Monitoring in the construction industry

Monitoring is: ‘The systematic observation, recording and evaluation of dynamic processes, in a selective fashion, either continuously or on a periodic basis, for as long as is necessary to capture all the important cycles, trends or permutations. Used, for example, to track structural behaviour, characterise the building environment, identify risks or record rates of decay.’ Ref Stained Glass Windows: Managing Environmental Deterioration, published by Historic England in 2020.

Articles on Designing Buildings Wiki relating to monitoring include:

• Annual monitoring report.
• Authority monitoring report.
• BREEAM Energy monitoring.
• BREEAM Monitoring of Construction Site Impacts.
• BREEAM Water monitoring.
• Cost monitoring.
• Monitoring design progress.
• Project monitor.
• Project monitoring.
• TSI Environmental dust monitoring system.

NB Water safety in buildings, published by the World Health Organization in 2011, defines monitoring as: ‘The act of conducting a planned sequence of observations or measurements of control parameters, to assess whether a control point is operating within design specifications.’

Asset Management – an anatomy, Version 4, published by The Institute of Asset Management in July 2024, defines monitoring as: ‘determining the status of a system, a process or an activity Notes: (1) To determine the status, there can be a need to check, supervise or critically observe. (2) For the purposes of asset management, monitoring can also refer to determining the status of an asset. This is typically referred to as “condition monitoring” or “performance monitoring”. (3) This constitutes one of the common terms and core definitions for ISO management system standards given in Annex SL of the Consolidated ISO Supplement to the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. It has been modified by the addition of Note 2 to entry.’