Quality surveillance, planned and done against a checklist
Schedule each surveillance for a day and an inspector. They answer the checklist on site, line by line, and it moves through the review steps your team set until someone accepts it. Anything that fails becomes a field quality observation, pinned on the drone survey and followed to closed.
- Documents at the workface
1.Current revision drawings are in use at the workface
SatisfactoryUnsatisfactoryN/A2.The approved method statement and inspection and test plan are available and followed
SatisfactoryUnsatisfactoryN/A- Materials
3.Materials are approved and as specified
SatisfactoryUnsatisfactoryN/ATwo bundles of 16 mm bar on site have no mill certificate.
+ Raise an observation
4.Materials are stored and protected as required
SatisfactoryUnsatisfactoryN/A- Workmanship
5.Setting out, lines and levels have been checked
SatisfactoryUnsatisfactoryN/A6.Work is installed to the drawings and specification
SatisfactoryUnsatisfactoryN/A7.Work is within the specified tolerances
SatisfactoryUnsatisfactoryN/A
The ready-made General workmanship checklist part-way through a surveillance. The answers are an example.
Planned by date, on the site it belongs to.
Each site has its surveillance list: what is overdue at the top, then what is coming up, what is in review and what is closed. Filter to the ones that are with you.
A surveillance whose day has passed and that has not been carried out is marked overdue, on the list and on the site's page.
- What and where
- The activity, subcontractor or supplier being checked, and where: an area, grid lines, a chainage.
- Against
- One of your organisation's checklists. The surveillance keeps a copy, so the record says what it was checked against.
- When and who
- The day it is due and the inspector who carries it out. They get an email and a note in their Inbox.
- How often
- Once, or every week, every two weeks, every four weeks, every quarter (13 weeks). The next is scheduled on the cadence as each one closes.
Answered line by line, then fixed.
Each check is answered Satisfactory, Unsatisfactory or not applicable, with a note where it helps. The answers save as they are given; if a save fails, the page says so and keeps them to try again.
- The report cannot be submitted with a check unanswered, or with an Unsatisfactory answer that does not say what was wrong. The database refuses it, not just the screen.
- The inspector who holds the surveillance answers it. An administrator of the site can too. Everyone else who can open the site can read the answers saved so far.
- Once it is submitted the answers are fixed: the report is what was handed in. A reviewer who wants more sends it back to the inspector with a comment.
- A surveillance with nothing wrong is still a record: who looked, when, and against which checklist.
Its own workflow, set up before use.
Surveillance has a workflow of its own, separate from observations. Nothing can be scheduled until an administrator has set it up: as it is, or redrawn with your own steps, buttons and reviewers.
The ready-made surveillance workflow. Dark boxes are where a surveillance starts and where it can end. A star means the button asks for a comment.
Whoever a move hands it to gets one email naming the step and carrying the comment written with it. Every move, hand-over and comment is kept in order under the surveillance, with the name and the time. A surveillance keeps the version of the workflow it started on. How workflows are designed.
What fails becomes an observation.
A surveillance finds things; an observation gets them fixed. Raise an Unsatisfactory line as a field quality observation and it is followed to closure like any other.
- It is called by the check and what the inspector wrote, so the punch list says what is wrong without opening it.
- It is pinned at the middle of the site to start with. Move the pin to where the problem is, and add photos.
- It runs through the observation workflow: handed to whoever corrects it, with corrective actions, people and due dates, and back to quality to close.
- The surveillance lists what it raised and whether each is still open, and each observation links back to the surveillance that found it.
Your checklists, or the ready-made one.
Every organisation starts with General workmanship: 12 checks under 5 headings, from the documents at the workface to protection and housekeeping, that fit most construction activities.
- Lines
- Headings and checks, in order
- Each check
- A statement that is true when the work is right
- Against
- The drawing, clause or standard, when it helps
- Size
- Up to 120 lines a checklist
- Changing one
- Applies to surveillances scheduled from then on
- Retiring one
- Archive it; what used it is unchanged
Who can do what, and what it costs.
The limits, said here rather than left for you to find after sign-up.
Scheduling a surveillance is for surveyors, admins and owners. The inspector can be anyone in your organisation who can open the site, whatever their role. Anyone who can open the site can read its surveillances and comment on them.
Only administrators see the workflow designer and the checklists in Settings. Raising an observation from a surveillance needs the observation workflow set up too.
On Explore, free, surveillance runs on the demo quarry with the ready-made workflow and checklist. Writing your own checklists, designing your own workflow, your own sites and your crew are Studio: $50 a month for up to five sites. What each plan includes.
Questions people ask.
More on surveillance, observations and when one becomes a non-conformance in the guide.
- What is quality surveillance in construction?
- A planned, documented check by the quality team that work in progress, a subcontractor or a supplier is doing what the quality plan and the specification say. It is not an inspection that releases work: it looks in on the work without stopping it, against a checklist, and records what it found, including when it found nothing wrong.
- Can a surveillance repeat?
- Yes: once, or every week, every two weeks, every four weeks, every quarter (13 weeks). The next one is scheduled when the current one closes, on the original cadence rather than from the day it closed, with the same inspector and the checklist as it stands then. A surveyor or administrator can stop a series at any time.
- Can we use our own checklists?
- On Studio and Enterprise, yes. An administrator writes them in Settings: headings, checks, and what each check is made against, up to 120 lines. Every plan has the ready-made General workmanship checklist. A surveillance keeps the checklist it was scheduled with, so changing one does not change surveillances already planned.
- What happens to an Unsatisfactory answer?
- The inspector has to say what was wrong before the report can be submitted. Any Unsatisfactory line can then be raised as a field quality observation with one button. It is linked back to the surveillance and followed to closure through the observation workflow, with a corrective action, a person and a due date.
- Does surveillance need its own workflow?
- Yes, and like every workflow in Clarity it has to be set up by an administrator before anyone can schedule a surveillance. Every organisation starts with a ready-made one; on Studio and Enterprise it can be redrawn with your own steps, buttons and reviewers.
Schedule one on the demo quarry first.
The demo site is in every new account, free, with the ready-made workflow and checklist one click from switched on. See pricing for your own sites.