Every work activity carries its own check.
Not one quality register for the whole site, but a checklist attached to the item you estimated — what to inspect before the work, what to watch while it runs, and what to verify after, with HOLD points that stop sign-off until an engineer clears them.
| Before — the pour has not started | ||
| Column setting-out and size verified against the grid / structural drawing before shuttering Drawing · Column axis within ±6 mm of grid line; section size ±3 mm | Hold | |
| Reinforcement verified — diameter, number, lap length, stagger, tie spacing and binding IS 456:2000 · Compression lap ≥ 45d and staggered; ties per drawing ±15 mm, 135° hooks | Hold | |
| Formwork checked for plumb, dimensions, rigidity and adequate props and bracing IS 456:2000 · Plumb within 6 mm or H/1000 per storey, 12 mm overall | Hold | |
| Base cleanout completed and starter / kicker verified before pour Good practice · Base free of debris and water; kicker 75–100 mm, true to line | Standard | |
| Pre-concreting inspection / pour card approved by the engineer Pour card signed off for rebar, cover, formwork, cleanout and readiness | Hold | |
| During — concrete is going in | ||
| Concrete placed with limited free fall via tremie or chute — no segregation IS 456:2000 · Free fall ≤ 1.5 m; drop chute for taller lifts | Standard | |
| Placed in layers and compacted with a needle vibrator, without over-vibration IS 456:2000 · Layers 300–450 mm; needle penetrating the previous layer about 100 mm, withdrawn slowly | Basic | |
| Test cubes cast at the required frequency during the pour IS 516 · 150 mm cubes sampled per IS 456 Cl. 15.2.2, cured and identified | Basic | |
| Concrete and ambient temperature controlled — hot-weather precautions IS 7861 · Placing temperature preferably ≤ 30 °C; chilled water, evening pour or retarder | Premium | |
| After — the concrete is in place | ||
| Formwork stripped only after the minimum stripping period, without arris damage IS 456:2000 · Column vertical faces after 16–24 h with OPC (Table 11) | Hold | |
| Continuous curing of the column for the minimum required period IS 456:2000 · ≥ 7 days moist curing for OPC; 10–14 days for PPC / PSC | Basic | |
Nine parts that turn a checklist into a quality system.
A checklist on its own is a form. What makes it a system is the moment it is tied to, the point at which it can stop the work, the standard it is judged against, and the fact that the bill has to wait for it.
84 checklists, across all fifteen trades, on the day you install it.
Most quality software gives you a blank checklist builder and wishes you luck. This one ships with the checklists already written — more than five hundred individual checkpoints, each one carrying the standard it comes from and the tolerance that decides pass or fail.
| Work category | The checklists it ships with |
|---|---|
| Earth Work / Excavation | Site Clearing & Setting Out · Foundation Excavation · Anti-Termite Treatment (Pre-construction) · Earth Filling & Compaction · Sand / Murrum Filling · Soling / Sub-base |
| Concrete Work | Pre-Concreting Pour Card (HOLD) · PCC / Levelling Course (M10) · Footing / Raft Concreting (M25) · Column Concreting · Beam Concreting · Slab / Roof Concreting · Concrete Sampling & Cube Testing (HOLD) |
| Reinforcement | Bar Bending Schedule / Cutting & Bending · Cover & Spacer Check · Column / Beam Reinforcement · Slab Reinforcement · Lap / Development Length (HOLD) |
| Formwork / Shuttering | Formwork — Footing / Column · Formwork — Beam / Slab · De-shuttering / Stripping Time (HOLD) |
| Brick Work / Masonry | AAC / Concrete Block Work · Stone Masonry · Half-Brick / Partition Wall |
| Plaster Work | Internal Plaster — 12 mm · External Plaster — Double Coat · Ceiling Plaster · POP / Gypsum Punning |
| Painting | Putty & Primer — Surface Prep · Internal Emulsion Paint · External / Weatherproof Paint · Enamel Paint — Wood / Metal · Distemper / Texture |
| Flooring Work | Vitrified / Ceramic Tile Flooring · Marble / Granite Flooring · Kota / Natural Stone Flooring · Skirting & Dado · IPS / Cement Flooring · Chequered Tile / Paver Block |
| Wood & PVC Work | Door Frame (Chaukhat) Fixing · Door Shutter — Flush / Panelled · Window / Ventilator Fixing · UPVC / PVC Door & Window · Door Hardware & Fittings |
| Steel & Aluminium Work | Structural Steel Fabrication & Welding (HOLD) · Steel Erection / Bolting · Aluminium Door / Window / Glazing · ACP Cladding / Structural Glazing · MS Railing / Grill / Gate · Roof Truss / Purlin |
