CHAPTER 9

Law Eight: Site Is Where the Project Finally Goes Right, or Wrong

The result of all the specifying, surveying, planning, discussion, and manufacturing that formed the first stages of a project is now that work begins on your, or your customer’s site. The establishment of new, site based, working relationships is important to the outcome of the project—this is where and when the project manager should be present.

If you are working at your client’s site as a project manager it is vital that any required permits allowing work to commence, and any public liability insurances required have been arranged before work starts. It is also wise to ensure that the extent of your authority is known and agreed by the Client’s management, because there should be no doubt within the client or project community concerning responsibility for the site area for the duration of the project.

Projects Carried Out Within Established Sites

There is a multitude of potential problems inherent in having a project worksite planted within an established factory, campus or housing area; these include:

• Compromised site security, both of the customer’s and the project’s zones of responsibility.
• Disruption of the customer’s site through pollution, noise, contractor’s vehicles, and so on.
• Increase of delivery and project site visitor traffic.

None of these things tend to make your site work popular with the ­residents or the permanent work-force thus making the ­responsible ­project site manager the target for any complaint; but most of the ­irritations can be minimized by good preparation and the maintenance of personal ­contacts. All of the problems should have been considered at the time of a pre-contract site survey.

Site Management Is the “Hands On” Form of Project Management

Site Management may not be within the comfort zone of some project managers.

Site management requires an additional skill set to an office-based project management role. Site management requires familiarity with most of the practical trades employed and because good communication with all the workforce on site, in their own language, is required many companies running overseas projects create the Site Manager role with a local employee in the position within the project team.

At the peak of site activity the site manager will be constantly dealing with the day’s events; events which should have been planned for days or weeks before but which throw up a great deal of detailed queries requiring instant decisions and instructions.

Keeping Evidence and the Role of Digital Photography Onsite

One day I was watching steel fixers working on a complex ­reinforcing-steel frame for a large machine base: their supervisor remarked to me that his job was similar, in one important respect, to that of a surgeon, “How so?” I asked: “We both bury our mistakes” he replied.

Ever since that exchange I have made a photographic record of any concrete forming and steel-work before the concrete is poured; indeed, I recommend taking photographs of any detailed installation before it is buried or encased.

A dated digital photograph that records the preexisting condition of any site feature is extremely cheap to make but priceless in avoiding long costly arguments if there is a subsequent dispute. Photographs of services installed within ceiling spaces or subfloor, made before they are covered, are also very usefully added to the client’s maintenance documentation.

Any claims for “damage in transit” absolutely requires photographic evidence.

The digital camera is a project manager’s best friend and, where and when allowed, should be kept handy to record all significant events, construction stages and changes in site conditions. Of course, on many industrial and almost all military sites around the world it is forbidden to take photographs; cameras have to be handed in at Reception and security stickers are put over mobile phone lenses that are checked to be in place before exiting the site. Breaching the rules of client confidentiality is good reason for project staff to be dismissed and can result in companies being blacklisted. However, all clients in my experience will agree to photography for recording important events, or solving specific problems, if one of their staff either takes the photo or checks third-party photos before release.

Because most sites are remote from the offices of the various contractors, the electronic transmission of relevant photographs is a very efficient way of bringing design staff up to date with progress or isolating a particular problem. Just ensure that any site photographs taken by site project staff are transmitted through the authority of the site management.

Parking and Vehicular Access to the Customer’s Site

I’m going to make a big deal over the subject of contractors’ vehicles on site because it causes so much hassle. Whatever the layout of a project site, an influx of contractors’ vehicles is almost always disruptive to the permanent employees of the client, the users and residents of neighboring properties; it is a problem that can seriously sour relationships within and beyond the project community and needs to be planned for in advance.

Parking of Private Cars

The number and type of vehicles used by contractors to get to work on a project site and which are liable to be parked on any one day is variable and the discipline and courtesy, shown by their users, ranges from careful to totally inconsiderate. Therefore, private vehicles used by contractors need either to be allocated a specific area within the client’s site or banned from the project’s confines. The aggravation and time used in dealing with the rogue element who dump their vehicles, so as to block access or damage property, can be considerable so tough measures need to be enforced.

