PURPOSE
The purpose of this procedure is to understand the use of a Quality Assurance (QA)/Quality Control (QC) plan and to provide a guideline for developing a QA/QC plan for a project.
REFERENCES
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RESPONSIBILITIES
Program Manager: The Program Manager is responsible for establishing and enforcing the QA/QC policies and procedures within the program. The Program Manager is also responsible for communicating the importance of QA/QC throughout the organization.
Project Manager (PM): The PM is responsible for ensuring that the established QA/QC procedures are properly implemented for their projects.
Project Engineer (PE): The PE may share responsibility with the PM to conduct various aspects of the QA/QC program, such as design reviews or constructability review.
Construction Manager (CM): The CM is responsible for logging problems that arise during construction of a project. The CM must prepare the Lessons Learned Memorandum at the completion of construction and identify ways to avoid or mitigate similar problems in the future.
PROCEDURE
Developing the QA/QC Plan
Project Managers never enjoy the luxuries of an unlimited budget and unlimited time to produce a completely error-free set of plans and specifications, assuming such was actually achievable. Instead, the costs of achieving ever smaller levels of error must be balanced against the likely return on investment. However, consider these words of caution. Change orders during construction can destroy a project budget and excessive change orders can increase the potential for legal claims. Therefore, the PM must be very cautious to not jeopardize design quality and clarity by a misguided attempt to save money on the design. QA/QC is very much a process where dollars, in the form of staff resources, are invested during design in order to save a potentially greater amount later by reduced change orders and claims avoidance. It is better to err on the side of too much QA/QC, than on the side of too little.
Based on its experience with many projects and programs, the Bureau has developed numerous QA/QC elements. Each of these elements has demonstrated its value and should be considered for implementation by the PM as part of the QA/QC program for each project. These elements include effective program organization as well as the use of design reviews, continuous improvement tools, and contractor pre-qualification.
While it is not necessary that a written QA/QC plan be developed for every project, it is very important that the elements of the QA/QC plan be decided and agreed to by the Client and PM. This could be communicated by development of a detailed pre-design and design schedule that shows the various QA/QC activities and their scheduled times and durations. For large projects or programs, it may be appropriate to develop a written QA/QC plan to assure that design goals are properly established with the Client and that QA/QC activities are clearly understood and agreed upon. Such plans may be written for a specific project. Alternatively, a QA/QC plan may be developed on a program-wide basis, with the expectation that each individual project within the program will follow the specific plan.
Program Organization
The organization of a program can impact the QA/QC plan and how it is implemented and administered. The following are examples of organizational issues that should be considered because they can potentially impact the delivery of design quality and clarity.
Responsibility: Some Bureau Programs have had success by taking responsibility for a project from initial conception through construction and start-up. Resources to accomplish this are organized within that Program. Clear responsibility causes the entire organization to work harder. Another added benefit is that staff can be moved quickly from design to construction management or to whatever area is needed within the Program. This makes more efficient use of staff resources and provides rotation programs and training opportunities in all aspects of project delivery. Singlepoint authority for total project delivery, promotes a sense of teamwork and responsibility to meet the project objectives. It also promotes a feeling that design problems must be solved during design and not simply transferred to the construction phase.
Even if a project or program cannot be organized with turnkey responsibility, as noted above, it remains the PM’s responsibility to oversee the QA/QC plan, enforce the quality and clarity requirements on the designers, and monitor that construction management follows the protocols and procedures established by the Bureau.
Appropriate Consultant Usage: In today’s engineering world, projects are becoming more and more complex, requiring more specialized skills. Very few consulting firms retain all the specialized skills required for all projects because it is not cost-effective to do so. Instead, they form joint ventures, use subconsultants, and hire specialized services on an as-needed basis. The Bureau cannot be cost competitive if it tries to hire all possible engineering skills for all possible projects on a full-time basis.
