The Role of Building Inspectors Explained

• 31 December 2015
• Local News
• 1729 Views

The sheer number of processes behind successfully completing a quality building, from commissioning to designing to constructing, means that inspectors play a crucial role. However, many remain uncertain of the exact role of inspectors on construction projects.

Tieng Samphors, Head of Independent Inspectors of Mega Asset Management Co., Ltd, a subsidiary of leading real estate developer Overseas Cambodian Investment Corporation (OCIC), shared his experiences with Construction & Property Magazine.

“Inspection duties provide so many benefits to the building owner including ensuring the building is built to proper technical, safety and quality standards, being well landscaped, saving costs and materials, meeting the schedule and budget so as to minimise environmental impact during and after completion,” he said.

Generally, inspector’s responsibilities change during different project stages. At the drawing stage, the landscape or architecture design is not a priority as this is based on the negotiations between architect and the owner.

But in this interim stage, inspectors mainly focus on how the foundations and structural works are designed to ensure they will meet the technical requirements for wind resistance, handling load, and meeting planned schedule including the cost to see where costs can be saved for the owner.

During the building stage, they inspect construction technologies, safety at and around the site, quality assurance and quality control. In this stage, they mainly inspect the plan drafted by structural engineers based on the soil testing and compare it with their own tests. If any errors are found, they will inform contractor to immediately make changes.

Although assigned people control each part of a building project, inspectors need to inspect everything by coordinating with them. If they find any errors, they will discuss them with the respective responsible staff to seek solutions.

Independent inspectors are not controlled by the project manager. They can directly report any serious errors they find to the developer, seek approval from the architect, and then report them back to the constructor for changes based on international standards.

Though it seems like inspectors would require high qualifications and comprehensive knowledge on building works, Sampors explained that inspectors can have similar qualifications to other engineers or architects. “Inspectors usually keep learning from real practice, experiences with different projects, mistakes and they sometimes seek advice from their lecturers at school.”

A career building inspector since 2008, Samphors works with a team of over 20 inspectors at his company who mainly focus on the structural and foundation works of OCIC projects.

Projects that hire consultants don’t usually need inspectors since the consultancy will fulfill the dual role as site inspector and designer to ensure the plans and works progress properly.

Some developers use both inspectors and consultancies on specific projects, according to Samphors. OCIC projects Olympia City and Reviera Condominium have hired consultancies working together with inspectors to provide double checks.

However, some highly technical work requires qualified consultants because the developer’s inspectors cannot deal with it. By observing and learning from the consultants though it is hoped the inspectors can undertake those tasks in future.

The size of a project also impacts whether permanent inspectors or consultants are used. “For short-term projects, developers don’t usually hire permanent inspection staff as it costs more than hiring the consultancy, but for long-term projects, developers like OCIC must hire permanent inspection staff because it costs them less than hiring consultancy firms,” explained Samphors.

Just like in other technical areas, inspectors for large and small developers in Cambodia face challenges, such as lacking of a full range of testing equipment to enhance their work, and adequate human resources.

“So far, most of the graduate engineers we recruit from local universities don’t have enough practical skills at real construction sites and have just learned the theories,” Samphors pointed out. “When facing real work, they can’t deal with it, so we need to spend a lot of time and effort to train them ”.