Company Vehicles, Vans, and so on

The parking on site of these vehicles is less easy to make rules for because they are often used as semisecure tool and component stores. Their use needs to be monitored on a daily basis and their parking positions allocated according to need. Once materials and tools are fully delivered company vehicles can be treated as private vehicles. Being a parking attendant is an unpopular but necessary part of a project site manager’s job.

Delivery Vehicles

Unless very specific instructions are given throughout the supply chain it can be guaranteed that Murphy’s Law¹ will apply to the size and type of vehicle used in the delivery of project goods and to their time of arrival on site.

An essential part of any good project manager’s pre-bid site inspection should include details of access to the delivery point and the type of unloading facilities available and needed. If you get this detail wrong you will have opened up a big and expensive gap in your project plan. These are highly scalable problems and apply just as much to the domestic client, whose new window frames are delivered in a truck so large that it can’t turn into the car-clogged street, to the industrial site that has no hard-standing and in which the semitrailer delivery truck is stuck in mud.

The lesson here is: do not assume that unloading of project materials will be either the responsibility of others or easy—plan for it.

Keeping Work Areas Tidy and Dealing with Rubbish

Untidy sites are inherently more dangerous than tidy ones and the first fit-out stage of building projects, where there are different trades working on site is often the worst time, particularly for trip hazards when temporary power cables and pipes clutter the floors and packing materials block access walkways.

Any site where there are deliveries of domestic appliances or industrial materials will generate large quantities of packaging waste that will need a collection point and disposal method. Don’t underestimate the problem; the client’s waste disposal system will almost certainly be inadequate for your peak needs. It is also worth remembering that some site waste is hazardous or a serious nuisance, for example: the plastic or steel strapping used to hold goods on pallets and commonly discarded without due care gets wrapped around vehicle drive-shafts.

You can try to insist that subcontractors remove their own waste, but you can also whistle at the moon with equal lack of effect; best arrange for a suitable recycling system and appropriate site dumpsters, this expenditure has to be envisaged at the estimating stage and have a budget under the project manager’ s control.

Remember that in some parts of the world your packaging materials represent a valuable resource. I have managed a site where a steam turbine was shipped in parts housed in beautifully made, marine-ply and timber framed packing cases which were very carefully taken apart and every piece and screw used within the community housing; the difficulty was making sure it went to the workers who worked on the project and not to the local black-market. On another occasion, a heavy machine was shipped to New Zealand on one-foot square oak timbers that were of great interest to the local wood workers, to whom they were eventually sold.

Security of Domestic Project Sites

It is common practice in many rural communities and small towns for local, and therefore well known, tradespeople carrying out repairs in or outside of houses to be left in charge of the house while the owners are at work. This practice places both parties to the contract in a potentially vulnerable position; if the security of the property is breached by a third party, or even if the family pet gets in and wrecks the carpet by knocking over a pot of gloss paint. Who is responsible, who pays, will the insurance cover the loss or damage? Such gaps, through which reputation and money can leak, can be partially filled by having a basic form of written contract for domestic projects that, in addition to describing the work to be done and all the details of the quotation, may contain a paragraph covering the “site rules.” At the very least such a document makes both parties think about the security of the project site.

The creation of such a domestic contract document, which can form part of a written acceptance of the contractor’s quote, is the responsibility of the client and needs to include:

• Primary and secondary phone numbers for contacts if ­problems arise while the client/owner is physically absent.
• Areas of the property, including toilet and washing facilities, to which the contractor is allowed access.
• Areas of the property available for parking and the storage of materials.
• Advice to the contractor concerning handling of any deliveries or visitors for the client in his or her absence.

It is best to remember that the gang putting up the scaffolding that will allow your chimney to be repointed, will probably not appreciate the sentimental value you attach to the rose bush in the flower bed at the base of the wall.

You need to take responsibility for the security of your own property.

