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By Emma Green, NATSPEC Communications

Sam’s phone is ringing loudly. As often happens at moments like this, the phone is not conveniently in his pocket, where it should be. Instead, it is buried somewhere deep down in the recesses of his bag. Rushing up to a bus stop and riffling through his belongings on the bench, he unearths the phone and answers it at the last second.

“Hello, Sam?” comes the voice on the other end. “My name’s Francesco. I was given your number by Katrina.”

“Ah, you must be an architect then,” Sam says calmly. “What can I do for you?”

“Well,” says Francesco, “I’ve got a bit of a conundrum. I lead a small firm and my team and I are absolute perfectionists. We want the best for our clients, as any architect does, so we’re sticklers for conformance and compliance.”

“Right,” nods Sam. Eyeing an approaching bus, he slides everything back into his bag one-handed and hurries out of the way.

“But the truth is that we’re just bogged down by research and paperwork. Do you know how long it takes to check whether a product is conformant?” Francesco sighs in exasperation and Sam imagines him slumped at a desk.

“It’s a nightmare, I know,” Sam says sympathetically. He leans against a nearby tree.

“Anyway, I was chatting to Katrina because we both use your company’s product. She suggested I get in touch with you, seeing as she was so pleased with that Branded Worksection. Could we arrange a meeting?”

Sam, now strolling up the footpath back towards his office, smiles and says happily, “Of course. I think I’ve got just the thing to help you.”

*

Two days later, Sam is standing at that same bus stop in the late morning winter sun, checking his calendar. Today is relatively quiet, with two afternoon meetings and a few follow-up phone calls in between. Tomorrow will be slightly more chaotic, but right now, he’s heading out to meet Francesco.

The little multi-use building housing Francesco’s firm is on a busy main street and Sam arrives at a bus stop right in front of the entrance. The firm is on the ground floor and through the window, a man wearing round glasses waves brightly at Sam before coming up to open the door. Sam smiles back, feeling happily prepared.

In a small meeting room, Francesco taps his fingers on the table in anticipation and asks, “So, do you think it’s even possible to reduce time spent poring over conformity documents?”

“It’s definitely possible,” Sam assures him. “Have you heard of the National Construction Product Register?”

Francesco raises his eyebrows. “No, I haven’t! Tell me all about it.”

“Have a look,” says Sam, passing a brochure across to Francesco. “The National Product Construction Register, or the NCPR, was created to help solve this exact problem. The NCPR is a database of products with valid evidence of conformity. If a product is listed in the NCPR, that means its evidence of conformity is available, real and issued by a credible organisation. You can browse by category or search for a specific product and access all the information you need. Here, I printed out the listing for my company’s product.”

Sam hands the listing to Francesco, who looks at it carefully, intrigued.

“That’s brilliant,” he says. “But what if there’s a product with fraudulent documentation?”

Sam shakes his head. “If a product’s in the NCPR, you can trust that the documentation is all valid. It massively reduces the risk of litigation. And, most importantly, you and your team don’t have to spend hours researching and verifying conformity documentation for a single product.”

“That,” says Francesco, grinning at the listing and the brochure, “is the dream. Can I hang onto these?”

*

After the meeting, Sam waves goodbye to Francesco through the office window and crosses the street to get the bus back to his own office. Clouds have made the sky nearly as dark as dusk, even though it’s barely midday. Sam signals the approaching bus. He grabs his travel card from his wallet just as his phone starts to ring again. Sam answers it quickly.

“Katrina!” he says. “How are you?”

He steps onto the bus.

Keep a look out for the next instalment in the series Tales of a Sales Representative, to be continued in the September 2022 Product Partners Newsletter.

For more information on the NCPR visit www.ncpr.com.au.

Next month, NATSPEC will release the second 2021 update to the National Building Specification. This national master specification, which includes all Branded Worksections, is updated every April and October to ensure it accurately reflects current regulations, standards and industry practices.

Only an up-to-date specification can appropriately respond to the needs of the design and construction industry. Updated information protects specifiers and their clients. It facilitates communication between each party and helps to assure everyone involved that decisions for products, materials and techniques are safe and in line with current regulations. This can improve the quality of the final build.

Product manufacturers like yourself are also protected by accurate, up-to-date specifications. All NATSPEC Branded Worksections are updated with their corresponding generic sections. This means that the product featured in your Branded Worksection can continue to be used safely. Twice a year, Product Partners receive the updated Branded Worksection, and as a Product Partner you should have your NATSPEC branded worksection link on your website, which is generated from the NATSPEC website, Branded Worksection page, and will automatically update to your website each April and October. This is an excellent reason to keep in frequent contact with NATSPEC subscribers. Each update your Branded Worksection is a new selling point for you as a Product Partner. Working with a Branded Worksection, architects and specifiers have all the advantages of a largely pre-filled document featuring your product’s relevant information. On top of this, they have current information about regulations, standards and practices and how these apply to your product. 

The NATSPEC October 2021 update is a new opportunity to make the most of your Branded Worksection. Use it as a tool in your presentations to sell your product knowing that the information in your Branded Worksection is accurate, up to date and reliable.

NATSPEC subscriber case studies showcase the real-world benefits of NATSPEC specifications and Branded Worksections. For the Winter Product Partners Newsletter, we’re deconstructing a case study from Spowers to discover what they find most useful about NATSPEC and Branded Worksections.

NATSPEC Subscriber:
Spowers

Project Name:
Japara ‘The Regent’ Aged Care Facility, Mount Waverley, VIC

The project in one sentence:
“The Regent accommodates 105 modern apartments to suit low- to high-care needs, as well as communal spaces for residents to enjoy with visitors and guests, backed by a belief that connection to family, friends and community is essential to our wellbeing and critical to a successful transition to aged residential care.”

What were the advantages of the NATSPEC system for Spowers?

“NATSPEC provides the design team with up-to-date reference material and relevant Australian Standards clauses that are easily identified and quickly referenced. The ease with which relevant sections and clauses can be extracted and assembled to tailor specifications to suit a particular project is of immense benefit to the design and delivery team, saving time and energy.

“At The Regent, we were able to assess comfort and thermal requirements and use NATSPEC’s Branded Worksections to specify insulation and flooring underlay that suits the needs of users and authorities. We selected powder coating and roofing that would perform at industry best practice levels and contribute positively to the overall aesthetics of the building.

“Our office has been using NATSPEC for many years now. It is easier than ever with the inbuilt formatting of the document templates, resulting in a well-organised, user-friendly and professional document.”

To read the value of subscriber feedback for Product Partners, click here.