Construction Data Sheets and DoPs, Checked Against the CPR

Construction sits at the intersection of civil engineering, materials science, building physics and regulation, and its documentation carries all four at once. Four things reliably break when that document becomes rows in a system.

A classification is a code, and a code survives or it does not. Fire classification per EN 13501-1 (A1, A2-s1,d0, B through F), compressive strength classes per EN 206 (C12/15 through C100/115), exposure classes (XC, XD, XS, XF, XA) and declared thermal conductivity (λ_D) all follow strict notation. A catalog that reformats “C30/37”, splits “A2-s1,d0” across columns, or drops the subscript from λ_D has produced something a structural engineer cannot specify against.

A declared value without its harmonised standard is not a declaration. A typical sheet references EN 206 for concrete, EN 998-1 and EN 998-2 for masonry mortars, EN 12004 for tile adhesives, EN 13162 through EN 13171 for insulation, EN 13501-1 for fire. Each standard belongs to the figure it qualifies: a compressive strength stored without the standard it was tested to cannot be compared with a competitor's, and it cannot be carried into a Declaration of Performance.

The DoP and the data sheet drift apart. The same product is described by a technical data sheet, a Declaration of Performance, a safety data sheet and an installation guide. The DoP is revised when a test is repeated; the TDS is revised when marketing rewrites it. Nobody reconciles the two, and the mismatch surfaces when a specifier reads both.

Application parameters are safety-critical. Open time, pot life, curing time, minimum application temperature and layer thickness are not suggestions. If any copy of the sheet says “apply above 5°C” where the original said “above 10°C”, you have created a liability, and it does not matter whether that 5 came from a re-keying slip or a translation. Construction materials applied outside their specified parameters fail, and the documentation is the first thing an inspector checks.

SpecMake doesn't treat a construction product sheet like any other PDF. It reads it as a construction document and keeps the structure the sheet already has.

Domain detection identifies the construction materials vertical automatically. Whether the document describes a structural adhesive, a concrete admixture, an insulation board, a waterproofing membrane, a masonry mortar or a tile grout, the system detects the construction domain and uses it for two things: which compliance rule sets can apply, and which vocabulary a property is named in when the record is translated.

Each property it finds, with its unit, its classification code and its source line where the text can be located. A compressive strength, thermal conductivity figure, fire class, exposure class or application parameter comes out as a structured field carrying the unit it was printed in, the classification exactly as notated, a confidence score and, wherever the text can be located, a link to the line on the page. Click a linked value and the source PDF opens on that line.

Standard codes are captured as identifiers, attached to their property. EN, ISO, DIN, ASTM and ETA references are recognized as identifiers and kept exactly as printed, beside the value they qualify, in every export. A strength class keeps the standard it was declared under.

An audit checks what was captured against the source. A second pass compares the structured record with the original document and names what it finds: a compressive strength in the header that the specification table contradicts, a fire class the sheet states that the extraction did not capture, an application temperature range that disagrees between two sections. Wherever the sentence that raised a finding can be quoted, the finding links straight to it.

On a document that references construction products legislation or a Declaration of Performance, SpecMake checks the trail a construction datasheet is expected to carry: the legislation reference, the DoP reference, the harmonised technical specification or European Technical Assessment applied, the AVCP system, and the notified body where one is involved. A sheet that references none of those is reported as not applicable rather than failed.

Both regulations count, because the handover is not a single date. Regulation (EU) No 305/2011 and Regulation (EU) 2024/3110 are both valid references. The new Regulation takes over family by family, one year after a family-specific implementing act, and the Declaration of Performance regime of the old one stays alive underneath it well into the 2030s. A checker that treated 305/2011 as repealed would fail almost every real datasheet in the market.

Citing the 1989 Directive is not the same as citing the Regulation. A reference to Directive 89/106/EEC tells us the document is a construction product document, so the rule set applies. It does not satisfy the legislation reference, because 89/106 was replaced in 2013. A sheet that cites only the old Directive is failed on the legislation reference, exactly as if it had cited nothing at all.

What is deliberately not checked. The declared performance values themselves. Essential characteristics are defined per harmonised standard, and “No Performance Determined” is a legitimate entry under Article 6(3)(f), so scoring a blank against a rule would flag conformant products. The notified body is checked as a recommendation and never as a failure, because AVCP system 4 legitimately has none. This is a documentation readiness check: it tells you what your paperwork does not say, not whether the product conforms.

One product is described by several documents, and they are read into the same record structure so they can be held against each other rather than trusted one at a time:

Construction products are among the first categories affected by the EU's Digital Product Passport requirements. The revised Construction Products Regulation introduces structured digital documentation obligations alongside the existing Declaration of Performance, phased per product family rather than all at once.

SpecMake scores a construction document against the DPP field catalog for its category and names the fields that are missing, so the gap between what your sheet says today and what a passport will expect is a list rather than a worry. The data that fills it is the same structured record you already have.

Because the rule sets keep moving through the rollout, they are versioned and checked monthly against official EU sources. When we update one, every product in your catalog is re-scored against the new version and a worst-first view shows exactly which Declarations of Performance need attention, instead of your team re-reading hundreds of documents.

The record is the deliverable. Everything below is a view of it.

Export to Excel, JSON or JSON-LD. Compressive strength, thermal conductivity, fire class, exposure class and application parameters come out as structured data ready for PIM import or catalog management, each figure still carrying its unit and the standard it was declared under. Akeneo sync is built in and previews the field mapping against your own attributes before anything is written.

Compare products and revisions. Put two revisions of a data sheet, or several suppliers' sheets for the same product type, side by side. Strengths in N/mm² and MPa are read as the same quantity, densities in kg/m³ and g/cm³ likewise, and a characteristic one sheet declares and another leaves out is flagged as a gap.

Declaration of Performance translation. The CPR requires a DoP in the language of every Member State where the product is sold. Because translation runs on the structured record, essential characteristics, EN references and classification codes are held out of the translation. What the language requirement asks for, and how a DoP becomes passport data, is set out in Declaration of Performance translation. Plans cover your full product catalog, with all 14 languages included.

Translation runs on the structured record rather than on the PDF. Values, classification codes and EN references are carried across unchanged, and only the descriptive text is rendered in the target language, using construction vocabulary rather than a dictionary's nearest word. The difference is not subtle: the German “Biegezugfestigkeit” renders word for word as something like “bending tension strength”, which sounds plausible and is wrong. The established term is “flexural strength”.