6.3 Inspector Role, Documentation, and Project Coordination

Quick Answer: The AMPP CIP inspector's authority is defined by the project specification and the inspection plan agreed at the pre-job conference. The inspector operates at hold points (work cannot proceed without inspector verification), witness points (the inspector is notified and may observe), and exercises stop-work authority to halt application when conditions or quality fall outside the specification. All observations are documented in the daily inspection report (DIR), non-conformances are escalated through an NCR, and the assembled records form the quality verification trail for the project.

Inspector Authority and Inspection Points

The CIP Level 1 inspector's authority comes from the contract and specification, not from personal opinion. Three levels of inspection point are defined in the inspection plan:

• Hold point (H): work must stop and cannot proceed until the inspector verifies compliance and signs off. Common hold points include the surface preparation grade before priming, the stripe coat before the full coat, and WFT immediately after application.
• Witness point (W): the contractor must notify the inspector so the inspector may observe, but work may proceed if the inspector is absent after proper notification. Witness points are less restrictive than hold points and are used for non-critical verification steps.
• Stop-work authority: the inspector may halt all coating work when ambient conditions, surface preparation, or application quality violate the specification and the contractor refuses corrective action.

The inspector never directs the contractor's work — that is the contractor's responsibility. The inspector verifies, documents, and reports. Stop-work is invoked through the owner or the owner's representative per the project escalation chain defined in the inspection plan, not unilaterally by the inspector walking off the job. The inspector's role is to provide objective evidence of compliance or non-compliance, not to manage or supervise the contractor's crew.

Pre-Job Conference, Inspection Plan, and Daily Reports

The pre-job conference is held before coating work begins. Attendees include the owner, the coating contractor, the inspector, and the coating manufacturer's representative when specified. The agenda covers the specification scope, the inspection plan, hold and witness points, ambient condition limits (the 5°F/3°C dew point rule, the 85% RH maximum for solvent-borne coatings), acceptance criteria for surface preparation and DFT, defect thresholds, non-conformance procedures, and documentation requirements. The inspection plan is finalized at the pre-job conference and becomes the inspector's working document for the project. Any deviation from the plan during the project must be agreed and documented in writing.

The daily inspection report (DIR) is the inspector's primary record and is completed every shift. At minimum, the DIR must include:

• Date, project name, location, and weather conditions.
• Ambient readings: air temperature, surface temperature, relative humidity, dew point, and wind speed, recorded at shift start, shift end, and every 2 to 4 hours or when conditions change.
• Surface preparation verification: cleanliness grade (the SP grade achieved), profile measurement, and contaminant test results (Bresle, water break, dust tape).
• Coating batch numbers, mix ratios, pot life status, WFT, and DFT readings with gauge calibration records.
• Application progress, stripe coat verification, and any defects observed (orange peel, runs, pinholes, holidays).
• Inspector name and signature, and contractor acknowledgment.

The DIR is submitted daily, signed, and retained as the project quality record. Missing or incomplete daily reports are a common cause of warranty disputes, because without a DIR there is no contemporaneous evidence that the work met the specification on a given day. The inspector should never backfill a DIR from memory — entries are made during the shift as measurements are taken.

Non-Conformance, Coordination, and Records

A non-conformance report (NCR) is issued when work fails to meet the specification. The NCR documents the deviation (location, measurement, and specification clause violated), the disposition (accept, repair, rework, or reject), and the corrective action with verification. Examples that require an NCR:

• DFT below the 80/120 minimum on an SSPC-PA 2 area.
• Surface cleanliness not meeting the specified SP grade at a hold point.
• Pinholes or holidays found after cure on an immersion surface.
• Recoating outside the PDS recoat window without a tie coat or surface roughening.

The NCR is routed to the contractor for corrective action and to the owner's representative for disposition. The inspector verifies the corrective action is complete — for example, re-measuring DFT after a reapplication, or re-running a holiday test after a repair — and closes the NCR in the daily report. An NCR that is left open at project closeout becomes a punch-list item.

Project coordination means the inspector communicates with the coating contractor foreman, the owner's representative, and when needed the coating manufacturer's technical service. The inspector does not issue work orders — coordination is limited to scheduling hold points, reporting non-conformances through the NCR system, and confirming that corrective action is complete and verified. Quality verification is the inspector's core function: confirming that surface preparation, application, film thickness, and cure meet the specification through measurement and documentation, not by directing the contractor.

Records retention: the inspector maintains the complete set of DIRs, NCRs, calibration records for all gauges (DFT, profile, adhesion, holiday detector), batch logs, and test reports. These are assembled into the final inspection report at project closeout and delivered to the owner. Per AMPP guidance, records should be retained per the project specification, typically a minimum of three years, to support any future warranty claim or dispute resolution.