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How To Prepare A Good Inspection &

Test Plan – Part – 1
By Noel MadesPosted on February 3, 2015In Inspection and Test Plan15 Comments
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In the construction, there are several kinds of documents that you will
encounter and produce as well, such as method statement, checklist,
forms of different kinds, but the Inspection & Test Plan or ITP is the most
important that you’ll have to make first. Why? Because ITP is the book of
each inspection and testing on your project.

In my first job in Dubai, I have seen an ITP that consist of all the work
inspections. It was like compacted in one document. It was like a general
ITP, but it is not really challenging, the best ITP that I would discuss here
is that an ITP of each work like ITP for Excavation Works, ITP for
Concrete Works, ITP for Block Works etc.

If you are a newly assigned quality engineer in an ongoing project and

you found out that they were not producing ITP, it will be a mess project.
How are you going to monitor inspection stages, the test, the acceptance
criteria, the references, etc? Without ITP, believe me or not if you’ll not
make it, you are going to mess out the whole project.

Read also:  Three Major Approvals that a Quality Engineer Must Check Before Site
Inspection

ITP will serve as a tracking device. After the first inspection, then you’ll
go to the next. By the way, the activity description that you’ll going to
write in the ITP that will be the title in your Inspection Request. That is
why you will not really lost in your inspections. Remember that…

Now here I am going to show you how easy to prepare an ITP? I have
written about “Understanding About Inspection & Test Plan” for you to
understand how an ITP is made.

Here are the steps to do “How to prepare an Inspection & Test Plan.”
And you could follow and apply to your project.

1. Read Specification.
When you want to start writing the ITP, you must firstly read the
specification of the work that you are going to make an ITP for. Like
“Block Works” you should read carefully the whole specification, not only
once, but twice or much better, several times because there are terms
sometimes that you have to understand well. During your reading, you
can highlight the important terms so that when you come back you can
immediately track it.

Read also:  How Construction Specification Could Help You Build a Huge Project

The specification is your basis for writing ITP.

2. Drawing, Method Statement & Material Submittal.

Make sure that the drawing is approved, if not, make sure that it is being
submitted to the consultant because that will be incorporated in the ITP
as preliminaries. The same with the method statement and material
submittal, especially material submittal, there are some works that you’ll
going to use the technical data of a material and you are going to pick
some acceptance criteria’s from there. You will learn later in the next
article how to identify and write the “Acceptance Criteria.”

3. Define Activity Description.

You could ask yourself by saying “What could I inspect in the first
place?” In the specification that you’ve just read many times and perhaps
you’d found this word “preparation or examination” that could be a hint of
an activity that you are going to inspect first before the succeeding
activity proceeds. You can see the sample of this article Understanding
About Inspection & Test Plan
Continuation of Part – 1

4. Test or Inspection Performed.

Let’s take this Inspection & Test Plan Sample, and see under the Test or
Inspection Performed column. You will just write “Approval” for the
documents that to be included such as the method statement, material
submittal and inspection and test plan.

And write “Visual” for the material and activity to be inspected.

5. Stage or Frequency.

We’ll just jump off to the material to be inspected because there is no

certain frequency for the documents or submittal. So we’ll go to the
material and define what is the frequency. Once the material arrives on
site then you may write the frequency “Every material arrive on site” or
just simply “Material Arrival on Site.”

If you have mock-up sample for blockwork activity then your frequency
there is going to be “1 wall panel (6 meters).”

In the activity of surface preparation and setting out your frequency there

would be “Prior to laying of every course.” The last activity is “Completed
blockwork” then your frequency there would be “Every completed
panel/area.”
6. Code or Specification.

Read also:  Understanding About Inspection and Test Plan (ITP)

Under this column you will just write the corresponding code or
specification to the “Activity Description” you’ve written. The Clause from
the particular area of the specification. Like, for example “Specification
Section 07300 Clause 1.0” is where the word “Surface Preparation”
activity was written.

7. Acceptance Criteria.

The acceptance criteria are the most important part of your ITP, why?
Because this is your basis how you are going to approve or accept the
material arrive and work done on site respectively. So think deeply about
this item.

In the “Blockwork” activity sample, let us say for example materials. What

will be your acceptance criteria? No thinking twice, it would be “Approved
Material Submittal as Code A/B or 1/2.” You will then write it in the row of
material in your ITP under acceptance criteria column.

How about the “Setting out and surface preparation” activity? In the
setting out activity, when you hear “setting out” it can immediately pop-up
into your mind that it is made by a surveyor, therefore your acceptance
criteria there would be a survey report, make sure the surveyor has
signed it off before you submit to the Engineer/Consultant.

Read also:  How Construction Specification Could Help You Build a Huge Project

The “Surface Preparation” activity, how do you accept that? It could

be surface is clean, surface is chipped-off etc. But that sentences are most
likely to be written in the Checklist. So, the most general term would
be “No unsatisfactory conditions.”

8. Inspection or Verification.

Under the inspection or verification, there are three parties involved

which they are Contractor, Consultant or Engineer and Client or
Employer.  Now, there are corresponding responsibilities or task these
three parties are involved in and to be represented by E as execution, W
as witness point and H as hold point. First is Contractor which normally
the party who will execute the project. Second, the consultant or
engineer who will commonly checked the work or material, the inspection
criteria will be either witness or hold.

The client or employer will most commonly have a hold point status which
you can see the difference of witness and hold points in this article.

Now! How do you identify the inspection criteria such as witness point, hold

point, surveillance and record?

Let’s say for example, we have “mock-up of blockwork/CMU” it is written

in the specification you’ve just read this line “Approval of sample panel is
for texture, size, colour of masonry units; and other materials and
construction qualities specifically approved by Engineer or Consultant.”
So you will place H as hold point under the Engineer column and the
Employer or Client then would be W as witness point. But sometimes the
specification will be superseded when the Employer will decide to check
the mock-up sample.

Read also:  How To Prepare A Good Inspection & Test Plan - Part - 1

“Surveillance” is usually referred to the Employer, let’s have an example

again, if there is “material arrival shall be checked by Engineer” then you
will write H as hold point, so the hint are the words “checked by
Engineer” and then if it doesn’t mention “checked by Employer” so then
you will write S as surveillance.

“Record” is referred to Engineer when it comes to the approval of

documents. So therefore you will write R as record under Engineer in the
row of preparation of documents (ITP, Method Statement).

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