Date. 2nd September 2022
When it comes to winners and losers in the digital age, one of the biggest potential winners is your construction quality control plan. As projects move from paper plans and drawings to digital and mobile, quality assurance and control can become faster, more effective, and better at mitigating risk than ever.
Yet many companies fail to fully realize the potential benefits, either because they lack a clear plan to get started, or because they don’t have what they need to get to the next step. In this Here is four- step process for reaching the next level in quality assurance or quality control.
Evolve Your Construction Quality Control Plan
Investing in digital construction processes can be overwhelming, but it becomes much easier when you realize that you don’t have to do it all at once. A stepped approach allows you to make the right amount of change for you at this time, and to evolve over time.
Implement a Centralized Document and Issue Management System.
Bolster Your Inspections Tracking Process ITP with digital checklist inspections.
Correlate inspections to your look-ahead plans.
Perform Collaborative Inspections with relative trades.
Maintaining a central single source of truth for digital documents and issue management is key to the success of digital QA/QC. It ensures that everyone is working off the most up-to-date set of plans and drawings, and that issues don’t slip through the cracks. It also improves time to resolution.
Construction management software make it simple to centralize your system and maintain information in the cloud, where any authorized person can access the latest data at any time. To be effective, focus on ensuring your database fulfills three key criteria.
Accessible
Collaborative
Permissions-based
Make sure everyone on the job has access to the latest plans, drawings, models, issues log, and other documents whether they’re in the office or in the field. Technology like BIM 360 Docs can place this information directly in the hands of personnel via their mobile devices. Reducing the risk of rework by ensuring your team has access to the right information at the right time.
Empower all relevant team members to markup documents, make changes, and add issues to the log, quickly and easily, on an as-needed basis, from their digital devices. A good system includes version tracking and real-time updates that become immediately available to everyone as soon as changes are made. Notifications settings should enable workers to receive push updates, also in real-time.
Permissions settings should allow you to set privacy controls, provide access on an individual or role level, and manage workflows to ensure the right stakeholders gain access to collaborative files at the right time and in the right order.
This centralized document and issues management system is key to a successful digital QA/QC system.
During the inspections tracking process, the person responsible for the site inspection traditionally makes note of only non-conforming issues. In a checklist-driven environment, the inspector notes both conforming and non-conforming items, according to a predetermined checklist. This marks a shift from a re-active to a pro-active culture.
To understand the importance and power of the checklist, consider how another complex industry was transformed by checklists. Atul Gawande, a surgeon and the author of The Checklist Manifesto, significantly reduced the error rate of surgeons in one hospital by implementing a checklist system. When the state of Michigan began using a checklist for central lines in its intensive care units, its infection rate plummeted 66% in just three months.
The same or similar system is now in use in hospital systems across the world.
The reason it works is that in a complex environment, it’s easy to make assumptions about what has already been done, while only noting mistakes that are immediately obvious. In this situation, small things can be missed, which lead to bigger problems. Construction companies gain substantial benefits from implementing inspection checklists, and putting them in the cloud for all relevant team members to access.
A best-in-class digital checklist program allows the following
Easily document non-conforming elements
Positively affirm and document conformance
Ensure the right things are checked, no matter who conducts the inspection
Include best-in-class knowledge from the entire company so your most junior teammates benefit from the most senior
speed and quality of documentation
Track quality program performance including inspection coverage, risk and conformance rate, in order to identify trends and areas for improvement
Inspection Planning: Inspections are often managed in a reactive manner. Planning them in advance can significantly improve efficiency and reduce rework. Best-in-class digital QA/QC plans associate specific inspections with schedule milestones. To do this, take time during your coordination or look-ahead planning meetings.
Determine what work will be inspected
Determine how each item will be inspected, including sample size and level of detail
Assign responsibility for inspections, including hold and witness and sign-off points
Build the checklist, or source it from a corporate library
Make checklists available in an accessible central repository, and provide access for all responsible parties. Use permissions to manage workflow.
Perform Collaborative Inspections with Trades and Subs
Historically, a construction quality control plan relied on inspections from the site manager to catch any mistakes made by trades and subs. This approach lacks accountability for the subs and provides lots of opportunity for problems, as a superintendent can’t be everywhere at once. A best-in-class digital QA/QC program is transparent and collaborative in nature, making clear who owns what, and holding each team member responsible for their performance. To achieve a high level of collaboration with trades and subs.
Clearly communicate expectation of collaboration, and include subcontractor and trade inspection and collaboration responsibilities in their contracts.
Involve trades and subcontractors in the process of checklist-building during look-ahead meetings, asking them to take responsibility for the accuracy and alignment of the checklists with the project requirements for their portion of the project.
Enable trades to perform checklist inspections prior to your inspection.
Make sure they each have access to the central digital checklist repository, and have them document their inspection checklists within the central system.
This approach ensures subs and trades take ownership for their own QA programs, while simultaneously improving your ability to hold them accountable to it.
We all know about the importance of quality control in construction. Not only does quality control procedures in construction minimize the risks of delays. But it also ensures that the project meets their requirements and expectations. One common quality control method in construction is conducting inspections of the materials and equipment used in the construction project. Quality control is an asset to construction company and project, by reducing rework, increasing customer satisfaction, and creating thorough documentation in the event of disputes or litigation.
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Construction- Quantity Surveyor- Valuer/ Appraiser. Project Management
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Email. Jewelccameron55@yahoo.com