Civil Engineering Project Management (4th Edition)

The resident engineer’s office records 149
Inspectors’ records are invaluable for dealing with claims from a contractor
for delay, disruption, lack of instructions, or ‘uneconomic working’. These are
all difficult to handle if only general progress charts are available.
The site diary is a day-to-a-page diary which notes matters not on inspectors’
daily returns, such as weather, visitors to site, meetings held. Weather records are
important, but need not be strictly meteorological. It can suffice to note weather
which affects work, for example, stoppages due to rain or snow; freezing conditions
that can affect concrete; showers interrupting concreting; excessive heat
causing over-drying of concrete, etc. A note such as ‘Heavy showers interrupting
concreting’ can, for instance, be the explanation for leaks found later in the
concrete walls of a tank which appear to be due to poorly compacted concrete.
The RE’s diary is not easy to keep. The aim must be to record events not
recorded elsewhere, such as decisions on problems; comments made by the
employer or specialist advisers; and important telephone calls. When things get
in a tangle and misunderstandings occur, it can be particularly important to be
able to say, with certainty, when a discussion or telephone conversation took place.
It depends on the style of operation of the agent how meetings with him are
recorded. Formal meetings (usually over claims) have to be minuted and
agreed. But many informal discussions will take place between an agent and
the RE. It is not usual to minute these. A good agent will often discuss some
problem with the RE; and if this leads to some oral agreement or instruction
from the RE, the agent will not act otherwise. All the RE needs to do is to make
a note in his diary of any matter decided.
Many a job is run almost entirely by oral discussion and agreement
between RE and agent, without any need to record what was decided. However,
when a complicated series of decisions has been agreed upon, a written
list of these might be supplied to the agent so that the staffs of either side
know what to do. In other unfortunate cases where an agent makes things
difficult and takes every opportunity to lodge a claim, it may be necessary to
confirm every instruction in writing.
The weekly report is commonly sent to the engineer. A typical example is
shown in Fig. 13.2. A monthly report should be sent to the employer, primarily to
inform him of progress to date. A draft of this is usually sent to the engineer, for
him to amend as necessary and send under his own hand to the employer. On
overseas sites, weekly reports are not usually adopted; instead a monthly report
will go direct from the RE to the employer with copies sent to the engineer.
13.6 Quantity records
For admeasurement contracts, measurement of quantities of work done will
be one of the most important tasks undertaken by the RE and his staff. Two
essentials for any system are:
• it must be possible to ascertain from the records what has been measured
and what has not been measured;