Specification Compliance Matrix: an Excel template, and 46 switchgear checks to start from

What a specification compliance matrix is

A specification compliance matrix is a table with one row for every requirement in the customer's specification and your answer beside each. Buyers and manufacturers call it different things: a technical compliance sheet, a technical compliance statement, a spec compliance sheet, a clause by clause compliance statement. It is the same document. Some buyers ask for it with the bid. Even when nobody asks, it is the working paper behind every honest clarifications page.

It exists because a quote is a promise to meet a document somebody else wrote. The matrix is where you find out, before the price goes out, which sentences you can meet as written, which you can meet only if they are read a certain way, and which you cannot meet at all.

How to make a compliance matrix in three passes

1. List. Go through the specification in page order and give a row to every requirement that could change what you build or what you charge. Copy the sentence as written and note the page.
2. Answer. Give every row one of five responses. A row with no response is a requirement nobody has read yet.
3. Write it down. For every row that is not a plain comply, write the sentence you want in the quote. Those rows, in order, are your clarifications and exceptions.

The matrix on this page does the third pass as you go. Mark a row, type the wording, and it appears in the list under the table, sorted the way a quote usually presents it: questions first, then exceptions, then clarifications.

The five responses, and what each one commits you to

• Comply. You meet the requirement as written, at the price quoted.
• Comply with clarification. You meet it, read a particular way. The clarification states the reading you priced.
• Exception. You do not meet it as written, and you say what you offer instead. Some buyers call this a deviation.
• Not applicable. The sentence does not apply to this equipment, or the work belongs to someone else. Say which.
• Ask the engineer. The document disagrees with itself or leaves something open. Send the question early, and state what you priced in the meantime.

Compliance matrix example: four rows from a real switchgear specification

These four rows come from one public document, a 35 page specification for a 5 kV metal-clad lineup at a hydroelectric powerhouse. Each one needed a different response.

Notice what the first row does. The specification gives two fault ratings on the same page that cannot both be true. A matrix that summarised the requirement as "meet the ratings" would have hidden that. Copying the sentence as written is what makes the conflict visible.

Technical compliance sheet format: the columns that matter

The Excel template uses seven columns besides the row number: the specification reference down to the page or paragraph, the requirement as written, your response, your offer or the wording for the quote, whether the row changes the price, who inside your company answers it, and the evidence you would point to. The response column is a dropdown, the rows colour themselves by response, and a summary sheet counts them, including the rows nobody has answered yet.

The price column earns its place. Sort by it before the quote goes out and you have the short list of rows a manager should read: the ones where your reading of a sentence moved the number.

A deviation list is the same sheet, filtered

If a buyer asks for a deviation list or an exceptions and clarifications page instead of the whole matrix, you do not need a second template. Filter the response column for everything except comply. What is left is the deviation list, already tied to pages and already worded.

Where the 46 switchgear checks come from

Each starter row is a place where a real document changed the price. They come from two switchgear specifications issued for bid, the standard specifications of five large owners, and the published review records of two submittals on one Texas project, one of which came back not approved with 35 numbered comments. Every row names the document and the page where we saw it. The full reading is in how to quote switchgear, and the rejected submittals are in what engineers actually reject.

The list is not complete for any one project, and it is not meant to be. It tells you where requirements of this kind usually sit, so you look there in your own document.

What the template cannot do

A template gives the reading a shape. It does not do the reading. Somebody still has to go through every page, and the rows that cost money are the ones that are easy to pass over: a rating typed twice, a device required on one breaker only, a line an author meant to delete.

Sources. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Section 26 13 26.00 26, Metal-Clad Switchgear, Amendment 0002. Illinois Capital Development Board, Quincy Veterans' Home, Section 26 13 00, Amendment 3. Standard specifications of the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, Metrolinx, the University of Houston and Dartmouth College. Published submittal review records for a Texas water district's pump stations. Found a mistake? Write to atishay@mavlon.co and we will fix it.