The appropriate and occasional use of consultant staff to augment City staff allows the Bureau to compete on a more level playing field with outside firms (see Chapter 6 – Using Consultants). In the appropriate situation, it allows a project team to combine the strengths of Bureau staff with the strengths of the private sector. In addition, a certain amount of technology transfer will occur that will strengthen the expertise of City staff. The Bureau is actively seeking new work, new programs and new Clients. The Bureau’s ability to deliver on new work will be enhanced significantly if each program recognizes its staff’s strengths and limitations and takes steps to buttress its capabilities as necessary with outside services.
Strong Project Management: The Bureau has recognized the need for strong Project Engineers and Managers to provide technical direction and monitor budgets and schedules for all of its projects. Strong project management is the Bureau’s policy and has become well established in the Bureau’s programs. In the 1990’s the Bureau began the process of re-engineering itself to emphasize the need for strong management in all of its programs. The Bureau has adopted a corporate culture of strong project management and continuous improvement. If project success is measured in part by on-time and on-budget delivery, then strong project management is an essential part of QA/QC.
Client Partnering: One measure of quality is whether the project meets the Client’s needs and expectations (see Procedure 1.7 - Client Satisfaction). A partnering relationship with the Client will help assure that it does. Clients are an integral part of the project definition and design process. Workshops should be used throughout the concept, pre-design and detailed design phases to achieve early consensus and formal agreement to scope, schedule and budget (see Procedure 3.4 - Defining Scope and Chapter 4 - Change Control), and to better assure that the final design is usable, operable, and maintainable. Partnering encourages Client ownership of the project.
QA/QC Design Reviews
QA/QC reviews of the design documents follow standard protocols and are conducted throughout the design process in order to maintain the standards established by the QA/QC program. These reviews include the following:
Pre-Design Review: The one thing common to successful projects is thorough planning at the very beginning of the project. This is the time where concepts and alternatives are analyzed and selected. The importance of proper planning, thorough assessment of alternatives, documentation of the selection process, and achieving consensus on the selection cannot be over-emphasized. This is the point where a project is “launched” forward and any difficulties encountered later often have their origin during pre-design. It is important that workshops occur regularly throughout pre-design. In this way, the final pre-design report will serve to document the decisions which have already been reached, hopefully by joint consensus.
Design Reviews: Design reviews are conducted throughout the detailed design process, but particularly at the conclusion of pre-design and at 50% and 90% design levels. (These aspects of the QA/QC program are discussed in further detail in Procedure 9.3 – Design Reviews.)
Value Engineering: Value engineering (VE) is a special type of design review that focuses primarily on cost savings. VE was once required under the Federal Clean Water Grant Program under the theory that it would reduce the Federal share of grant funded projects. The Federal grant program no longer exists, and VE is no longer a requirement for the Bureau’s wastewater projects. Nor is it a specific requirement of most bond programs. Nevertheless, VE can prove useful under certain circumstances. (VE is discussed further in Procedure 9.3)
Construction Reviews: There are significant benefits to be gained by having a Constructability Review Team review the 50% and 90% contract documents. This team should review the documents from a construction perspective in addition to performing the normal design reviews. (These aspects of the QA/QC program are discussed in further detail in Procedure 9.4 - Construction Review.)
Operability & Maintainability (O&M Reviews): Another measure of project quality is the long-term life cycle cost of owning, operating, and maintaining the facility. Additional benefits are gained by the Owner and the O&M Review Team performing O&M Reviews at the 50% and 90% design levels. (Operability and Maintainability Reviews are discussed in further detail in Procedure 9.5 - Operability & Maintainability Review.)
Utility Coordination: The Project Award and Control Division (PAC) will conduct a Utility Coordination and Review for projects that involve the public right of way, i.e. sewers, streets, and storm drains. Utilities will be notified of the impending bid of a project and their need to locate and identify all respective utilities. Obviously, such activities are very important because utility interference can be a major cause of change orders.