Site Security and Safety of Personnel on Industrial Project Sites

The importance of knowing and complying with local H&S legislation has been mentioned in Law 4 so here we look at some of the practical aspects, particularly those relating to pre-start work on site. Some H&S legislation will require a comprehensive risk assessment to be carried out prior to start of work, so it is essential for the manager of any project to carry out an expert site survey. At the end of this chapter I have added a checklist of items to be included in any pre-project Site Survey. Under British Law the customer is required to inform any contractor of preexisting hazards on their site; such things as polluted ground, subterranean services and even the presence of Japanese Knotweed² are required to be made known; if you lack a formal list of hazards informally interrogate the guys around the site during your survey visit.

Site Induction

Under European legislation every worker and visitor to an active ­project site must be put through a site induction process given by a senior ­member of the project management team if not the Project Manager. The only possible exception may be drivers of vehicles making single, special deliveries, but they will have to be guided by a Banksman³ from the project team during their time on site.

Make the Induction process a formal event with the names of all attendees recorded.

Some of the key points that you are required to cover are:

• Explanation of the requirement to observe site specific elements appropriate to their own work activities and site wide hazards. These could include: open excavations, working at height, overhead and subterranean power lines, confined spaces, contaminated land, traffic management and fire risks.
• Ensure that inductees are made aware that risk assessments and method statements will be required for tasks where ­specific hazards are identified, and all cases when plant has to be unloaded and maneuvered into place.
• Make inductees aware of areas of work that will require specific authorization to proceed such as a Permit to Work. Special mention should be made of the need for special permits covering “hot-work” such as welding or cutting with a gas-torch.
• Ensure inductees are made aware of restricted areas and the reasons for the control measures in place.
• Make inductees aware of their personal responsibility for their own and their fellow workers’ safety and for good housekeeping. Give details of where and how site waste is to be stored or removed.

I am well aware that many experienced project team members disparage the need for written risk assessments and method statements for tasks they have carried out many times before, but I would remind them that they will be working, probably for the first time, in a location with and for people who have not done it many times before.

If you are serious about your project then take it seriously.

Permits to work perform a vital control function for the Project ­Manager, who should never be unaware that potentially hazardous work is being done on site. How many times do we hear on news reports, covering a serious industrial or large building fire, a phrase something like: “the building has been undergoing major refurbishment work”?

When work has been formally notified and permitted it can be better controlled.

The perimeter of the project site has to be established and where possible marked off with notices listing hazards present and contact details of the key staff responsible for the area. On large sites in most countries in the world this is standard practice, if not imposed by the customer then it will be by any reputable contractor for their own legal protection. Since very few people actually read these notices their presence is simply an exercise in legal protection and no less important for that.

House building sites sometimes have a particular problem because, unlike working within a large factory site, the perimeter of these sites is porous, particularly to adventurous children who will be at danger when they gain access. In addition to appropriate fencing and notices, in the case of large urban projects, it may be sensible to arrange for a visit to the local schools to talk to the students about the hazards of building sites.

Security of Equipment and Materials

The project site, its workers and visitors, are strangers and interlopers so it will attract suspicion if there are incidents of damage or thieving within the parish. It is equally true that the presence of valuable tools and ­materials stored temporarily in vehicles, or within the site, will attract opportunist thieves. The monetary value of materials lost is not usually the major problem, although insurance companies are adept at excluding liability for losses on goods in transit or temporary storage; it is the delay caused by re-purchasing or manufacturing replacements that prolongs expensive site time. This is true whatever scale of project you are managing so two key protective policies should be enacted:

• Provide adequate secure site storage. One or more standard ISO containers provide the cheapest form of site store: just make certain the keys are numbered and the names of key holders are recorded.
• Keep a daily site diary recording every delivery and vehicle, every site visitor and the number of workers on site.

On projects at the domestic scale vehicles, parked on the public highway, containing tools and materials are at risk and there is little, other than continual vigilance and the application of commonsense that one can do to prevent theft.

As a young commissioning engineer I was once working in the turbine hall of a large power station and had my tools in a very heavy steel toolbox next to the feed-pump on which I was working. I left the site at 10:00 pm, too tired to carry my tools to my car, so I attached the box with a heavy chain and padlock to a steel pole that was part of the scaffolding surrounding the main turbine. In the morning, I returned to find that the whole scaffold pole had been cut through with a disc-cutter and my tools were gone. The lesson is: that if a thief is determined to steal materials or equipment there is, within reasonable limits, very little one can do except make sure each and every item has identification markings engraved or affixed on them; in that way, you might get them back.

