April 30 was the day for the Construction Specifications Institute to post the fourth draft of the MasterFormat on its Web site (www.csinet.org/technic/mfrevision.htm) for comment by the A/E/C industry.
CSI, based in Alexandria, Va., says Draft 4 came in response to the outcry over an earlier draft, which was deemed too complicated. The latest draft has 50 division numbers in three groupings, versus 86 division numbers in nine groupings in the previous version.
Draft 4 has a six-digit numbering system for the sections within the divisions, making it possible to have up to 10,000 sections per division, a hundredfold increase over the current five-digit system.
Feedback will be accepted through November, with a new MasterFormat to be published in December 2004.
