The Construction Specifications Institute announced that it has acquired Building Systems Design Inc. The acquisition provides for BSD’s current management and employees to remain in place, and BSD will continue as a separate, for-profit enterprise.

The Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) announced that it has acquired Building Systems Design Inc. (BSD). The acquisition provides for BSD’s current management and employees to remain in place, and BSD will continue as a separate, for-profit enterprise.

CSI was founded more than 60 years ago by volunteers dedicated to the mission of improving communication between all members of the construction project team. CSI has been the driving force in the creation of industry standards and formats used in the production of building construction specifications and other construction documentation including MasterFormat, SectionFormat, UniFormat, and OmniClass.

In recent years, to better address the needs of its members and the construction community, CSI has increased its focus on creating practice tools that improve communication and the development of construction documentation in day-to-day construction work. The acquisition of BSD is the next logical step in providing useful products that advance CSI’s mission and improve how construction is done by individual practitioners and in firms around the world.

“Master specifications software has proven to be a valuable tool for firms and individual practitioners in improving their productivity and the quality of their construction documents,” CSI Executive Director and CEO Walter Marlowe, P.E., CSI, CAE, said. “As the industry increasingly moves to adopt software tools and electronic project communications, CSI needs to be involved in the creation of standards that enable greater efficiency in information transfer, data interoperability and improved construction documentation. CSI also must provide better access for our members to software that utilizes those standards.”

For more information, visit www.csinet.org.