PE/PM Checklist: A PE/PM Checklist and Project Notebook have been prepared by the Environmental Engineering Division as a guide to the PE and PM to help navigate the maze of activities during pre-design, design, and bid and award. Checklists of this type can be a valuable tool and form a part of the total QA/QC program (see Links/Attachment Section).
Ready to Advertise Checklist: PAC maintains a Ready to Advertise Checklist which must be completed by all PMs at the end of the design phase and before the plans and specifications are submitted for bidding. This provides another useful check that all necessary steps have been completed before the project is advertised (see BOE Website/Forms Library Applications / Bids and RFP).
Computer Assisted Design and Drafting (CADD)
Almost all Bureau plans are now produced using 100% CADD protocols and standards. This quiet revolution has occurred over the last 15 years and has revolutionized the way in which drawings are prepared. In some cases, interdisciplinary CADD training has been provided to Bureau engineers, designers and drafters. With this training, many engineers will be able to prepare at least some of their work using CADD, thus reducing the burden on the drafting technicians. As training continues, it is expected that most entry-level and associate engineers will migrate to a more CADD dependent environment.
With complex projects there is often the difficult problem of interferences, obstructions, operational access to equipment, and maintenance access. In the early 1990's, a new tool was introduced into the Bureau, 3-D CADD imaging. Such imaging is now a standard protocol for many Bureau programs. 3-D imaging removes the drudgery of trying to mentally visualize a project from 2-D drawing sheets. It can be a major tool to communicate both project concepts and details to the Client, plant engineers, operators, and maintenance staff. 3-D imaging has greatly reduced the number of change orders related to inadequate access and interferences. This is particularly important because such change orders are usually identified late in the project, a time when change orders may involve extended overhead costs and should be avoided if at all possible.
Continuous Improvement Tools
One of the most annoying problems of design is repeating past mistakes. All design offices face this problem, and it is far more difficult to solve than one might think. Memories are often short, knowledgeable staff depart for other assignments, and the construction management staff may resolve the problem without ever involving the Designer of Record. There should be a formal procedure for the construction management staff to provide feedback to the design group regarding design mistakes. Design group management should require that procedures be in place to eliminate design errors to the maximum extent reasonably possible.
Technical Manuals: The Bureau maintains technical manuals that codify many of its design standards and approaches. These manuals are an important vehicle for institutionalizing the Bureau’s information and experiences.
Lessons Learned Memoranda: The CM, in consultation with the PM and PE, is required to prepare a “lessons learned” memorandum within three months of the completion of a construction project. The purpose of the memoranda is to examine problems that occurred during delivery of the project and recommend solutions to avoid repeating the same mistakes again. Attention should be given to identifying solutions that institutionalize the experience in the form of changes to manuals, procedures, or specifications. The idea that “we’ll remember this the next time” only assures a short “half-life” to the experience. The Lessons Learned memoranda should suggest ways of extending the half-life of the experiences gained on the project. Lessons Learned are now prepared using the UPRS tool. This was recently implemented to assure that the memoranda are completed and that they can be archived and retrieved.
Master Specifications: The concept of Master Specifications is discussed in Chapter 10. It is presented here to emphasize the importance of Master Specifications to the Bureau’s program of continuous improvement. It is one of the major vehicles used by the Bureau to encode the improvements and experiences gained from its project experiences.
Lessons Learned Memoranda often suggest changes to the Master Specifications. In such cases, the CM should submit these recommendations to the Master Specifications Executive Committee. The Executive Committee will distribute the suggestion to the appropriate subcommittee for study, review and a recommendation for incorporation. If a change is recommended by the subcommittee and approved by the Executive Committee, it will then be incorporated into the Master Specifications.
The PM and PE are responsible to assure that the latest version of Master Specifications is used for their project. Never should specifications from a previous project be used as the starting point for a new project’s specifications. The latest Master Specifications from the BOE website should be used in all cases and without exception.
