What I would suggest is to have a table that holds all possible answers. I have this already I think this is tblChecklistAnswer
Then have a junction table that joins each checklist item with its applicable possible answers I think this is impossible as you can never know all applicable answers as the inspectors can write something unique if necessary
For example, checklist item 1 might have the possible answers yes/no/NA, checklist item 2 might have the same possible answers. Checklist item 3 might have possible answers of yes/no/ don't know For every single question there is 2 parts to the answer, (for every question for every check-list of every equipment type)
1) a comment (this can be anything and specific answer is stored in tblChecklistAnswer, this can be a comment, usually a sentence however can also be a date, an integer, serial number, etc) and
2) a yes, no or N/A (Is the piece of equipment Compliant with this checklist question? Yes, No or N/A)
I noticed that you added a new table called common answers, perhaps you can use that to hold all possible answers
I was just playing around with this to easily pre-fill a combo box for common answers however not sure if I can make a comprehensive list at this stage