8

PROJECT QUALITY MANAGEMENT

The Project Quality Management section of the PMBOK® Guide is applicable to construction projects. This section of the Construction Extension presents additional considerations for managing, assuring, and controlling quality in construction projects.

Quality is one of those crucial attributes in construction that relates to all aspects of the finished construction project. Most component deliverables are visible at some point in time and should be accepted. Quality in construction takes on an additional layer of expectations for the participants when one considers the visible construction work and its construction practices along with how well the project was managed with respect to its cost and schedule. Quality in construction relies on the project management systems to ensure that the project meets all aspects of the constructed project.

8.1 Project Quality Management in Construction

The performing organization implements the quality management system through the policy, procedures, and processes of quality planning, quality assurance, and quality control, and undertakes continuous improvement activities throughout the project. As with safety and environmental management, quality management ensures that the project management system employs all of the processes needed to meet the project requirements, and that these processes incorporate quality. Project Quality Management shares many common characteristics with Project Safety Management and Project Environmental Management. The requirements are similar: it ensures that the conditions of the contract (including those contained in legislation and any project technical quality specifications) are carried out to implement quality to the project and its deliverables; it addresses management of the project and the product of the project (and its component parts); and it integrates with project risk, safety, and environmental management processes to accomplish the stated objectives.

8.1.1Quality Requirements

Project Quality Management applies to all attributes of project management. In the construction industry, this consists of addressing the following distinct (and sometimes conflicting) sets of requirements:

• Mandatory statutory quality requirements. These requirements are imposed by legislation and enforced by statutory third-party authorities in the region where the project is to be constructed. These are generally applicable to construction projects in specific application areas (nuclear, power generation, oil, gas industries, etc.) where compliance with quality requirements is considered paramount for the safe operation of the facility. Construction projects for tunnels, airports, government buildings, etc., may have similarly imposed quality requirements imposed by legislation and enforced by statutory third-party authorities to ensure designers and contractors use specific high-quality, long-lasting materials that may have a higher initial cost to ensure the stability of the structure for a long service life due to characteristics of the project, use, location, soil conditions, earthquakes, and winds, among others.
• Customer quality requirements. These requirements, which are outlined in the contract conditions, define how the specific quality requirements will be undertaken and administered, and establish the criteria for technical quality performance and acceptance (as defined in project specifications). Technical quality requirements frequently reference mandatory legislative requirements and incorporate those for safety management and environmental management.
• Specific requirements of the performing organization. When the performing organization has more stringent quality requirements than those of the customer, the performing organization adheres to the more stringent standards.
• Specifications of quality management systems standards. Where general quality measures are considered insufficient to provide the required assurance and control, the project team references quality management systems standards, for example, the ISO 9000 Series.
• Industry-specific codes and standards. These are codes and standards that define specific project product performance and acceptance criteria.

It should be noted that the lack of an ISO quality management program or system does not necessarily mean the system employed by the performing organization is ineffective. Likewise, having an ISO-compliant quality management system or program does not mean the performing organization will produce a quality-compliant product.

The ISO 9000 series has been revised to make it application-area specific, which is the reason for the vast array of standards associated with the ISO 9000 series. For construction projects, material testing is a common and often mandatory requirement. ISO/IEC 17025 on General Requirements for the Competence of Testing and Calibration Laboratories addresses the unique competency and operational requirements for material testing laboratories. However, as stated previously, having an ISO/IEC 17025-compliant testing laboratory management system is not equivalent to a project-compliant system, as customer requirements often exceed the basic requirements detailed in ISO/IEC 17025. The scope of requirements for a project-compliant system is dependent on the requirements of the industry application area, project sponsor/owner requirements, and/or the performing organization's scope of ISO 17025 accreditation.

Additionally, ISO 10006 on Quality Management Systems: Guidelines for Quality Management in Projects offers guidance on the application of quality management in construction project work and is applicable to projects of varying complexity in various environments.

8.1.2Modern Quality Management

Modern quality management complements project management. For example, both disciplines recognize the importance of the following:

• Prevention over inspection. Although verification by inspection and testing are synonymous as they pertain to construction projects, it is important to determine the most appropriate methods of verification and verification criteria. It is important to distinguish between verification and inspection: verification is a planned and systematic activity as part of the quality assurance process; inspection is a specific activity within the quality control process. Critical issues include, but are not limited to:
  • Evaluating performance characteristics of the end product for the project (or component part) as a whole vs. inspecting or testing individual characteristics, and
  • Ensuring that the correct and objective data are captured, rather than arbitrary or subjective data.
• Risk management. Quality, safety, and environmental management are frequently considered a subset of risk management. As such, these factors address more than the technical requirements of a project. It is frequently overlooked that the construction contract itself is a quality, safety, and environmental management system standard. A specialized management system to address the unique characteristics of a specific construction project is frequently required. For example, the requirements for surface rail or highway infrastructure projects, which are fundamentally different from building projects, require specific risk management parameters. Such specialization frequently requires conformance with the requirements of this Construction Extension and ISO standards.

