The Installed-Part Record SOP
Purpose
When a maker recalls a lot of breakers, a lab warns about a counterfeit relief valve, or a customer's house has a fire and an investigator asks what you put in that panel, the shop needs to answer with a part number, a lot or date code, a supplier and a date. This procedure guarantees that answer exists for every safety-critical part a tech installs. Without it, a recall notice can only be answered with "we may have used some of those," which means either opening every panel the shop touched in the window or opening none.
Scope
Covers: every part installed on a customer job that is on the shop's safety-critical list: breakers, fuses, GFCI and AFCI devices, gas connectors, valves and regulators, temperature and pressure relief valves, high limits, rollout switches and flame safeguards, refrigerant added or charged, garage door springs and cables, and potable-water contact valves and fittings. The reasoning behind that list is in its own card (See related: Provenance Is Part of the Rating).
Does not cover: buying the part (See related: The Safety-Critical Parts Purchasing SOP), checking shelf stock against a recall (See related: The Stock Recall Check SOP), or what to do with a part you suspect is counterfeit (See related: The Suspect Counterfeit Quarantine SOP). Non-safety parts get an ordinary part-use line on the job and nothing more.
Roles and responsibilities
| Role | Owns | Hands off to |
|---|---|---|
| Technician | Capturing the label, the source and the location at the time of install | Office, through the job record before leaving site |
| Office or dispatcher | Checking each record within one business day; chasing gaps while the tech still remembers | Owner, for any record that cannot be completed |
| Owner or service manager | The safety-critical list; running the recall search when a notice arrives | Customers named by the search |
| Purchasing (often the owner) | Bin labels that carry supplier and invoice or PO number | Technician, through the bin label |
The procedure
1. Check the part against the safety-critical list before you carry it to the equipment. The list lives on the inside of the van door and in the job software. Acceptance: the part's class is on the list and you are running this procedure, or it is not on the list and it gets an ordinary part-use line. Wrong looks like a tech deciding from memory that a part "doesn't count." Stop rule: if you are unsure whether a part is on the list, treat it as on the list; a record you did not need costs two minutes. This step happens at the truck, away from any open equipment, so it carries no hazard of its own.
2. Photograph the part's label and its packaging at the truck or bench, before installation. One photo of the device label showing the catalog or part number, the lot or date code and the serial where one exists; one of the carton or bag label. Acceptance: every character of those three fields is readable when the photo is zoomed to full size. Wrong looks like glare across the date code, or a label that is on the carton and not the device. Stop rule: retake until it reads; if neither the part nor the packaging carries a legible part number, do not install it, call the office, and use traceable stock. Take this photo before the part goes into the work area, so nobody is holding a phone inside an open, energized enclosure to get the shot.
3. Record where the part came from: supplier and invoice or PO number. Read it off the bin label, or the receipt if it was bought on the way to the job. Acceptance: a supplier name plus a document number. Wrong looks like "van stock" or "the supply house" with no number. Stop rule: call the office; if they can match the bin to a purchase document during the visit, proceed; if not, the part is untraceable, it goes back in a bag marked for quarantine, and you install one that is traceable. This step is clerical and carries no hazard; it is done before the equipment is opened.
4. Install the part under its own procedure, then record its location precisely. The record never shortcuts the install: electrical work is de-energized, locked, tagged and proven dead with a live-dead-live meter test before a device is touched (NFPA 70E Article 120 (120.5 in the 2021 edition, renumbered in 2024); OSHA's 29 CFR 1910.333(b)(2)); gas work starts with the appliance valve or service valve closed and ends with a leak test with an approved solution on every joint you made; water heater work starts with power or gas off and pressure relieved, with hot water drained away from you. Acceptance for the record: a location a different tech could find without calling you ("main panel, garage, space 14, labeled Bedroom 2"). Wrong looks like "panel." Stop rule: if the equipment has no label you can reference, describe its physical position and photograph it in place after the cover or access panel is back on.
5. Record what came out. Part number and date code of the removed part if legible, and whether it was kept as evidence or discarded. Acceptance: a removed-part line, even if it reads "date code not legible." Wrong looks like no line at all, which is the case where the old part was the counterfeit and nobody knows. Stop rule: if the removed part failed in a way that could matter later (scorching, a breaker that would not trip, a relief valve that discharged constantly), keep it and bag it (See related: How to Keep a Failed Part as Evidence). Removed parts can carry stored energy or residue: a spring under tension, a valve holding hot water; handle them only after the isolation in step 4 is in place.
