ITP generator

Describe the work and this writes the inspection and test plan for it — the activities in build sequence, the document that controls each one, what the acceptance criterion is, which record captures the result, how often, and where a hold point belongs. It is the same authoring engine that runs inside Stathia, given a smaller brief.

It is free, it wants nothing from you to run, and it is honest about the half it cannot do: without your specification in front of it, most project-specific criteria come back marked TBC — EVIDENCE REQUIRED. That is the correct answer, not a limitation politely worded. An ITP that quietly fills a tolerance with a typical value is worse than one that leaves the box open, because somebody signs the first one.

Start from your scope

The generator above takes any scope. These pages run the same tool with the sequence, the hold points, the governing documents and the real acceptance criteria for one work type already on the page — worth starting there if your package is one of them.

• ITP generator — in-situ reinforced concrete — Formation to cover survey, with the gates where an issued ITP puts them — and the criteria a reviewer adds when you leave them out.
• ITP generator — earthworks and fill — Class, place, compact, prove — with the acceptance criteria a highway ITP actually carries, including the plant limits nobody writes down until an inspector asks.
• ITP generator — drainage — The scope with the most testable criteria in construction — and the one where a vague ITP is least excusable.
• ITP generator — formwork and falsework — The scope where the quality gate and the safety gate are the same signature — and where the ITP has to name whose it is.
• ITP generator — precast erection — Half the hold points on precast are in a factory two hundred miles away — and the ITP that misses them finds out on the hardstanding.
• ITP generator — waterproofing — The scope where an acceptance criterion falls due weeks before the work does — and where most ITPs discover that too late.

How to write the scope so the plan comes back useful

The quality of what comes out tracks the quality of what goes in, and the difference is not length — it is specificity. Four things move it more than anything else:

• Name the materials and classes you already know. “C32/40 concrete placed by pump” produces different activities from “concrete”. So does “150mm vitrified clay in granular bed and surround” against “drainage”.
• Say what covers what. Hold points live where evidence becomes unrecoverable, so a sequence that mentions blinding, shutter closure, backfill or a protection layer tells the plan where the gates are.
• Include the testing you know is coming. Air test, mandrel, CCTV, cube results, cover survey, proof rolling — name them and they come back with their record and frequency attached.
• Paste the real wording where you have it. A bill description or a paragraph of spec is worth more than a summary of it, and it is the only way a criterion comes back with a number in it rather than a TBC.

What the codes on the plan mean

Employers word the code set slightly differently and mean the same thing. The version this tool writes is the common one:

• H — hold point. Work must not proceed until the named party releases it. Use sparingly and put them where the evidence disappears next. A hold point can be satisfied by a document approval as much as a physical inspection — an accepted temporary works design or a closed NCR register is a legitimate gate.
• W — witness point. An invitation. Properly notified and nobody came? Work continues.
• S — surveillance. Monitoring over a period, not a moment. Storage, formwork pre-assembly, ongoing placement.
• R — review. Retrospective and documentary. Test certificates, delivery tickets.
• I / T — a recorded inspection you carry out, and a test or measurement with a data record.
• SI / X — a record submitted for information, and nothing required. X is entered, never left blank; a blank cell is a review comment waiting to happen.

One rule that catches people, and it is not negotiable: hold points cascade upward. Where the client, the designer or a third party has identified an intervention as a hold point, it is a hold point in your column too. You cannot accept theirs and keep yours as a witness.

The column that decides whether the ITP is auditable

Acceptance criteria. One template puts the question in the column header itself — what answer should we get if it is right? — and it is the right test. If the entry does not let somebody who was not there decide pass or fail from the record alone, months later, it is not an acceptance criterion.

Four requirements, and reviewers enforce all four:

1. Measurable — a number, a tolerance, a rate, a class, or a defined observable state.
2. Traceable to a clause — the criterion and the controlling document have to agree. Restating the activity and attaching a clause reference is doing half the job.
3. Answerable on the record — the named verifying document has to have somewhere to put the answer.
4. Complete at the point of inspection — nothing that can only be judged after the next operation.

These all appear in issued ITPs and all get marked: as per design · as specified in the material approval form · as per manufacturer’s instruction · document accepted · within accepted tolerances · acceptable to use · visual inspection · see notes. They fail for the same reason: they defer the criterion to a document the inspector does not have on the deck, and they give the person signing nothing to be wrong about. As per manufacturer’s instruction is defensible only when the line also names the parameter, the frequency and the instrument — anemometer for wind speed, thermometer for air temperature, a wedge cut for coverage rate.

What this tool leaves for you

Everything that makes the difference between a draft and an issuable document, and it is worth being exact about it rather than vague:

• The references block. Drawings and specifications with their numbers and revisions, the method statement or work package plan, the material approval record numbers, the pre-construction technical queries. A bare specification reference with no clause is a standing review comment.
• The criteria marked TBC. Filled from your specification, not from somewhere else’s.
• The party columns. One row often carries four or five independent codes — subcontractor, main contractor, designer or technical assurance, client, third party — each with its own named inspector role. Name the role, never the individual.
• The numbering. Inspection item 4.12 on the ITP has to be item 4.12 on the check-sheet. Misalignment there is the thing that gets found in an audit.
• The sign-off. A named author, reviewer and approver, and the close-out declaration at the end.

Independence is worth one extra line, because it gets missed: on key inspections the person carrying them out should be independent of the production team. Naming the working foreman as the sole inspector on a hold point is a defensible reason to reject the plan.

Why the generated draft is a draft, and stays one

Starting permanent works without an accepted ITP is a critical non-conformance in its own right, and proceeding through a hold point gets an NCR raised against you — classified procedural, categorised minor, and none of that means harmless. The real ones in this trade read procedural but critical, run to dozens of pages of paperwork for a single breach, and cost you standing with the client’s assurance team, which is the thing you are scored on at the next tender.

So the output above says DRAFT — FOR COMPETENT REVIEW on its own title, and should keep saying it until a competent person has been through it against the specification. That is not a disclaimer. It is the same standard the paid product holds itself to.