In a newly opened project, before your first inspection and site surveillance, you must have read the Specifications, Project Quality Plan (PQP), Drawing, and other related documents and company documents as well, and you as a quality engineer must check the project documents.
Ask a copy of the Project Quality Plan from your Quality Manager. He must be the one who will do that and will give that to you once approved.
Request from your Document Controller for the other documents such as Drawings, Specifications, and Company Documents. You might want to read also the Bill of Quantities (BOQ), if you are able to ask from the Quantity Surveyors Department so it’s your further reference anyway.
Now after making all initial preparation for the job, prepare yourself for site work and be careful for all the activities on site as you take care of your position. Your position as Quality Engineer has a vast function in a project and you are even called as internal consultants of your company so it seems you are a “hero”.
Here are the documents that you should check and make sure it is approved before making an inspection the first time.
Drawings (this document a quality engineer must check and see to it that this is approved)
Ensure that the drawing you bring with you is approved and stamped “Issued for Construction” as this is the mark that the document is controlled.
Ask the Document Controller for the log sheet of drawings to verify the latest revisions. If not latest revision you can request the DC to stamp the drawing with the mark of “Superseded” so everything should be in accordance with the system procedure in order to avoid confusion and misuse.
Method Statement or Methodology of the Work
Before a certain work proceeds, there should be an approved Method Statement. Make sure to submit a Method Statement and get approval from the Consultants. Please also note that you as a quality engineer must check the method statement make sure that this is approved before the site activity can proceed.
You must have your log sheet file with you and available in your office in order for you to monitor the latest revision of the MS.
If you are new in the field ask your Quality Manager to provide Method Statement. The MS by the way is commonly stated in the contract, so that is why I’ve mentioned before that read the contract documents of the project, you have a lot to gather information about the project.
Most Consultants that I worked with require Inspection and Test Plan (ITP) and Checklist along with the Method Statement. So make sure that it is being submitted along with the MS.
Material Approval
See to it that the materials for the objected inspection are approved. Always have a copy of the log sheet of Material Submittal that’s the way how to monitor the latest revision and get the log sheet from Document Controller on regular basis.
Before any activity can start on site, the materials must be approved ahead of the schedule. Otherwise, it can be alerted as nonconformance.
Related Article:
Once the above approvals are certain you can now come with the Consultants to the area of inspection or if the construction team requires you to check with them the area prior to inspection with the Consultants. You are confident enough to go on with anyone because you knew that the materials and documents for the situated area of inspection are all approved.
Did you follow the above major approval that a quality engineer must check before site inspection? Please comment down your suggestions and supplements.
If you enjoyed reading this post, please do share it with your social media networks. Thank you.
Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono/FreeDigitalPhotos.net