6. Attach the record to the job before you leave the site. The part-use line carries the part number, and the record fields and photos attach to the same job. Acceptance: the job shows a complete record line for every in-scope part. Wrong looks like photos still in the phone's gallery. Stop rule: the job cannot be marked complete with an in-scope part and no record line; if the job software is down, text the photos and fields to the office before leaving the driveway. The resume step for the customer's system belongs to the install procedure and is done before this one: power, gas or water is restored only after the step 4 checks pass.
7. Office reviews every in-scope record within one business day. Acceptance: all fields filled with a value or an explicit "not present" (many devices carry no serial). Wrong looks like a blank field or a photo that does not show what the field says. Stop rule: call the tech the same day; if a field still cannot be filled after two business days, mark the record "incomplete" with the reason. Never fill a field from a guess, because a recall search trusts it. No hazard; office work.
8. When a recall or warning names a part, search the records. Search by part number, then narrow by the date-code or lot range in the notice. Acceptance: a list of jobs, or a documented zero-result search with the date and the search terms. Wrong looks like searching by description ("AFCI breakers") rather than number. Stop rule: if the notice gives no date-code range, every record with that part number is in the result. Customer contact follows the notice's own instruction; where it says stop using the device, tell the customer the specific action the notice gives and do not improvise one (See related: How to Check a Part Against the Recall Databases).
The record this produces
One record line per in-scope part, attached to the job. The owner reads it in a recall; an inspector or investigator may read it after an incident; a warranty claim reads the install date from it.
INSTALLED PART RECORD JOB 24-1187 10-03
Part : 20A 1P AFCI breaker, cat. no. as labeled
Lot/date : date code 2418 Serial: not present
Source : Supply House A, invoice 556201, 09-12
Location : main panel, garage, space 14, "BR 2"
Removed : 20A 1P std breaker, date code not legible
kept, evidence bag E-0412 (scorched lug)
Photos : 3 (device label, carton, installed)
Tech : JR Office check: MK 10-04
Worked pass
A two-tech plumbing and gas shop replaces a gas flex connector and a temperature and pressure relief valve on a 50-gallon gas water heater.
Step 1. Both parts are on the list. Pass.
Step 2. First photo of the relief valve tag has glare across the set pressure and the date code. Retaken at an angle; the set pressure (150 psi), the BTU rating and the date code read at full zoom. Connector label: part number and length legible, no date code printed, which the photo shows. Pass after one retake.
Step 3. Relief valve bin label: Supply House B, PO 3318. Connector bin label: Supply House B, no PO number. Fail. Stop rule taken: the tech calls the office. The office checks the restock log for that bin and finds the connectors arrived on PO 3290, but the log shows the bin was also topped up from a carton a tech brought back from another van with no paper. The office cannot say which connector this is. The part is untraceable. It goes into a quarantine bag; the tech takes a connector from the second van, whose bin traces to PO 3290 with no mixing, and photographs and records that one.
Step 4. Gas supply valve to the heater closed, burner off, cold water inlet closed, a hot tap opened in the house to relieve pressure, and the tank drained down below the relief valve opening into a bucket set away from the tech's feet. Valve and connector installed; every joint made is tested with leak-detection solution with the supply valve reopened: no bubbles at either connector end. Location recorded: "garage, NW corner, 50 gal gas heater, serial on tank label." Resume: tank refilled with the hot tap open until water runs without air, then the burner relit per the heater's lighting instructions. Pass.
Step 5. Removed relief valve: date code legible, crusted with mineral, discarded with a note. Old connector: an uncoated brass connector of unknown age, discarded and noted. Pass.
Step 6. Two record lines attached with six photos (relief tag retake, its carton, the replacement connector's label, its bag label, the connector installed, the relief valve installed). Pass.
Step 7. Office review the next morning: complete. The office also opens a quarantine entry for the mixed connector bin so the other carton's contents get sorted before anything else comes out of it.
Step 8. Not triggered on this job. Six weeks later a notice on a connector lot arrives; the search by part number returns this job with Supply House B, PO 3290, which the notice's lot range does not include. Documented as a zero-impact result for this job.
References
- See related: Provenance Is Part of the Rating; The Stock Recall Check SOP; How to Check a Part Against the Recall Databases
- See related: The Suspect Counterfeit Quarantine SOP; How to Keep a Failed Part as Evidence
- NFPA 70E Article 120 (120.5 in the 2021 edition, renumbered in 2024) and 29 CFR 1910.333(b)(2) for the electrical isolation in step 4
- Manufacturer installation instructions for relief valves and gas connectors, which set the install and test steps the record sits beside