InfoTown™
Priya's journey · Assurance · Lesson 3

The binder in the cabin

Before you start

In the story

Forty signed records. One flood. None left.

Back to the story

The right way

At the work face

Inspections are recorded on the site app against the drawing and revision being checked, and the photos, signature and date go straight into the CDE.

One record

The Clerk of Works signs on the same app, so there's one record, not two.

November

The cabin floods. The kettle is lost. The records aren't.

The red binderForty records, one flood, and two drainage runs dug up again.
On the app, in the CDERecords tied to their drawings, kept safe, and found in a minute.
Think like Priya

A record only counts if you can find it, trust it and show it to someone in five years' time. Paper in a cabin is one flood, fire or tidy-up away from never having happened. Is each record tied to the drawing and revision it checked?

Continue Priya's journey

Story 4: The newts

The licence for the protected newts is in an appendix. The digger is in the pond.
The right way, explained

The right way, explained

The town keeps its important papers in the quality file, not under the mat by the back door. The quality file has copies, a fire door and a catalogue.

If you're the site manager

If you're the site manager

Make the app the way inspections are done, not a second job after the paper one. If your team fills in paper and types it up later, one of those two records will be wrong.

In the town See it in the town: forty signed records, one flood. How many are left?

Priya's view: the Records Office has a fire door and a catalogue. The site cabin has a kettle.

The buildings, district by district Buildings sitting in their districts, left to right: Assurance with the Quality System, Engineering with the Design System, Information Governance with the Records Office (your organisation's CDE), Commercial with the Commercial System, and Operations with the Planning System. Beyond the edge of town, outside every district: the Quality System, the Design System, the Records Office (your organisation's CDE), the Commercial System, the Planning System with people talking outside, and a person walking past with a parcel stuck in their bag. ASSURANCEENGINEERINGINFO GOVERNANCECOMMERCIALOPERATIONS OUTSIDE ANY DISTRICT QUALITY SYSTEM DESIGN SYSTEM CDE RECORDS OFFICE COMMERCIAL SYSTEM PLANNING SYSTEM SOMEONE'S BAG
Look inside a buildingAround the districts

The Records Office

What lives here
IM calls it
Watch out for

These are Quality Records!

Proof of what was checked, by whom, against which drawing, kept where it can be found years later.

Sam's Heads Up Your basement may not have signal

InfoTown good practice: Record at the work face, digitally.

On your job: The bottom of a basement dig is rarely a 5G hotspot. Use an app that works offline and syncs later, or scan the paper the same day. The rule is "in the CDE by tonight", not "never touch paper".

For the audit What the auditor will ask
  • Show me the inspection records for this part of the work, and which drawing each one checked.
  • If the site office burned down tonight, what would you lose?
For the audit What good evidence looks like
  • Records in the CDE, each with its drawing, revision, photos, signature and date.
  • Nothing that exists only on paper.
From the standard
ISO 19650 Records in the CDE

Quality records belong to your quality system, not to ISO 19650. What ISO 19650 adds is that a record is information like any other: it belongs in the CDE with a status, and if the client needs it, it's part of what you hand over.

Based on the ISO 19650 series: the ideas come from the standard; the plain-English wording, examples and advice are InfoTown's. ISO 19650 is © ISO and BSI. You'll hear the same language across the industry. Read more for free in the Information Management Initiative (IMI) Framework guidance from BSI and nima. For the full requirements, use the standard itself.