DS1140 app vs. manual control plan: what do you save?

With a control plan in Excel or Word, most of the time doesn't go on the inspections themselves. They have to be carried out whatever tool you use. It goes on keeping the document current, matching each completed control point against the plan, and assembling everything into a coherent control report (B3) when the certified structural engineer and the client need it.

That is also where errors creep in: a control point is carried out but never entered in the spreadsheet, photos sit on someone's phone with no clear link to the point they document, or two people edit different versions of the same file.

A digital control plan keeps control points, status and documentation in one place. When someone carries out a check on site, it is registered directly in the app, with photos, comments and markup, instead of in a separate document that has to be updated afterwards. The control work stays the same; the administrative step between doing the check and having it documented disappears.

• Changes to the plan, such as new or adjusted control points, are made once and seen by everyone, instead of a new spreadsheet version being sent round.
• Several trade contractors can register their own work directly, rather than emailing input to one person who has to merge it.
• The structural engineer or client can follow the documentation as it builds up, rather than receiving one combined file at the end.

Take a project with 40 control points spread over four months. If the site manager spends around an hour a week matching completed checks against the plan, chasing photos and correcting the spreadsheet, that adds up to roughly 15–20 hours over the project, purely on administration. This is an illustrative estimate, not a measurement; your own figure depends on the project and the team.

When registration happens as the check is carried out, most of that time falls away. The saving grows with the length of the project and the number of people documenting, because the risk of something slipping through rises with every extra pair of hands on a shared spreadsheet.

For a single, small project with few control points and one person holding the overview, a well-structured spreadsheet can work perfectly well. It is when several projects, several people or a longer time span come into play that the manual process starts costing more than it saves.

No app can decide on its own what has to be checked. The structural class (KK1–KK4) and the control points must still be determined by you or your advisor, and the professional judgement of whether a point is satisfactory stays with a competent person, often a certified structural engineer. If you'd rather have an expert prepare or check the control plan and control report, our sister company KS Danmark does exactly that and can also act as independent inspector.

The DS1140 module isn't launched yet, but Lite Report is available today and already covers a large part of the documentation on site:

• Choose a profession and you get its control plans and control points, which you can adapt and add your own to.
• A project manager sets up the report and its tasks on the web; workers document on site from their phone, and their registrations become the finished report.
• Photos are taken with the in-app camera, stamped with date, time, GPS position and place name, and can be marked up.
• External parties, such as a subcontractor or a structural engineer, can be invited to the project with read, communicate or register permissions.

A Lite Report can serve as photo documentation in a DS1140 case, for example supporting the B3 control report. It does not replace the formal DS1140 documentation and approval, which remain separate. For more on structuring the plan itself, see our article on the DS1140 control plan.

You don't have to start over, but there is no import function: an existing spreadsheet can't be loaded into the app. Keep what is already documented in your existing file as part of the case documentation, set up the remaining control points in the app (starting from the built-in control plan for the trade and adapting it) and document digitally from there. It is often easiest to start with one well-defined project before rolling the tool out more broadly.

In development: The DS1140 module is being built to gather the DS1140 control plan, the control points and the documentation for the control report in one place, on the same foundation as Lite Report. It has no launch date or price yet. The price will be announced at launch.

Want to hear where it stands, or see how Lite Report could fit your DS1140 work today? Book a free 30-minute demo.