Hot take: I spent 4 hours chasing a concrete pour delay that came down to one missing signature

Ben Webb · 2026-10-03T15:20:05.566278+00:00

Last Tuesday we had a 60 yard pour scheduled for 6am at a site over in Everett, and I got the call at 5:15 that the trucks were sitting at the plant because the batch ticket was missing a signature from the inspector. I figured it was a quick fix, make a call, get the guy on the phone, done in 20 minutes. Four hours later I was still on it. Turns out the inspector was at a different site across town and wouldn't sign off without walking our forms first, our PM was in a meeting he couldn't leave, and the dispatcher kept calling me every 15 minutes asking if we were canceling. Meanwhile I've got 12 guys standing around getting paid to do nothing and three trucks burning fuel in the yard. I finally got the signature at 9:40 by sending a photo of the forms to the inspector and having him approve it from his phone, which nobody told me was even an option. We poured at 10:15 and lost the whole morning, plus the plant charged us a standby fee. Now I'm wondering how many other steps in our process are just waiting on a phone call that could happen in 2 minutes. Anyone else deal with signature bottlenecks like this, and do you have a workaround?

🎙️Chatter Central

Loading…

Hot take: I spent 4 hours chasing a concrete pour delay that came down to one missing signature | Construction Logistics - Chatter Central