| Plumbing Works | Water Supply Piping + Pressure Test (HOLD) · Drainage / Soil & Waste Piping · Sanitary Fixtures Installation · External Sewer / Manhole · Septic Tank / Soak Pit · Water Tank — Overhead / Underground · Rainwater / Storm Water |
| Electrical Works | Conduit Concealing — Slab / Wall · Wiring & Insulation / Megger Test (HOLD) · Switchboard / DB Installation · Earthing (HOLD) · Light Fixtures / Fans / Accessories · Panel / Cable Laying |
| Water Proofing | Foundation / Retaining Wall WP · Toilet / Wet-Area WP + 48 h Ponding (HOLD) · Terrace / Roof WP — APP Membrane · Water Tank WP · Basement WP |
| Roofing Work | RCC Roof Slab Finishing & Treatment · Sheet Roofing — GI / Colour-coated · AC / Fibre Cement Sheet · China Mosaic / Brick-bat Coba |
| Miscellaneous | Boundary Wall / Compound · Road / Paving / Kerb · Material Receipt Inspection (MIR) · Snag / Pre-Handover Inspection · Safety & Housekeeping |
Alongside these sit seven broader starter checklists — one each for concrete, reinforcement, formwork, masonry, earthwork, waterproofing and general work — for the site that wants one sheet per trade rather than one per activity.
A standard behind every line
Each checkpoint carries the code it comes from — IS 456, IS 516, IS 1199, IS 2502, IS 1786, IS 2720, IS 6313, SP 34 — and the tolerance that settles the argument. "Plumb within 6 mm or H/1000 per storey" is not a matter of opinion between two engineers.
Tied to the mix, not just the trade
Eighteen of the checklists are linked to a specific recipe in Quantity Master — M10 Concrete (1:3:6), M25 design mix, Internal Plaster 12 mm, Vitrified Tile Flooring, APP Membrane. Pick that formula on a Measurement Book item and the app suggests the checklist that belongs to it.
Yours to change
Every checklist is editable — add a checkpoint your client insists on, delete one that does not apply to your work, mark a point as a HOLD, or write a whole new checklist for a trade nobody else does. What ships is a starting point, not a cage.
A form filled at the end is a record. A checklist tied to the moment is a control.
Most site quality registers are signed after the work, because that is when somebody has time. By then half of what mattered is buried in concrete. Here every checkpoint is tagged to the moment it can actually be checked, and the checklist opens in three parts.
One column pour, in three parts
This is the Column Concreting checklist, split the way the app splits it. Read the "before" column and ask yourself how many of those you could still verify at four o'clock, after the pour.
- Setting-out and size against the grid — axis within ±6 mm, section ±3 mm.
- Reinforcement — diameter, number, lap ≥ 45d and staggered, tie spacing, 135° hooks.
- Clear cover on all faces — 40 mm ±5 mm for a column, blocks at 1 m centres, four a face.
- Formwork plumb within 6 mm or H/1000 per storey, props and ties rigid, no bulge.
- Slump and grade for each load — within ±25 mm of the approved value.
- Pour card signed by the engineer before concrete starts.
- Free fall ≤ 1.5 m, tremie or drop chute on a taller lift, no segregation at the base.
- Layers of 300 to 450 mm, needle in vertically, penetrating the previous layer about 100 mm, withdrawn slowly, stopped at the cement sheen.
- No cold joint — each layer placed before the one below takes its initial set.
- Cubes cast at the sampling frequency, labelled, and the slump logged against the batch.
- Stripping time — column faces after 16 to 24 hours with OPC, arrises undamaged.
- Honeycomb and voids inspected on the stripped face and repaired with approved non-shrink grout.
- Curing continuous for 7 days with OPC, 10 to 14 with PPC or PSC.
The cover you cannot check twice
Clear cover is the single biggest reason an RCC member fails early in India. It is checkable for about twenty minutes — after the concrete goes in, it is unverifiable for the life of the building. So it is a "before" point, and it is a HOLD.
That is the whole argument for tagging a checkpoint to a moment. The engineer who opens the checklist at 9 a.m. sees six things he must clear before the pour and nothing else. He is not scrolling past curing and stripping questions that make no sense yet.
It hangs off the estimate, not off a separate register
The checklist is picked on the Measurement Book item itself. When you type the heading and the app fills the clause, the unit, the rate, the category and the material formula, it also suggests the checklist for that work — matched from the heading, the clause text and the concrete grade.