8.2 Project Quality Management Planning

Quality standards are comprised of project codes, regulations, and standards. This includes any condition of a contract for which tangible deliverables have been defined and will be used to determine acceptance, including acceptance by default if necessary.

The contract and documents, such as design drawings and specifications, are the principle project quality standards as these specify the applicable statutory and legislative quality requirements, technical quality codes, standards, and regulations.

8.2.1Contract Requirements

Contract requirements include any and all requirements specified in the project contract documents (e.g., specifications, regulations, legislation, and standards [technical or legislative]). Permits obtained by the buying organization also become part of the contract. The project management team should consider area-specific standards, specifications, or regulations, including those arising from local, regional, and national regulatory agencies that will affect the project. Specifications, regulations, legislation, and standards generally refer to either:

• Performance and acceptance criteria that pertain to the product(s) of the project, or
• Workmanship criteria or how work is to be undertaken.

8.2.2Project Stakeholder Requirements

The quality requirements and all selected alternatives to balance these requirements should be negotiated and agreed upon with project stakeholders, which include the surrounding community and government agencies.

8.2.3Quality Policy

The quality management policy also includes the degree to which the performing organization's management is committed to quality and continuous improvement. It can have a major impact on the effectiveness of a quality program. The quality management policy of the organization includes quality assurance and quality control. Quality control is the set of procedures established to verify requirements for quality. The performing organization may have established design and construction quality standards.

8.2.4Quality Assurance Measurements

A quality metric defines the attributes of the project and product, and how the quality control process will measure those attributes to validate that a requirement or the successful completion of a deliverable is met. Tolerance defines the allowable variations of metrics.

8.2.5Quality Checklist

A quality checklist of a component or deliverable is a structured tool, specific to each component, which outlines a set of steps to be carried out to verify that the acceptance criteria described in the project scope statement are met.

8.2.6Project Requirements Review

A project requirements review includes an assessment and determination of the following:

• Characteristics and criteria of each component of the product(s) or project and how to satisfy them. The contractor's staff or a third-party entity performs a constructability review of the designer's documents to ensure the intent of the design is understandable and feasible. An early review, suggestions to the designers, and some minor changes to the design can help to improve quality and maintain the project within schedule and cost limits.
• Applicable verification criteria. This includes criteria required to demonstrate that acceptance and performance characteristics are fulfilled.
• Alternative review and selection. In construction projects, it is common for some activities to be performed with different processes or arrangements for achieving the same result or output. This applies equally to quality management. Examples include:
  • Rock formations that can be removed by blasting or by using pneumatic breakers;
  • Effluents from chemical pipe cleaning that are treated at an onsite waste treatment works or taken to an external treatment facility;
  • Materials that are tested at an onsite laboratory or sent to an external laboratory for testing; and
  • Inspections that can be carried out by independent inspection organizations or undertaken by those carrying out the work, provided the competence of the latter has been determined, assessed, and agreed.

Another frequent occurrence is when a requirement (standard or specification) developed in one geographical region is employed in another location, which sometimes results in processes or actions that are not commonly used in that region. This is where trade-offs may be necessary, and requalification of the requirements is necessary to meet the quality objectives. The term “trade-off” does not imply lowering standards for quality, but means that the same end result can be achieved in different ways. Trade-offs should be carefully scrutinized so as not to compromise quality or other requirements and, for obvious reasons, are rarely accepted without valid justification by project sponsors or owners.

Generally, all processes are analyzed to determine alternatives to increase effectiveness and efficiency. For example, cost-benefit analyses and others where time, cost, quality, safety, and environmental aspects need to be balanced or exceed requirements. Quality requirements can involve mandatory constraints, as noncompliance can cause the permits for the project to be canceled or revoked.

8.2.7Quality Management Plan

The quality management plan is a component of the project management plan and describes how the project management team should implement the necessary quality control activities for the performing organization. The quality management plan either contains or makes reference to specific procedures that are applied for ensuring the quality compliance of the work performed.

The project quality management plan defines the monitoring and controlling activities to be employed, especially the following:

• Item of work to be monitored;
• Reference to the applicable document, specification, or standard and acceptance criteria;
• Applicable verification activities that are conducted and times when these activities are performed in relation to the overall process;
• Responsible parties for the work and verification activities;
• Applicable characteristics and measurements that are taken or recorded; and
• Applicable supporting documentation, which is generated to demonstrate satisfactory or unsatisfactory performance.

An example of a project quality plan document is shown in Figure 8-1.

8.3 Project Quality Management Executing

The quality management plan describes how quality assurance is applied and performed on the project. In construction projects, executing quality management involves the use of metrics and processes defined in the quality management plan to assure quality is being executed as planned. The project quality management plan provides inputs to the Perform Quality Assurance process.

Performing quality assurance in construction projects enforces the prevention of quality problems through planned, systematic procedures to ensure the required or specified quality is built into every project subsystem and deliverable.

