Understanding Testing and Inspection Requirements on Your Project from Precon to Closeout
March 5, 2018
At the startup of a project one of the first things that should get done is creating a Quality Assurance and Quality Control program. Some companies have entire manuals on this process, while other may play it by ear. No matter which bucket you fall into there is some critical information that must be gathered early on in the project to ensure you have covered all of your bases.
Regulatory driven tests and inspections
There are three driving factors on what testing and inspection will need to be done. First is regulatory driven, these are inspections that are required by municipalities, code, or government entities such as OSHA. Now these tests and inspections are fairly typical from project to project and may not be found in any project manual but they are usually understood based on experience.
Project driven tests and inspections
The second type of inspection and or testing are those which are listed in the project manual. These often times are above and beyond what is required by code and are specified by an owner or a design team member. Some examples could be additional testing of windows, structural connection inspections, first work inspections and equipment startup inspections. These inspections are often times the results of project experience in the past and are there to ensure that mistakes will not be made and to avoid high risk failures such as waterproofing and or structural systems. Unfortunately without a thorough review of the project manual sometimes these requirements are missed, which is why it is critical to do a thorough review.
Contractor driven tests and inspections
The final type of testing and inspection results from an internal standard usually issued by the general contractor or the subcontractor. These checks are usually put in place based on past issues or manufacturer requirements. Oftentimes these results are for the sub or GC only and may not get passed on to owners, design teams or regulatory agencies. These inspections and tests can be some of the most important performed on the project as they can prevent future claims on the project if performed correctly.
Managing and documenting testing and inspection results
Once you have identified all of the tests and inspections that need to be performed you must identify a way to document, organize and track the results. The traditional form of collecting binders full of inspection forms and results leaves a lot to be desired. This information is not searchable, is not distributed efficiently and can not be mined for important trends. Moving towards a more digital solution of tracking tests, inspections and their results will pay dividends to the project. Inspections can be scheduled based on key work milestones and distributed digitally. If you are able to mine the data from the reports you can also spot trends in the results potentially identifying product or work failures that have not been identified yet. This may seem like more work at first but once a good system is in place it can save a lot of headache. Good documentation can save a lot of time, money and claims towards the end of a project.
With the need to start a project off right from the beginning it is important that you identify the needed tests and inspections early on. Pype AutoSpecs can help with this process by helping extract often missed project inspections from the project manual. Reach out to our team to learn how we can streamline the process of building a complete inspection and testing program.