So the quality record is attached to the same line that the BOQ prices, the programme schedules and the bill is raised against. There is no second list of activities to keep in step.
How an item is set upA HOLD point is where the work stops and waits for a person.
This is the difference between a checklist and a quality system. A normal checkpoint is a thing you confirm. A HOLD point is a thing that stops the activity: work must not continue until the QC engineer physically checks it and approves it. Over a hundred of the checkpoints in the library are marked HOLD.
Nine checklists carry HOLD in their own title, because the whole activity is a gate:
Marked in red, everywhere it appears
A HOLD carries a red marker on the card in QC Master, on the phone at the pour, and on the printed checklist that goes into the file. Its tooltip says exactly what it means, in one sentence, so a new site engineer is never guessing:
Mandatory inspection. Work must stop at this point and cannot continue until the QC engineer physically checks and approves it.
A HOLD cannot be levelled away. Whatever depth of checking you have chosen for a project, every HOLD point stays in the list. Marking a checkpoint critical automatically puts it in the minimum set — the software will not let you configure a hold point out of existence.
And on the phone, it asks
If the site engineer tries to approve an inspection with holds still unticked, the app stops him and says so — 3 HOLD point(s) are not ticked. Approve anyway?
It is a question, not a lock. A supervisor standing in the rain with a truck waiting can still approve — and the record then carries, permanently, which holds were open when he did. That is a deliberate choice: an app that cannot be overridden gets worked around, and then you have no record at all.
One checklist. Three depths. You choose how hard to check.
A boundary wall and a hospital do not deserve the same quality effort, and a checklist long enough for the hospital gets ignored on the boundary wall. So every checkpoint carries a level, and the levels are cumulative — Basic is the minimum a site must check, Standard adds the working controls, Premium is the full set including the laboratory work.
Column concreting, at each level
The same checklist reads 11 points, 20 points or 24 points. Nothing is a different list — the shorter ones are the longer one with the deeper checks hidden.
- Setting-out and size against the grid, reinforcement and lap, cover blocks, formwork plumb, slump for each load, the signed pour card, layered placing with the vibrator, cubes cast, stripping time, curing. Every HOLD point is here, by rule.
- Adds base cleanout and the 75–100 mm kicker, mould oil and sealed joints, the RMC challan checked for grade, batch time and haul, free fall through a chute, no cold joint, plumb re-checked mid-pour, a batch-wise register of slump and cube IDs, and honeycomb repaired on the stripped face.
- Adds embedments, dowels and column-to-beam junction bars positioned before the pour, and concrete temperature control under IS 7861 — placing at 30 °C or below, with chilled water, an evening pour or a retarder in hot weather.
Set once for the project, overridden where it matters
Each project carries a default quality level, chosen when the project is created. Every item in the Measurement Book inherits it, and its Quality Level box simply reads Project default (Standard).
Where one item deserves more, you override it on that item alone. A Standard project with its transfer beams and its water tank set to Premium is a perfectly normal way to run a job — and it takes two clicks, not a second checklist.
Why cumulative matters
If Basic, Standard and Premium were three separate lists, they would drift. Someone would correct a tolerance in one and not the others, and after a year nobody would trust any of them.
Here there is one list with a level on each line. Correct a tolerance once and it is correct at all three depths, on every project, from that moment.
The checklist says what to check. This says how to do it.
A young engineer sent to inspect a work he has never seen done cannot judge it. So every checklist carries a How to do this work button, and behind it a CPWD-aligned method statement — the reference, the materials, the numbered procedure, and the precautions.
CPWD Specifications 2019, Vol. 1 — RCC Columns
Materials and equipment
Procedure
Precautions
- Pour at a controlled rate so the form is not overloaded.
- Keep the cover blocks in place while vibrating.
A method for every activity, not for the famous ones
All 84 checklists carry one. The anti-termite method tells the man with the sprayer to dilute to the specified concentration and treat the bottom of the excavation at five litres a square metre. The earth-filling method tells him to spread in 200 to 300 mm layers, water to near optimum moisture, compact and test each layer before the next one goes on.
References are at CPWD section level — CPWD Specifications 2019, Volumes 1 and 2, and the CPWD General Specifications for Electrical Works — and the procedures follow standard CPWD and IS practice.
- Editable, like everything else. The method has its own boxes in the checklist editor — reference, materials, steps and precautions, one per line — so your own way of doing a work becomes the method your site reads.
- It prints with the checklist. The signed checklist for an activity goes into the file with its acceptance criteria and its method statement attached.
