AWI Quality Times for 06/13/2019

The QCC Board of Directors met via conference call on May 22, 2019 and in a landmark decision voted to cap project label fees.

Currently QCP project label fees are ½ of 1% of the woodwork contract amount or $500, whichever is greater. Commencing July 15, 2019 label fees will be ½ of 1% of the woodwork contract amount or $500, whichever is greater, but will be capped at $10,000 as the maximum amount. All registered projects that have paid the label fee are available for all QCP services.

After receiving a great deal of feedback on the proposed AWI 0641 – Architectural Wood Casework Standard, the Architectural Woodwork Institute (AWI) Standards Development Team has decided to update the standard draft and repeat the canvass process.

In anticipation of this, the standard draft has been made available for another 45-day public comment period. During this time, the Standards Development Team, along with the AWI Technical Committee will consider further input from the architectural woodwork community in preparation for the upcoming canvass, which is expected to begin following the conclusion of the public comment period.

The standard draft is available for public comment at http://www.gotoawi.com/standards/awi0641.html, effective May 31, 2019 through July 15, 2019. The AWI Public Comment Response Form is also available at this address. Commentary submitted during the public comment period for the AWI 0641 – Architectural Wood Casework Standard draft must be submitted on these forms in accordance with AWI’s record-keeping policies, ensuring compliance with the requirements of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Commentary on the standard submitted outside of this format will not be considered by the AWI Technical Committee. The Public Comment Response Forms are solely for the purpose of providing feedback and/or commentary on the proposed standard and are not considered any type of vote.

At the conclusion of the current public comment period, AWI will be opening a second canvass process for the proposed standard. In contrast to the public comment period, the canvass process gives leaders in the architectural woodwork industry the opportunity to review and vote on whether or not to approve the proposed standard for adoption by ANSI. Individuals and organizations that wish to participate in the upcoming canvass must complete the canvass registration, regardless of whether or not the individual/organization was a participant in any previous canvass process. Any existing ballots submitted by previous canvass body members will be considered null and void. For information on how to apply to be a part of the canvass body, contact Cheri Dermyre at cdermyre@awinet.org.

Regarding the second canvass of the standard, AWI Technical Director, Ashley Goodin stated, “After receiving feedback on the previous draft, we decided to review some of the requirements contained in the proposed standard. This input from members of the architectural woodwork community is invaluable to us, as it helps us to ensure that we are creating a document that will benefit everyone involved in the process of specifying, creating, installing, or purchasing architectural wood casework. These revisions have helped us to strengthen the standard and ensure that the product that we release is of the utmost quality. We are really looking forward to completing this process and publishing our second ANSI standard.”

The Architectural Woodwork Institute (AWI) has produced and collaborated on the development of Standards in accordance with its mission from its founding in 1953 to the present day. www.awinet.org

Founded in 1918, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is a private non-profit organization that administers and coordinates the U.S. voluntary standardization and conformity assessment system. www.ansi.org

Since the 1960’s, the Architectural Woodwork Institute (AWI) has created proprietary woodwork standards for use by its members and the industry in general.  And since its inception in 1996, the Quality Certification Program (QCP) has used those same standards as its primary basis for quality assurance and related project certification.  As materials, methods, and technology evolved in the woodworking universe, those standards were inevitably revised and re-formatted, sometimes extensively, to reflect the industry’s new realities.  Most of our readers are likely aware that such a change has recently taken place with the official partial release of the AWI Standards (AS).  The following notice (courtesy of AWI) summarizes the timing and specification language under which the new standard applies (or does not apply) to your architectural woodwork projects:

For more details, see www.awinet.org/standards

Cabinet Structural Integrity Testing

In the past, to help educate both staff and licensed woodworkers concerning differences between a new standard and its predecessor, QCP has used various venues to compare and contrast related “line item” details from both.  Quality Times and Tech Talk will continue that practice.  The first topic we will explore in that regard is Cabinet Structural Integrity Testing.  This is an option which can be exercised by casework manufacturers to establish conformance of a cabinet which in some way does not follow the standard’s prescriptive rules for casework construction.  Technically, this option is not new to the latest standard, since structural testing first appeared in the Architectural Woodwork Standards, Edition 1 (2009).  However, with the advent of the AWI Standards (AS), structural testing has only recently become a major point of emphasis.  Especially as the AS becomes the standard typically specified by architects, structural testing promises to represent a significant shift in the way conformance of cabinets is assessed by the Quality Certification Program.

