Quality Control It Is Not All About The Pretty Picture
Terry A. Maiers, BT, MS, MBA, MA
Putting my experience in engineering coordination quality reviews in the building design and construction industry to use in the disaster recovery industry for residential replacement.
Introduction
As you progress in your field of endeavors (career), you most likely come across the polies and procedures related to Quality Control (QC) and Quality Assurance(QA). These policies are often described in the company advertisements, brochures, employee handbooks, and probably there will be a company approved checklist spreadsheet so that you can track your compliance of meeting the established standards. What is not often explained to those that are required to meet those standards is that there are underlying reasons for those standards. This article is directed primarily to the building design and construction industry but much of this can be applied to most other industries.
Quality Control
In the building design and construction industry, there are multiple standards that must be meet for a variety of reasons that include:
The verification of compliance with these and others, through the QC/QA review process can be a time consuming process. This has to be taken into account when establishing and managing the project budget to ensure that it will be profitable for the stakeholder members of the design team. This should be done through the process of Intra-Disciplinary Quality Coordination. That is a process where all of the documents for the project from each of the design team members are compared against each other too ensure that there are no conflicts between them that could cause problems during the construction process. This is commonly know in the industry as "Constructability", and is often completed by an outside consultant or an expert in the company. So, what exactly is constructability?
Constructability
The construction of a building can be an extremely complicated endeavor. A small portion of the complexity is shown in the image above, which shows the forms and reinforcing required to meet the design requirements established by the structural engineer. Whether the project design is constructible is often related to how other design team member's designs interact with the structure because most of the structural design cannot be penetrated by the other design team designs (mechanical, plumbing, electrical). Why you might be asking, the simple fact is that many of the structural members are required to keep the building standing for the life and safety of any occupants. The image below may be recognizable as it is from the condo collapse in Florida. This article will not attempt to provide a reason for that failure but simply show this as a potential outcome when there is a structural failure.
Based on the information provided so far, it is logical why there needs to be QC/QA reviews on all projects. So, what are the underlying reasons that are not always explained to the entire company?
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Risk Mitigation
There is risk in almost every aspect of our human existence. It starts when we are in the womb until the day we die. During our lifetime we spend a great deal of time either thinking about and acting on the risk we are facing in an immediate situation or planning for the long-term risks and how they will affect our life and those around us. It is not different than those that start their own business or are the leader of a company. The process of establishing the responses to risk is Risk Mitigation. In the building design and construction industry, that planning and preparation is reducing the possible threat from risk is completed by establishing QC/QA policies so that the company can be proactive instead of reactive. There are multiple reasons for that and you probably can guess what the majority of them are. This is true whether you are at the local McDonald's where they have warnings on their coffee cups advising the using that the contents may be hot or the YMCA where there are cones that warn you that the floor may be wet. However, when it comes to the building design and construction industry the risks are much higher as noted in the Constructability section above. So, what is the impact to the company if the QC/QA processes are not completed correctly?
Profit and Loss (Bottom Line)
In the business world the risks ultimately come down to dollars and cents. How is the company doing financially? Will there be a profit at the end of the year or will they lose money? Why is this important to the average employee as well as the "C" Suite and all of the other stakeholders? The easiest answer is that everyone in the company, those that sell to the company, those that buy from the company and those the invest in the company rely on the company to make money so that they can keep doing their participation in the activities of the company so that they can stay in business. For the members of the company the stability and profitability of the company determines the items below:
In other words, QC/QA is the opening salvo in the risk mitigation struggle. In essence the successful completion of the QC/QA review process and correction of the review comments can be the success or failure of a building design and construction company. If your company is not in that industry, take a look around at the policies and procedures that they have and see what the impact of those would be to you if they are not followed.