- It is also in Hinglish, because the person who most needs to read a method statement is often not the person who reads English.
Half of site quality is not carelessness. It is a supervisor who was never shown the right way once, and has been doing it his way for eleven years.
The man doing the checking may not read English. He still has to use it.
Every checkpoint, every acceptance criterion and every method statement is written in Hinglish as well — Hindi in Roman letters, with the technical words kept in English, the way a site actually talks. One toggle in the toolbar switches the whole library over.
| English | Hinglish |
|---|---|
| Formwork checked for verticality and plumbWithin tolerance on both faces | Formwork ki verticality / plumbDono faces par tolerance ke andar |
| Reinforcement, lap and cover verifiedAs per drawing | Reinforcement, lap aur cover verify kiDrawing ke hisaab se |
| Concrete placed via tremie or chute, no segregationFree fall less than 1.5 m | Concrete tremie/chute se placed, koi segregation nahiFree fall 1.5m se kam |
| No cold joint, continuous pourPour rate maintained | Koi cold joint nahi, continuous pourPour rate maintain ki |
| Method step: Vibrate each layer with a needle vibrator; avoid displacing the cage. | Method step: Har layer ko needle vibrator se vibrate karo; cage displace mat karo. |
| Precaution: Keep the cover blocks in place while vibrating. | Precaution: Vibrate karte waqt cover blocks apni jagah rakho. |
Only the words change
IS codes, grades like M25, units, dimensions and the HOLD marker stay exactly as they are in both languages. A tolerance of ±25 mm is a tolerance of ±25 mm — it does not need translating, and translating it would be a good way to create an error.
Search works in both
The checkpoint search reads the Hinglish text as well, so an engineer typing "vibrator" or "cover blocks" finds the card whichever language he is looking at it in.
Where it stops, honestly
The Hinglish is written for the 84 checklists that ship with the app. A checklist your own team writes stays in the language they typed it in — the toggle falls back to English for it rather than pretending to translate.
The whole checklist opens on the phone, with no signal.
A quality check that has to be carried back to the office and typed up is a quality check that happens on Friday for the work of Tuesday. The site app puts the same library in the engineer's hand at the pour — the real checklist, not a simplified version of it.
- Pick the activity from the list, grouped by work category exactly as it is on the desktop.
- Checkpoints arrive already grouped Before, During and After, each with its acceptance criterion under it, and HOLD points in red.
- Tick each point and add a remark against the ones that need one — "honeycomb at north face, chipped and repaired".
- Record the location and the verified quantity — F1, 2.700 cum — so the inspection lands against the right item.
- Photographs with the latitude, longitude, accuracy and time burnt onto the image itself. A photo with the coordinates printed on it is evidence; a photo in a WhatsApp thread is not.
- It all queues on the phone when there is no network and goes up the moment there is one. A basement or a remote site does not stop the record.
It lands on the activity, not in an inbox
The inspection syncs against the same Measurement Book item that the BOQ priced and the programme scheduled. Nobody has to match it up afterwards, and nobody can quietly file it against the wrong pour.
Who actually uses it
The site engineer and the supervisor tick the checklist. The consultant or PMC sees the same record to certify against, with a read-only view where that is all he should have. The contractor sees which of his work has cleared its check and which has not.
What each party getsWork that has not passed its check can be held back from the bill.
This is the one thing that makes a site take quality seriously, and almost no quality software does it, because the quality tool and the billing tool are usually two different products from two different companies. Here they are the same file.
How it behaves when the bill is raised
When items are pulled into a running-account bill, each one is checked against its own quality status first. An item that has been inspected and approved goes in. An item still waiting for its check is left out, and the app tells you which and why — reported as skipped — QC pending, not silently dropped.
The same check applies whether you are billing a sub-contractor or raising a running-account bill on your client, because both read the same measured item.
What this changes on a site
The day a sub-contractor works out that an uninspected pour does not appear in his running account, he starts asking for the inspection himself. Quality stops being the engineer chasing the contractor, and becomes the contractor chasing the engineer.
Nothing about that requires a new process. It is the same measurement, the same checklist and the same bill you were already raising — with one condition put between them.
And on the programme
A quality check is not only a gate on money. The same item drives physical progress and earned value, so an activity that is built but not cleared is visible as work done and not yet certified — which is exactly the position a project manager needs to see before a review meeting, not after it.
Planning and progressOpen the checklist for your own next pour.
Thirty minutes on a call. Tell us the work you are running this week and we will open its checklist, its hold points and its method statement while you watch.