Site Deliveries: Unloading and the Need for a Buffer Zone

In an ideal world, deliveries of goods to a project site would arrive at a scheduled time and on a vehicle of a type and size to allow convenient positioning and unloading. Since the world is rarely ideal the site manager needs to have made sound contingency plans to deal with the physical handling and temporary storage of deliveries. Some industrial clients are willing, at short notice, to make a fork-lift and driver available to unload trucks for the project. Others, particularly if the site’s ground conditions are too soft, will not provide help so it is essential to have hired suitable handling equipment and have workers on site competent and certified to drive them. Deliveries of large items requiring big mobile cranes are disruptive to other site work, and often to the client, so need to be planned carefully with 24 hours warning given on any restrictions to parking and zone access.

Once you have the delivery on the ground you have to have an appropriate space to put it. If the item is monolithic and can be placed immediately in its final installation position then, providing the position is ready, the problem is solved. If the delivery consists of large sections and boxes of component parts, then these parts will require a larger footprint than the final assembly. I found that storage of the parts of an anechoic test chamber, during the build period, required ten times the area of the chamber when built. This delayed other tasks whose work area was full of easily damaged panels, resulting in a five-day delay to the site program. If such a problem is foreseen then make plans for a secure delivery buffer zone and internal transport.

Avoiding Problems of Deliveries Going Astray

Large consignments being delayed are problematic but, on large sites, an equally serious problem is smaller deliveries going astray or being lost. Often these items take the form of urgent replacements for missing or broken parts. Deliveries of small items, by mail or parcel carriers to the project site will be a problem unless the parent site, the project community, and manager have set up an agreed, project specific, delivery address and receipt process.

A large industrial complex will always have at least one “Goods Inwards” and may have a separate mail delivery point for its external and its own internal mail distribution system. In rare cases an external contractor’s project office can be of sufficient size and longstanding as to have its own established postal address and permanently manned good inwards office; generally, this is not the case and special arrangements will need to be made. A large site may have several projects taking place within it at any one time, all of which may have deliveries ranging from letters and small packages to major consignments on trucks requiring police escort. Unless all the staff of all the vehicle entry points are briefed as to the presence, identity and contact details of various project teams on site, confusion will reign and urgently needed goods will be delayed, sent back, or lost.

My advice to project managers working on an established site is to quickly develop, and ensure you maintain, a good working relationship with the site gate-staff and receptionists. These are the people who will be contacted by your lost visitors, or bewildered parcel couriers, they need to know your name and face and where to send your visitors and packages.

Don’t Deliver Goods Into a Site That Is Not Ready

Delaying the delivery of plant, or paying to store it because a project site is not yet in a suitable condition is a difficult call for a project manager to make.

The root cause will invariably be that someone is running late to the program and the pressure on the project management, to ensure that the following project tasks are kept to program is difficult to resist. What commonly happens, when this rule is broken, is for consequential damage to occur to equipment stored or unpacked in unsuitable conditions, which leads to claims and counter claims for delays and costs. Much more difficult to settle are the claims for equipment failing during the early life of equipment which damages, the manufacturer will claim, was caused by unsuitable conditions when delivered. I have seen control desks housing computers and electronic control equipment that were delivered on program, being used as work benches by carpenters and fixers of ceramic wall-tiles; the consequential early failure of equipment damaged by abrasive dust resulted in delays to the customer and high replacement costs to the equipment supplier.

In addition to the space required not being ready the classic reasons for project sites not being ready to receive fit-out materials are:

• Building envelope not weather tight or lacking secure ­windows or lockable doors.
• unseasonable weather creating ponding of water within the building or site access routes.
• Wet Trades, such as wall covering or ceiling work creating slippages and high humidity and requiring scaffolding in workspace.
• Floor preparation not completed or not cured delaying all deliveries into the area.

In addition to space incompatibility delaying delivery of equipment into a workspace there is the problem of task incompatibility having a similar effect.

Weather-dependent work, in many parts of the world is by its nature difficult to schedule. It is rather obvious that, in areas with wide seasonal weather variation, the scheduling of some construction tasks has to take this variation into account. I know from bitter experience that planning to do major block wall construction in the Detroit area in mid-December is somewhat foolhardy.