Quality assurance measurements generate feedback on quality assurance activity performance and are fed back into the Plan Quality Management process for use in reevaluating and analyzing the process and performing continuous improvement. This feedback may include the planning activities of the performing organization, the criteria and processes employed, and a decision quality assessment as an indicator of areas that may need further investigation and reassessment of the risk or decisions taken in early project phases.

Performing Quality Assurance involves the following:

• Applying the planned, systematic quality activities to ensure that the project employs all processes needed to meet quality requirements;
• Determining whether these processes (and their integration) are effective in ensuring the project management system will fulfill the quality requirements of the project and the product of the project; and
• Evaluating the results of quality management on a regular basis to provide confidence that the project will satisfy the relevant quality standards.

8.3.1Quality Audits

Audits of the project product(s) and/or its component parts are sometimes termed “quality technical audits” or “quality compliance audits” and include an evaluation of results or output of work activities compared to the performance and acceptance criteria defined in the quality management plan, project scope, regulatory requirements, and construction specifications. Audits can be internally performed by the project team or externally performed by third parties.

Quality audits can be performed on the project management system as a whole or on its individual component parts, such as the procurement management system, design management system, commissioning management system, etc. Audits are carried out when compliance with quality management systems standards are required; for example, the ISO 10011 series on quality auditing establishes criteria, practices, and guidelines for conducting quality audits.

Integrated audits are commonly adopted to provide a more accurate measure of the effectiveness of a specific area of work in fulfilling project requirements (e.g., incorporating the applicable requirements such as those for quality, safety, and environmental management). These audits assess the effectiveness of the controls employed on a project as a whole rather than individually.

8.3.2Quality Management Reviews

Quality management reviews, which are executed by the performing organization, provide an assessment and evaluation of the effectiveness and suitability of the project management system as a whole or in part. Results of quality management reviews are used to effect changes and improvements to those elements of the project management system that are not performing satisfactorily.

8.4 Project Quality Control

To be effective, quality monitoring, control, and verification should be integrated into the overall construction or project delivery schedule. This process establishes control points or gates throughout the process to ensure that the next phase of work does not proceed until the preceding work has been completed and verified to meet the established criteria.

Quality control involves the following:

• Determining and applying the measures for monitoring the achievement of specific project results throughout the project to identify compliance with the requirements and unsatisfactory performance;
• Identifying techniques to eliminate causes of unsatisfactory performance, which includes identifying failures on the part of quality planning and quality assurance; and
• Delivering a quality dossier that compiles all quality control outputs and is an important input to validate the project.

Items that are inspected and found to be noncompliant with requirements are included in a nonconformance report that outlines the deficiencies, the immediate corrective action to bring the nonconforming work within the permissible tolerance limits, and actions to prevent recurrence of the condition that caused the nonconformance. Nonconformance reports take many forms, for example:

• Field deficiency reports (FDRs). FDRs record product or workmanship defects. Repeated field deficiencies could lead to the matter being elevated to the status of a nonconformance report, because this would indicate problems with the process or system being employed.
• Nonconformance reports (NCRs). NCRs record system deficiencies or estimate the cost of rework to fix deficiencies, such as those identified during audits. Repetitive nonconformance issues could result in the matter being elevated to that of a contract violation notice, indicating the existence of problems with the management of component parts for the product.
• Contract violation notices (CVNs). CVNs record principle contract document violations, which would indicate failure on the part of the performing organization regarding the overall requirements of the contract. The issue may be elevated to other contract actions such as notification of default, cure notice, and termination if the contractor does not correct the conditions.
• Observation reports (ORs). ORs are compiled by architecture and engineering teams, typically, and are not necessarily deficiency reports, but rather observations of the site, providing both good and bad information.
• Submittals. Verifying conformance of construction materials with the contract requirements begins with the contractor sending product submittals to the designers. The submittals identify the specific products that will be used, detail how they will be installed, and indicate if there is any variance from the specified material. The architects and engineers check the submittals for conformance with the contract documents and note discrepancies so the contractor can bring the product into compliance with the contract prior to purchasing the materials. This process helps to avoid rework that would be caused if the contractor ordered nonspecified materials and the designer did not see until they were installed on the job site.

Issues related to NCRs or CVNs for work on contracts require formal contract correspondence on the noted nonconformance to requirements. Rework is the action taken to bring defective or nonconforming items into compliance with the regulatory requirements or project specifications. Rework, especially unanticipated rework, increases costs and causes schedule overruns on construction projects.

The project team should make every reasonable effort to minimize rework. Much rework is caused by poor site supervision or poor-quality trade work at the construction site. Additional causes of rework can often be prevented or minimized by imposing an approved quality control program at a supplier's plant. These supplier quality programs are often developed jointly between the performing organization and the supplier, and can include the project sponsor/owner, other applicable project stakeholders, certified inspectors for various end products of the whole construct, and any applicable industry regulator.