The impetus for the growing focus on structural testing might be summarized as follows:  Over the years, AWI standards have tended to become more complex and prescriptive as they evolved.  While this trend could be shown to arguably improve any particular line-item in the standard, it also led at times to frustration on the part of woodworkers.  For a company trying to achieve QCP certification for one of its projects, the sore point was often not the size or complexity of the standards per se.  Rather, it was manufacturers having to modify or replace their sometimes long-established, and quite successful cabinet fabrication methods with the standard’s construction details, in order to meet the “letter” of the standards’ prescriptive requirements.  To some woodworkers, this seemed unnecessary and unreasonable, since there was no evidence that the “conforming” cabinet based on the minimum criteria of the standard would perform any better than their company’s proprietary cabinet.  Prior to the addition of structural integrity testing to AWS Edition 1, a woodworker’s only alternative to following the standard precisely would be to obtain the project architect’s approval of their company’s proprietary cabinet (often not an attractive or practical alternative).

AWI adapted the testing procedure itself from the Scientific Equipment and Fixture Association (SEFA) methods and requirements.  The testing’s basic concept is that within certain material and joinery parameters, a cabinet that passes SEFA testing would be considered conforming at certain performance levels.   Any future cabinets proven by the manufacturer to be sufficiently identical to the cabinet originally tested are also considered conforming without additional testing.

Although the testing option does appear in the AWS Edition 2 (2014), its presence in that standard is not prominent.  In the 50 plus pages of AWS Edition 2 Section 10 (Casework), there are only three sentences alluding to testing, one of which was added as a redline over a year after the publication’s initial release.  With the adoption of the AS, AWI has taken an institutional decision to lift the structural integrity testing option out of relative obscurity and make it a significant feature of the new standard and AWI culture.  Symbolic of this commitment is AWI’s establishment of its own cabinet testing facility in Americus, Georgia.  For more information on that initiative, and Cabinet Structural Integrity Testing in general, visit awinet.org, and click “Testing”.

Your Opportunity to Sound Off

Currently, AWI is inviting your input to help shape the ongoing development of the new draft standard’s Architectural Wood Casework requirements.  AWI’s home page at www.awinet.org currently features an article providing details on how and where to direct your comments.  It is important to note that the development of the AS marks a major departure from AWI’s previous methods and procedures for writing a standard.  The AS was created under the auspices of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), which Wikipedia describes as “a private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States.”  In other words, ANSI does not develop any actual standard, but it does offer a rigorous, time tested, voluntary framework for standards development.  A crucial component of this is mandatory opportunity for input from a broad spectrum of stakeholders in the affected industry, and mandatory “best effort” resolution of any significant issues which have been raised by that input.  Here is your chance to make a difference in the final content of your future casework standards.

Within the construction industry architects are among the players with whom the Quality Certification Program engages on architectural woodwork projects. QCP attends architect trade shows and conferences to build greater awareness of QCP and forge better relationships with them on behalf of our licensees.

Within the design/build industry architects are among the players with whom the Quality Certification Program engages on architectural woodwork projects. QCP attends architect trade shows and conferences to build greater awareness of QCP and forge better relationships with them on behalf of our licensees.

Ashley Goodin and Randy Estabrook with AWI and QCP respectively shared the booth at last week’s AIA’ 19 Conference held at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Both AWI and QCP have returned to this event for the past few years with the hope of engaging architects and designers of architectural woodwork projects.

The event is managed and produced by HanleyWood, publishers of Architect Magazine, the official AIA publication. Mattie Hanley and Suren Sagadevan, both from HanleyWood, invited the team to discuss strategies and opportunities for the show at the HanleyWood Welcome Party held at the Paris Hotel rooftop in Las Vegas.

Traffic at the conference was light but steady, offering an opportunity to reinforce the AWI brand and reaffirm existing relationships and contacts as well as establish new introductions. There were thousands of attendees, 150 seminars and 650 exhibitors at the event.

INDUSTRY EVENTS
The Quality Certification Program will be represented at the following industry events in 2019:

Construction Specifications Institute
Master Specifiers Retreat
June 19 – 21
Swissotel Chicago
Chicago, IL

AWFS Vegas
July 17 – 20
QCC Booth: 7471
Las Vegas Convention Center
Las Vegas, NV

BOND Meeting Forums
Arc Interiors
September 19 – 22
Fontainebleau Miami Beach
Miami Beach, FL

Architectural Woodwork Institute
67th AWI Annual Convention
October 6 – 8
Providence, RI

Construction Specifications Institute
Construct 2019 & SCIP
October 9 – 11
QCC Booth: 745
Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center
National Harbor, MD

SOCIAL MEDIA
Architectural woodwork is showcased on the following social media platforms, incorporating woodwork projects illustrated in editions of AWI’s quarterly journal, Design Solutions. See the following:

• Instagram:AWI_QCP

• Twitter: awiqcp

• LinkedIn:AWI Quality Certification Program

• Facebook: Architectural Woodwork Institute- QCP