life-safety and ELV systems out, citing NBC 2016 and the relevant IS codes.
reference
Brand Comparison Tool
Six-category catalogue — automation, audio, cinema, networking, surveillance, BMS. Pick a discipline, pick up to four brands, compare on the fields that matter. Honest about strengths, gaps and where each is decisively right.
· For consultants · Last reviewed 2026-05-17