Why open failures cause trouble
When a density test fails, the crew reworks the area (more moisture, more compaction, or removal and replacement) and the lab or technician retests. Under pressure, the next lift can go down before the retest result is on paper. Later, the closeout package shows a failure with no matching pass. Depending on the contract, that can delay a progress payment or hold back release at closeout until someone finds the missing document.
A minimal tracking workflow
- Log every test the day the report arrives. One row per test, with report number, date, station and offset, elevation or lift, material, Proctor used, dry density, percent compaction and moisture.
- Mark pass or fail against the specification. Use the minimum compaction and moisture window for that material and use. Flag it immediately if it fails.
- Give each failure an ID and an owner. Someone is responsible for getting it retested. Record what rework was done.
- Link the retest to the original. Retests should be near the original location, at the same layer. Store the retest result on the same line or reference the original ID.
- Close the failure only on a passing retest. A second failure stays open and gets its own entry in the chain.
- Review open items before covering the lift. A weekly or per-lift check of “failed, no passing retest” catches problems while rework is still cheap.
- Keep a link back to the source report. Every row should point to the PDF it came from so the closeout package can be assembled quickly.
Columns that make pairing easy
| Column | Why |
|---|---|
| Test ID and report number | Unique reference and source document. |
| Station, offset, elevation or lift | The basis for matching a retest to its original. |
| Result and specified minimum | Shows the margin at a glance. |
| Status | Pass, fail, or retest pending. |
| Original test ID (for retests) | Closes the loop between failure and pass. |
| Rework note | What was done between the tests. |
Common ways it breaks down
- Retest reports arrive in a different email thread, or from a different technician, and never reach the tracker.
- Location descriptions differ between the original and the retest (a station on one, a grid reference on the other).
- Results get copied by hand and a digit is wrong.
- The tracker shows percentages but not the Proctor used, so a wrong reference goes unnoticed.
- Nobody runs the “open items” view until closeout.
A tracker supports your review. It does not replace engineering judgment, and what counts as an acceptable retest location or number of attempts is set by your specification and engineer.
A spreadsheet works fine for a small job. At dozens of reports per week it becomes the bottleneck, which is the problem ProctorSync is built for. See also how to read a nuclear density test report and Proctor, MDD and OMC explained.