Free drill
Set the point, not every point
An inspection and test plan says what will be checked, against what, by whom, and where the record lands. The hard part is not the columns, it is choosing between hold, witness and review. This drill puts 12 activities in front of you and explains why each takes the point type it does.
When should an activity be a hold point?
When proceeding would make verification impossible or unsafe. Those are the two tests worth applying, and almost everything else is a witness or a review. Pouring concrete over conduit is the clean case for the first: once it is covered, checking it means breaking it out. Energising a switchboard for the first time is the case for the second, where the risk rather than the concealment justifies stopping. What makes this genuinely difficult is the pressure to mark everything as a hold, which feels rigorous and is the fastest way to make a plan meaningless. If every stage stops the works, the ones that actually matter stop standing out, and the plan quietly becomes a document people work around rather than to.
Set the inspection point for each activity. Hold points are sparing and only for stages that are irreversible or high risk. Make everything a hold and the plan stops meaning anything.
Scope. Every scenario here is fictional and generalized, set on the fictional Example Site EX1. This is career and interview preparation at awareness level, not a live operating procedure, engineering advice or any form of authorization. On a real site, follow your employer's procedures, your authorized training and local requirements, and if the two ever disagree, the site wins.
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01 Pouring concrete over below-slab electrical conduit.
Choose the point type
Answer
H · Hold
Once poured you cannot inspect it again without breaking it out. Irreversible concealment is the clearest case for a hold.
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02 Pressure testing a chilled water line before it is insulated.
Choose the point type
Answer
W · Witness
The test is repeatable and the line is still visible, so notify and invite rather than stop the works. The hold belongs on the concealment that follows, not on the test.
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03 Checking material certificates for delivered cable drums.
Choose the point type
Answer
R · Review
Documentation verified after the fact. Nothing is being built at that moment, so stopping work would achieve nothing.
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04 Backfilling a trench containing ducts.
Choose the point type
Answer
H · Hold
Same logic as the slab: once covered, verification means excavation. Irreversible, so hold.
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05 Aligning a rack row before containment is fitted.
Choose the point type
Answer
W · Witness
Worth attending, because correcting alignment later is expensive, but it is reversible and the work does not need to stop to be checked.
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06 Reviewing as-built drawing markups at the end of a phase.
Choose the point type
Answer
R · Review
A records activity. There is no physical work to hold and no event to witness.
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07 Energising a switchboard for the first time.
Choose the point type
Answer
H · Hold
High risk rather than irreversible, which is the other half of the hold test. Nobody proceeds without an explicit release.
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08 Torque checking the fixings that hold a skid down, before the equipment above them is set and the access is gone.
Choose the point type
Answer
H · Hold
Hold, on the concealment half of the test rather than the risk half. The check itself is repeatable, but once the equipment above is set the fixings cannot be reached. Concealment does not have to be concrete to be concealment.
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09 Surveying fireproofing thickness at grid points while the survey is being taken.
Choose the point type
Answer
W · Witness
Worth attending, because the reading is taken once and the surface is finished afterwards, but the works do not have to stop for somebody to watch. The gauge calibration reference belongs on the record beside the readings, or the readings are opinions.
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10 Filing the completed cable containment route checklist against the approved drawing.
Choose the point type
Answer
R · Review
A completed checklist read against a drawing is a records activity. Nothing is being built while it is read, and the person reading it does not need to be on site to do it properly.
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11 Proving every control point end to end, device value against graphic, before the functional test is scheduled.
Choose the point type
Answer
H · Hold
Hold, on the risk half of the test. Everything the functional test reads is only as trustworthy as this, so a gap here has to stop the next level rather than be carried into it. This is the single most common reason a functional test has to be abandoned on the day.
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12 Telling the client that the chilled water flush and fill runs on Thursday, and running it whether or not they attend.
Choose the point type
Answer
W · Witness
That sentence is the definition of a witness point: notify, invite, and proceed if nobody comes, provided the notice was genuinely given. The inspection request and its timestamp matter as much as the inspection, because they are the proof that the invitation happened.
Now say it out loud
Clicking the right option is the easy half.
In the room you will not be given the options. Cover them, and answer these three out loud, in full sentences, as if somebody had just asked. If a sentence stalls, that is the part to go back and read again.
- 01 Give the two tests for a hold point in one sentence each, then give an activity that fails both and is still worth witnessing.
- 02 Explain what happens when an invited party does not attend a witness point, and what the record has to show for the works to proceed.
- 03 Say why a plan that marks everything as a hold point is a worse plan, not a safer one.
What is the difference between witness and review?
A witness point happens while the work does; a review point happens afterwards, on paper. Witness means notify and invite, and it usually carries a notice period, because the whole mechanism depends on somebody having a fair chance to attend. Crucially, work may proceed if the invited party does not turn up, provided the notice was genuinely given, which is why the inspection request and its timestamp matter as much as the inspection. Review is documentation verified after the fact: material certificates, as-built markups, test records. Nothing is being built at that moment, so stopping work would achieve nothing at all. Getting these two the wrong way round is the most common way an otherwise sensible plan starts generating arguments on site.