Civil engineering
CDM compliance software for civil engineering.
Excavations, temporary works and lifting operations — the activities where the consequence of a missing check is not an injury but a fatality.
14 days free access · no card needed
Civil engineering concentrates the highest-consequence activities in construction. Excavation, temporary works, lifting operations and work near services are the categories where failures kill rather than injure, and where the controls depend on a specific person having checked a specific thing on a specific day.
The records follow that. Permits, inspections, design checks and competence evidence are not administrative overhead here; they are the mechanism by which the control actually happens. A missing inspection record is not a paperwork gap, it is an uninspected excavation.
The work is also linear and remote. Sites run along a route rather than around a compound, crews are dispersed, and the supervisor who should see something is three miles away.
The records
What civil engineering are answerable for
- Temporary works designs, checks and permits
- Excavation and support inspection records
- Lifting operation plans and equipment records
- Services information relied on before breaking ground
- Operative competence, cards and training
- Incidents and near misses, through to close-out
BuildOptix holds each of these against the site, the business or the person it belongs to, with its own expiry.
The problem
What makes civil engineering compliance hard
Controls that depend on a dated check
An excavation inspected yesterday is not an excavation inspected today, and the regime only works if the inspection happens and is recorded. Where recording is awkward, the first thing lost is the evidence and the second is the inspection.
Temporary works with their own discipline
Design, check, permit to load and permit to dismantle form a sequence with named roles attached. Skipping or compressing a step is invisible until it is not, and the record is the only thing that shows the sequence was followed.
Dispersed crews on a linear site
Work spread along a route means supervision is intermittent by definition. Whatever happens between visits is only known if somebody recorded it where they were.
What is underground is an assumption
Services information is a drawing and a scan, not a guarantee. What was relied on, and what was found, is worth holding — particularly when what was found did not match.
Plant and lifting on the same site as people
Excavators, lifting operations and pedestrians share ground that changes daily. The arrangements that keep them apart are briefed rather than built, which means the briefing record is the control.
The answer
How BuildOptix helps
Temporary works with their own discipline
Designs, checks and permits are held as controlled documents with their versions, so the sequence and the roles attached to it are evidenced rather than assumed.
Document controlControls that depend on a dated check
Inspection and check records sit against the site and the activity, so what was inspected and when is a record created where the work is rather than written up later.
Sites & projectsDispersed crews on a linear site
Briefings and toolbox talks are recorded against the person and the location, so what a crew three miles away was told is evidenced rather than assumed.
Inductions & toolbox talksPlant and lifting on the same site as people
RAMS and method statements for high-consequence activities are held with their versions and the acceptance against them.
RAMS & method statementsWhat is underground is an assumption
Incidents and near misses — including a strike that did no harm — are captured through to close-out, which is where the pattern that prevents the next one comes from.
Accidents & RIDDOR
Who it is for
The people doing this job
Site agents and engineers
Running a linear site with crews beyond line of sight.
excavationTemporary works coordinators
Holding the design, check and permit sequence and the roles attached to it.
temporary worksSHEQ managers
Answerable for high-consequence activities across several schemes.
CDM 2015Appointed persons and lift supervisors
Planning and supervising lifting operations.
lifting operationOperatives and plant operators
Working around excavations and plant on ground that changes daily.
competent person
Questions
What civil engineering ask
- Can it hold temporary works records?
- Designs, checks and permits can be held as controlled documents with versions against the project. It records the sequence and who did what; it does not perform or approve a design check, which is a competent person's role.
- Can inspections be recorded on site?
- Yes. Records are created where the work is rather than written up afterwards, which is the only version that survives a dispersed site.
- Does it hold services or utility information?
- Drawings and survey information can be held against the project alongside the RAMS that rely on them. What was relied on, and what was actually found, is worth recording — especially when they differ.
- Does it design or model anything?
- No. It is not design, BIM or programme software. It holds the records around the work rather than producing the engineering.
- Does it report to HSE?
- No. It does not submit anything to HSE. Any statutory reporting remains yours.
Keep reading
One record per site, and the evidence already in it
Sites, subcontractors, inductions and incidents on one record, for civil engineering desks.
14 days free access · no card needed