Our record-keeping starts well and fades
Every job begins with good intentions and a fresh register, and by month 3 the diary has gone quiet.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
If a routine set up across the team has lapsed before, see why to build the routine from what your people already produce.
What's happening?
Record-keeping starts well, then slips as the job gets busy and changes. The diary has gaps, the register falls behind, and the photographs sit on personal phones. When a delay claim needs the file, it is hard to search and hard to compare.
The risk is not only in a dispute. A missing entry can hide an event nobody notified, a gap in the evidence or a notice question. Rebuilding later cannot bring back every source or every memory. So record what is missing, rather than assuming the routine held.
The solution
Give the records named people, a deputy and one agreed place to store them. Once a month, sample the diary, registers and photographs against the crane log, deliveries and instructions. Give each repair to a named person, and change who does what when the workload changes. Keep urgent events and live deadlines on their own same-day route.
That monthly check is the optional ongoing part of Delay & Disruption Loss Prevention. It records what was sampled, what was repaired and what is still unknown. A later reader can then tell records made at the time from records rebuilt later. It keeps the routine alive, but it will not catch every gap.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
A mechanical subcontractor's £7,000,000 package is in its third month. The site diary has been quiet since week 9, and the delay register was last updated 6 weeks ago. The progress photographs sit on three phones.
What happens
- The monthly check samples rather than reading everything. It checks five diary days against the crane log and the delivery tickets. It checks six register items against the correspondence, and 20 photographs against the areas they claim to show.
- It finds 14 diary days missing and seven access and information delays, worth about £23,000, never entered on the register. Some photographs are on two phones nobody else can reach.
- Repairs are handed out. The site manager fills in what he can from the crane log, dated as this month's work. The assistant quantity surveyor takes over the register, with the site manager as deputy.
- The photographs move to a shared folder that evening.
- One of the seven delays has a notice deadline with 3 days left. It goes straight to the commercial manager rather than waiting for the check, and the notice goes out in time.
- The check's own record states what was sampled, what was repaired and what is still unknown. A later reader can tell the records made at the time from the ones rebuilt later.
The outcome
The next month's check finds two missing days and no unregistered delays. The £23,000 is notified and claimed that month.