In spite of all the best laid plans there are some tasks which just have to be carried out whatever the hardship caused to the staff involved. I have had to deal with the demolition and rebuilding of a ten-yard-wide section of a building’s wall, to enable a large machine tool to be delivered and positioned. The task had to be done on the due dates, whatever the weather, because of the need to deliver to site, not only the new machine, but also schedule the large mobile crane and a specialist installation crew with all their equipment. We had to plan for wind and rain and fix protection for existing plant, it also required all other contractors and client staff to remove themselves and their vehicles from site; in the event the sun shone, but success was due to very detailed planning and explanatory communication with everyone directly or indirectly involved.

Exclusive access work includes that trivial sounding job which is nevertheless one of the most disruptive, difficult to program and enforce, building “finishing” tasks that require exclusive access: this is floor finishing. Floor painting, particularly on industrial sites, with modern epoxy materials requires a fully cured, dry and cleaned concrete surface. The oil spills and rubber tire debris from contractors’ machines have to be dealt with and the whole building area has to be cleared of other work and made secure for the period required for clearing, coating application, and curing. Floor painting is one more job to get done over a weekend before the floor-mounted machinery or furniture is delivered to site.

Safety critical work can make all sections of a site incompatible for other work and can take many forms; in all cases such work should be of a declared duration and closely monitored. An example of my own experience was using a large crane to lift redundant cooling towers, of unknown mechanical integrity, from the roof of a building. Jobs such as this can be planned to take place during a nonworking day such as a Sunday; the extra cost of weekend working has to be set against the loss of part or a whole day for all the other on-site trades.

Unfortunately, there are some safety critical site exclusions for which it is very difficult to predict the duration, and which may cause serious project time and cost overruns. In my experience, the worst of such disruption occurs on brownfield and domestic project sites where unforeseen problems are discovered; examples are: the presence of asbestos, unmarked subterranean services and previously unknown structural weaknesses; this is when one’s change management skills get tested.

The Commissioning Phase One, Services

Bringing services on-stream needs to be done carefully, in the correct order and with a well-managed “Lock-out and Tag” system in operation. The system must advise all site personnel which services, previously safe while under construction, are now alive. Any labeling system used on site to indicate the status of services must have been described in detail to all site staff during their induction briefing. If judged necessary, a further general briefing should be given before systems are progressively brought online.

In the United States and Europe there are specialist companies providing a complete system of tags or labels that can be fixed to switches and valves to indicate their status and are intended to prevent incorrect or casual operation. In the case of high-voltage and main circuit distribution a secure lock-off system will need to be operated; all specialist contractors in this field have to be trained and certified to carry out this type of power switching work.

Does the client’s staff get involved at this stage? Services testing and initial switch-on is by its nature a potentially hazardous operation not least because some of the finishing trades are still working on site, therefore it is best scheduled when the minimum of uninvolved staff are present, but a customer’s representative with relevant skills is essential in case of access being required to plant outside the project area.

Testing and initial flushing of fluid services needs to be done while the pipework is still easily accessible. I once visited a site where, after all the suspended ceiling had been installed and the lighting made live, the fire sprinkler pipework, fitted in the ceiling void, was pressure tested; it leaked and water plus the remedial work caused damage and rework, the result of seriously dumb site management.

System Integration: Who Is Responsible?

If you search for the term system integration online you will find that it is almost exclusively attached to the IT industry and the post-production testing of complex software. A typical definition is: “System integration testing (SIT) is a high-level software testing process in which testers verify that all related systems maintain data integrity and can operate in coordination with other systems in the same environment.”

But it is not only the IT industry that needs to define the role of system integration, almost every project that involves several components or interfacing new components with existing systems have always needed the role. It is a role that most people assume to be carried out as part of the main contractor role, but this can be a misplaced assumption and it is always best to confirm, not only what has to be integrated with what, but who has to include that integration within their design and commissioning tasks.

