Construction
Structural material acceptance on site
What to check when the lorry arrives, because afterwards it is already installed.
Structural material has one feature that sets it apart: once it is in place, checking it costs a hundred times more. Anything not looked at during unloading becomes a demolition problem, not a paperwork one.
What arrives with the material and must be captured
| Element | What it evidences | If missing |
|---|---|---|
| Delivery note identifying the consignment | What arrived and from which heat or batch | Without it, nothing else can be linked to anything |
| Product certificate | That the material meets the specification | Request it from the supplier, and it takes time |
| Marking and labelling on the material itself | That what is on site is what the paper says | Visible at a glance, if someone looks |
| Test results, where applicable | What was checked and with what result | The lab issues them later: they must be chased |
Important
The fourth row is the one left pending that nobody chases. Results arrive days after unloading, when the lorry has gone and the works have moved on — and if nobody linked them to the specific consignment, they turn up loose in an inbox and evidence nothing. A test without the consignment it belongs to is a nice-looking piece of paper.
How to do it without slowing unloading
- 1
Photo of the delivery note and the marking, at unloading
Thirty seconds on a phone, linked to the site and the date.
- 2
The consignment as the thread
Heat, batch or lot: it is what later links material, certificate and test.
- 3
Pending tests, recorded as pending
With who issues them and by when. Unrecorded, they are never chased.
- 4
And rejections recorded too
If something is sent back, that record is worth as much as the accepted material's.
Watch out
The expensive blind spot is material arriving when the responsible person is not there. A seven-in-the-morning or Saturday delivery is received by whoever is present, and without a two-minute route to record it from a phone, nothing remains: no photo, no legible note, no record of who accepted it. That is the gap through which nothing can be reconstructed later.
What gets asked months or years later
All four are answered from the site file if they were captured at unloading, and are unreconstructable otherwise. There is no middle ground: either it was caught then or it does not exist.
Worth knowing
It applies equally to structural steel, supplied concrete, precast elements and structural safety components. The tests and who signs them change; that the filing unit is the consignment, not the order or the invoice, does not.
›What if the supplier sends certificates at month end?
That is normal: hence recording them as pending on the day of delivery.
›Is it needed on small jobs?
The obligation depends on the project; the cost of doing it is the same and low.
›Who should sign for acceptance?
Whoever holds that role on site, and their name should be recorded.
A real case
The situation
A site receives steel on a Saturday and the test results arrive by email two weeks later.
What you do
- Photographs the delivery note and marking at unloading, linked to the consignment
- Records the tests as pending with an expected date
What you get
When the supervising engineer asks, the test is tied to the consignment actually installed.
The situation
Material arrives and the delivery note is signed in a rush.
What you do
- Captures the note as it is signed
What you get
The paper stops being the only copy.
The situation
Material arrives without its documentation.
What you do
- Puts on record what is missing the same day
What you get
The claim goes out while it is easy.
The situation
Nobody notes which area each consignment went to.
What you do
- Records what was unloaded and where it was used
What you get
The data nobody else holds is kept.
The situation
At close-out, eight months of delivery documentation is requested.
What you do
- Keeps each delivery with its date
What you get
The handover is prepared in an afternoon.
The situation
A different reference to the one ordered arrives.
What you do
- Notes the difference on receipt
What you get
The discrepancy is resolved before installation.
This article answers
- material acceptance control on site
- structural steel certificates
- supplied concrete documentation
- what to check when material arrives on site