Hold points
"Hold point" gets used loosely — sometimes it means any inspection, sometimes specifically a step where work must stop for a witness. The useful, narrow definition: a hold point is a point in the work where the next step cannot start until something specific is proven, to someone specific. That precision is what makes it worth writing down instead of just telling the crew to be careful.
What a hold point actually is
A named piece of evidence — a photograph, a reading inside a defined range, a signature, an uploaded document — that has to exist before the work can be marked done. Not "inspect the weld," but "photograph the weld, and a reading of penetration depth between these two numbers."
A witness requirement, where the specification calls for one. Some hold points need a second party physically present — the commissioning agent, the owner's rep — not just a record filed later. That distinction matters for scheduling and it matters for the dispute nobody wants to have.
A stop, not a suggestion. A checklist line you can skip and come back to is not a hold point. The defining feature is that the work genuinely cannot proceed — or cannot be called complete — until the hold point clears.
Traceable to a person. Who satisfied it, and — where independent acceptance applies — who accepted it, separate from who did the work. A hold point without a name attached is a box, not a control.
How to write a hold point that actually works
- 1Name the evidence type, not the action."Verify torque" is an action. "Torque reading, in range, with a photo of the reading" is a hold point somebody can actually satisfy or fail.
- 2Set the range before the work starts, not while reviewing it.A reading is only meaningful against a range someone wrote down in advance. Writing the acceptable range after seeing the result is not commissioning.
- 3Decide independent acceptance in advance.If the specification or your own quality plan requires someone other than the installer to sign off, say so on the template — not as a policy someone has to remember.
- 4Attach it to the level it protects.A hold point exists to gate something — a commissioning level, a phase, a handover milestone. If it doesn't gate anything, it is a note, not a hold point.
- 5Write it once, per discipline, and reuse it.A hold point rewritten by hand on every job drifts. Write it as a template tied to the equipment type, and every unit of that type inherits it.
How Veristep does it
A hold point set on a template asks for a photo, a reading in range, a signature or a document by type — and the step will not close without that exact thing recorded.
Where the template requires it, the person who performed the work cannot be the one who accepts it — enforced at the database, not left to a reviewer noticing.
The office, the field device, an import and an administrator all get the same answer. Nothing closes a hold point around the rule — that is proven by an automated test, not promised in a policy.
A level does not advance until the hold points behind it are satisfied, so the colour tag on the machine means something specific.
A hold-point template lives on the equipment type; every asset of that type gets the same steps without anyone retyping them.
Honest limits: a hold point in Veristep is a required step on a case, gated by typed evidence — it is not a scheduling or resource-loading tool, so a hold point that also needs to block a subcontractor's crew schedule still has to be coordinated in whatever tool runs your schedule. The hold point stops the record from closing; it does not stop a truck from showing up.
Questions people ask
Is a hold point the same as a witness point?
Related, not identical. A witness point specifically needs a person present; a hold point more broadly needs proof, which may or may not require a witness. Veristep supports both — evidence types can include a signature captured on the spot.
Who decides where the hold points go?
Usually the specification or your own quality plan. In Veristep, hold points live on templates per equipment type, written once by whoever owns your procedures.
Can a hold point be waived?
It can be marked waived on the record, with who decided and why — visible, not deleted, so the gap is never invisible.
Does every step need to be a hold point?
No — routine steps can be simple checklist items. Reserve hold points for the ones that actually gate something, or the template turns into noise.