System Integration within any one country, using new components sourced and manufactured exclusively within that country may be relatively trouble free. In countries like the United States, where there is a high degree of country-wide homogeneity in domestic and industrial components, integration is easy unless, as can happen in the automotive industry, components meeting international standards have to be integrated, then as a minimum you will have to deal with metric threads. In Europe and almost everywhere outside the United States there are a wide range of present and historical standards covering mechanical, electrical and even structural components which can make the apparently simple task of joining components together very time consuming, sometimes necessitating the manufacture of hybrid junctions.

It is worth restating that, any project can run into serious problems unless one person or organization is contractually responsible for making all the bits work together to the project specification. What the client does not want is a system that is failing to meet its specified performance, yet all the suppliers are claiming that “our bit is OK, the fault must be in the other bits, or the installation of the wiring, or the piping,” and so on.

The Commissioning Phase Two, with Client Involvement

If the customer has to provide labor or materials to facilitate the commissioning of the project it is vital, well before the due date, to exactly coordinate the two work streams and that the customer’s staff know the detail and start date of their contribution. Many a project has been delayed because the client was unable to supply test-pieces, materials in the correct quantity, or spare the required staff on the project schedule; such errors indicate poor project liaison. Ensure that the split of responsibility between the project commissioning staff and the client staff is understood, because invariably something goes wrong during the process. Ultimate responsibility has to be retained by the project manager and his commissioning team until the project is handed over.

Commissioning of new plant can be a fraught time; it is certainly when the senior project manager needs to be on site to deal with the rescheduling of tasks resulting from technical problems. If you leave technicians unsupervised, with a minor but “very interesting” software glitch, they will use half your budgeted hours finding an innovative solution rather than bringing online much more important, and as yet untested, systems: this is the time for full time, hands on, project management.

The “Snagging” Process

The product of any complex project is rarely perfect from the outset so, as it nears completion the process of snagging is intended to identify areas where specific work or rework has to be carried out to bring the contract up to an acceptable standard. This process contains a natural tension, since the contractor is anxious to complete the project as quickly as possible with the least extra work, while the client or the design authority will wish to ensure that the project meets every aspect of the specification before making the final contract payment. Civil contracts and major building projects tend to use a slightly different cast of players from electro-mechanical or software-based projects. Traditionally in a “design and build” project snagging is carried out between the contractor and the architect, who is the design authority; however, the contract may be such that snagging is carried out between the contractor and the client’s representatives. No client wants to accept a civil project with any unresolved snags; but in mixed technology projects this may be necessary, as we will see in the following.

In civil engineering terms the snagging process is the acceptance testing process; so, Zero Snags equals an acceptable building. In multidisciplinary projects, there may be a preliminary snagging process which, when complete, is followed by the commencement of plant commissioning, then of acceptance tests.

Acceptance Tests

Unless the contractor and client have agreed details of the project’s acceptance criteria in accordance with Law Zero they may be faced with prolonged dispute before the project can be closed and prevented from bleeding money and time. Even if such procedures have been agreed but the client has witnessed problems during commissioning then confidence will have been shaken and further testing will, understandably, be demanded.

The easiest acceptance is “box-ticking” when clear numbers of items have to be supplied or a given rate of production has to be achieved. The most difficult is when there is a degree of subjective judgment involved, as in the case of surface finishes or standards of workmanship. This, for both client and contractor, is where the specification becomes so important; it is difficult to reject something that is demonstrably “fit for purpose” but doesn’t meet some criteria that have not been specified.

I was involved in a dispute that prevented final acceptance of some industrial plant because the physical effort required by the operator to perform a loading operation was, according to the labor-union too great. The effort required was unspecified in the contract and was within H&S guidelines, but the supplier was caught in the middle of a labor dispute that was wider than the project. The only defense is for both sides to make certain the acceptance criteria are clear and that the people directly involved with the new plant are involved at the start, rather than at the end.

In their own defense against awkward customers, some suppliers exercise a very firm policy of acceptance tests. The system will be ­calibrated and witnessed, then their own published tests will be run, with the customer present, and the results recorded. If the specified results are achieved the client’s representative will be expected to sign the acceptance protocol, if this is not forthcoming on the day then the system is disarmed and the technician leaves site. It’s a policy that is cost efficient to the supplier but one that doesn’t make friends with the client.

