Hold point
A defined stage in the work beyond which nothing proceeds until a specified inspection has been passed and signed off by the named party.
Hold points are placed where the next operation would hide or make irreversible the work being inspected: reinforcement before a pour, a damp-proof membrane before the screed, weld root runs before capping, fixings before cladding is closed up, a trench before backfill. They are named in the inspection and test plan with who must sign them off (often the client's representative or engineer) and how much notice they need. Proceeding past a hold point without the sign-off is a breach of the quality plan and usually of the contract, and the remedy can be opening up.
On the ground, the hold point is a photograph, a checklist and a signature, taken at the moment, not reconstructed later. SiteLynx QA inspections timestamp and geotag the photographs for exactly this reason. A contractor with a clean record of hold points signed off on time is in a very different position at final account from one relying on "we did check it".
Where it comes from
- ISO 9001:2015 clause 8.6: release of products and services shall not proceed until planned arrangements have been satisfactorily completed.
- The contract specification and the agreed inspection and test plan.
Questions people ask
What if the client does not turn up for the hold point?
The work waits, and the delay is recorded. That is the difference from a witness point, and it is why the notice period for hold points is agreed in the ITP. If waiting is causing real delay, a written agreement to proceed on the contractor's record converts it, for that occasion, into a witness point.
Hold point, handled on a phone
SiteLynx puts the RAMS, permits, inspections, audits, plant checks and records behind every term in this glossary on the crew's phones, signed on site, with a PDF at the end. 14 days free, no card.
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