As a creator of as-built floor plans, Measure Masters has measured and drawn more than 525 million sq. ft. in Western Canada, through on site building measurements and calculations routinely applying BOMA Measurement Standards.
The company was established in 1989, originally as a franchise system. According to Michael Long, Measure Masters’ spokesperson, this model quickly encountered challenges. Due to the extensive and ongoing training to keep pace with client and corporate demands that could not financially be supported by the franchisor, he says, the business model was revamped to a permanent licensee relationship.
Measure Masters currently has seven offices across Western Canada and most of the company’s 18 staff have been with the company for between 10 and 20 years. Measure Masters serves clients in three specific categories and for specific purposes: Commercial property managers and owners requiring a building spatial audit for facility management and/or lease purposes; designers and architects requiring information for renovations or space planning; realtors and brokers requiring data for marketing and verification of real space.
Since many of the company’s clients request measuring services and have multiple geographical locations, job sites and building locations, Measure Masters is “a perfect match, having multiple geographical locations as well.”
For example, says Long, it is unavoidable in property management that tenant configurations change. “This means re-measurement is required in order to validate the change in square footage. In many of these cases, it is as simple as a demising wall shift, which only takes 10 minutes to update onsite. With Measure Masters’ extensive coverage through Western Canada, jobs such as this are provided at a minimal fee in order to maintain creditable square footage for the client.”
Long says Measure Masters has had a long standing relationship with BOMA BC (Building Owners and Managers Association, British Columbia) and has been a member for more than 20 years.
“Cities such as Vancouver and Victoria seem to generate a great deal of attention to the BOMA Measurement Standards for commercial buildings. The first seminar and presentation on the BOMA Measurement Standards to the BOMA BC members by Measure Masters was during the 1996 launch of a new and more thorough method of accounting for space.”
Long says while the process initially received mixed reviews, people soon recognized the advantages and capabilities. Since then BOMA BC and Measure Masters has co-produced more BOMA Measurement Seminars in Vancouver than any other city in North America.
Over time, Long says, Measure Masters noticed that the use of CADD (Computer Aided Design and Drafting) services for the renovation and construction markets has steadily increased as related technologies improved.
“From a tape measure to a hand held laser measuring device and from couriering blueprints with dimension lines to delivering electronic CADD files by email, drawing and drafting services can now be provided more economically and faster than ever before thanks to the new technologies.”
He says designers and architectural related clients order CADD and now have control over the output formats suited to the stakeholders in the project.
Long says they consider these types of jobs more like partnerships than supplier customer relationships because they work closely and directly with the client to address their changing needs. “More and more users of the drawings can now read CADD, which makes a huge difference on how the renovation teams approach a project.”
For more information, visit www.measuremasters.ca.