Signing a contractually binding acceptance document can be a scary job for the client’s representative and is certainly not a job that should be, or can fairly be, left to lower or middle management. Just imagine the position of a departmental manager who, a week after accepting a new machine, experiences major problems with it from whatever cause and has to face his Director: “Idiot! Why did you sign off the acceptance?”

In the days of the Soviet Union signing the acceptance protocol was an important and very formal occasion, requiring a representative with the rank of Director on both sides; I think it is a sensible policy and is still exercised today.

Acceptance with Agreed Snags Remaining

Note the word “agreed”: this is a list of snags, in America called the “punch list,” the details of which are agreed by both sides at the time of signing the acceptance. The pressure on the client to sign such a provisional acceptance is the need to make beneficial use of the equipment or facility concerned. However, any agreed snag should have defined method of resolution and a date by which it has to be completed. This process is not always easy, particularly on projects with major software content, where one can run into the old argument about the difference between a feature that has a workaround and a snag that does not.

If beneficial use is being made of the equipment then warranty should be considered to have started at the date of acceptance but warranty may, by agreement be excluded from some identifiable and isolatable module that is the subject of a snag. The problems related to long outstanding snags and uncompleted work is dealt with next under Law 9.

The Devil Is in the Details: A Salutary Story About Labels

The day before I was due to supervise a hand-over inspection and attend the acceptance signing meeting I invited the company’s maintenance manager to tour the facility with me, just to check that we were both happy that the site was tidy and ready for the big day. We had been running functional tests for a week and everything had met specification, so I had already booked my flight home in anticipation of the next day being a formality. Half-way through our walk we entered the large services room, full of refrigeration plant, ventilation fans and air-compressors; the guy stopped and said: “What about all the valve and switch labels?”

To cut the sad story short: the original specification had been translated into English and somewhere my company had missed, or not understood, the importance of the text that described the plastic labels that had to be attached to every valve, switch and relay, engraved with an alpha-numeric code that referred back to a master schematic diagram and parts list. It should have been spotted on the site survey but that had been carried out by a local agent and missed. To carry out this work retrospectively on hundreds of components was a very long, detailed and expensive task, but that is what had to be done, and that is where my company’s profit on the project went. The mistake was made at the very beginning of the project and discovered, on site, at the very end.

Suggested Items for a Site Survey Checklist

Industrial National

• Check out the local area’s amenities, including hotels/motels, material suppliers, service suppliers and tool-hire, food outlets. Investigate the discounts available for opening accounts or making advance bookings.
• Check out the site: access roads at peak times, site ­security system, reception and goods-inwards systems, parking, unloading facilities, Internet connection, first-aid, disposal of rubbish. If appropriate take sound readings (dBA) at your site boundary.
• Confirm allowed times of site access, access for weekend and overtime working, boundaries of your work area including (if appropriate) office space.
• Immediately before work starts make contact, formal or ­informal with Security Gate staff. telephone switch-board, Store Manager.

Industrial International

All of the aforementioned but as you tour the site use your eyes to observe all details that are unfamiliar that will give you clues of what will be expected of you; look at pipe fixings, electrical junction boxes and conduits, and warning labels.

Domestic

Much of the aforementioned industrial check-list is relevant but also check:

• Areas of the building(s) in which you are allowed, toilet and washing arrangements and vehicle parking.
• Get phone/contact details of the client’s decision maker and find out who that is before you start work!
• Find direction of prevailing wind and try to ensure that dusty tasks such as block and tile cutting cause the least inconvenience to the client.
• Do not assume that your choice of music coming from an outdoors “ghetto-blaster” is appreciated by your client or their neighbors, if you insist in increasing the level of noise ­pollution, be courteous and ask for permission.

¹In this case I refer to the original Murphy’s Law which stated: “If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it.”

²Unless the project specifically includes the removal of Japanese Knotweed from the site it is recommended that you consider its presence, under Law 3, as it is a problem that non-specialists should avoid at all costs.

³In British civil engineering, a banksman is the person who directs the operation of a crane or larger vehicle from the point near where loads are attached and detached. The term “spotter” is the more common term in United States and the term “dogman” in Australia and New Zealand.