The Pre-Mobilisation Checklist: 7 Things to Confirm Before a Crew Walks on Site

The most expensive day on any cabling job is the one where nothing gets installed. The crew arrives at 07:30, security has no record of them, the induction slot went to another contractor, and the drawings in the van are two revisions old. You pay full day rates to watch a car park fill up.

Every one of those failures was avoidable a week earlier. Here are the seven checks we run before any crew mobilises, why each one fails, and what good actually looks like.

• RAMS signed off — not just submitted
• Inductions booked, with times and named attendees
• Access passes arranged, sponsor confirmed
• Current-revision drawings in the crew's hands
• Containment routes physically walked
• Materials delivered and checked against the spec
• Test kit calibration certificates in date

RAMS: signed means signed

The classic failure: RAMS emailed on Friday afternoon, crew booked for Monday, silence assumed to be approval. It is not. On most commercial and data centre sites the principal contractor's safety team reviews RAMS on their own timescale — often three to five working days — and until they sign, your crew does not work. Good looks like written approval, a named approver, and the approved revision matching the copy the supervisor carries. If any of those are missing, the start date is fiction.

Inductions and access: a time, not a vibe

An induction booked for 'Monday morning' is not booked. Larger sites run inductions in fixed slots with capped numbers — miss the 08:00 session and the next one might be Wednesday. Good looks like named attendees against confirmed slot times, plus the ID requirements checked in advance: photo ID, ECS or CSCS cards, and right-to-work documentation where the site demands it.

Access passes are the same story. Someone on the client side has to sponsor them, and sponsors go on leave. Confirm the passes exist, the sponsor is available, and whether your crew needs an escort until passes are issued — because an escorted crew works at the speed of the escort.

Drawings and routes: trust nothing on paper

A crew installing to Rev C while the site is on Rev F will do beautiful work in exactly the wrong place. Confirm the drawing revision in writing inside the final 48 hours — not at a kick-off meeting three weeks ago.

Then walk the containment routes. On the drawing, the route is clean. In the ceiling void there is a fire barrier nobody has penetrated, steelwork where the tray should run, and another trade's ductwork parked across your basket. Walking the route turns day-one surprises into a snag list you can price and plan.

Walking the route costs an hour. Not walking it costs days.

Materials and test kit: check before, not during

Materials on site is not the same as materials correct. Check the cable against the design — Cat6A U/FTP is not interchangeable with F/UTP, and the Euroclass fire rating on the drum has to match the spec. Count drums, check containment fittings, and find the part-delivery on Thursday, not at 08:00 on day one.

Finally, the testers. Fluke calibration runs on a twelve-month cycle and consultants check certificate dates when they review results. Kit that goes out of calibration mid-job invalidates everything tested after the expiry. Thirty seconds of checking saves a full retest.

Make it a gate, not a memo

None of this works as a checklist someone glances at. It works as a gate: 48 hours before mobilisation, all seven items confirmed in writing, or the date moves. That sounds brutal until you compare it with the alternative — a full crew on day rates, producing nothing, while the programme clock runs. We run this gate on every mobilisation, from the CCTV programme across London education sites to commercial works at Canary Wharf. It is the least glamorous thing we do, and one of the most profitable — for us and for the client.

If your last mobilisation involved a crew, a car park and a lot of phone calls, the checklist above is free to steal. If you would rather it was somebody else's problem entirely, that is what we do. Talk to us about your next mobilisation