QA/QC Checklists: Another approach to codifying experiences is the use of QA/QC checklists (Attachment 9.2-1). These are developed for each engineering discipline and they codify that group’s knowledge. New problems or their solutions can be added to the checklist so that these become living documents. Each item on the checklist must be signed off by the PE and is reviewed by the Division Engineer prior to final stamping of drawings and specifications. This assures that each project team knows and understands the importance placed on the checklist and the Bureau’s goal of not repeating past mistakes. Checklists are also useful when conducting constructability reviews because they provide a permanent memory of past experiences. A prototype checklist is available at the BOE Website, Technical Documents Center, PDM Tools.
Pre-qualification
For most Clients, their primary concern is whether the final project is successful success being defined by the various measures discussed in Procedure 9.1. The odds for success are greatly improved by contract documents that possess both quality and clarity. However, high quality documents do not guarantee success; they only improve the odds for success.
An important element to the successful completion of a project is the construction, Contractor. The private sector can control the quality of their Contractors by limiting bidding to selected lists of constructors. Public bidding laws generally require open bidding by all responsive and responsible constructors. However, there are circumstances where competitive bidding can be limited to prequalified contractors. Pre-qualification may be an appropriate part of the QA/QC plan for certain projects, such as those involving specialized expertise.
When used appropriately, contractor, subcontractor, and/or vendor prequalification can be a useful tool to assure that bidding is limited to only qualified bidders. Over a large sampling of projects, this technique can potentially reduce claims. Of course, the approach must be balanced against the Department’s policy of not unnecessarily limiting bidding on public works construction. Each situation should be reviewed on a case-by-case basis to assure a proper balance.
Contractor Pre-qualification: The Bureau already uses the pre-qualification process on major projects for which open and unrestricted bidding is judged to carry a high risk. The East Central Interceptor Sewer (ECIS) tunnel project is an example where bidding was limited to pre-qualified contractors with proven experience in similar tunnel work. It is also used in selected programs that have unique characteristics, such as the Accelerated Sewer Repair Program (ASRP), which maintains a list of pre-qualified contractors who can bid on a particular project. This approach is well understood within the Bureau and seems to be utilized in appropriate situations.
Subcontractor Pre-qualification: Occasionally, a program may experience repeated problems with particular subcontractors. For example, the Wastewater Program at one time had repeated problems with subcontractors for Instrumentation and Controls (I&C) work, especially when the contractor had some responsibility for coordinating “as-supplied” materials and detailing the final design. In an attempt to deal with this problem, instrumentation subcontractors were pre-qualified during the bid process. Before starting the process, selected general contractors were consulted to obtain their opinions. They preferred a subcontractor pre-bid or during the-bid qualification process to eliminate their risk of accepting a subcontractor, only to have that subcontractor rejected after the bid.
A section regarding the during-the-bid pre-qualification requirement was placed in the “Notice to Bidders” to make sure that the requirement was not buried in a technical specification that the Contractor might not normally read. The prequalification requirement was made a bid responsiveness issue to cut down on post bid arguments. Contractors submitted their proposals for I&C subcontractors during the public bidding period. A committee reviewed the submittals, and a final determination of pre-qualified subcontractors was transmitted in the final addendum. Bidding was clearly limited to only the pre-qualified subcontractors. In one case, a low bidder ignored the requirement and listed a non-pre-qualified I&C subcontractor. The Board rejected the low bid as non-responsive and awarded to the second low bidder. The process worked. There were few I&C problems on the job.
Vendor Pre-qualification: Pre-qualification of major equipment suppliers is an established practice in many of the Bureau’s programs. The intent is to procure quality equipment by limiting bidding to only pre-qualified equipment suppliers. It is important for the PE to state the list of pre-qualified suppliers in the specifications with the notation “no or equal.” Unless this phrase is included, bidders have a right to interpret that the normal “or equal” clause was inadvertently omitted and may bid a non-pre-qualified supplier. Approval from the Board of Public Works is required to either sole source or use a list of pre-qualified equipment suppliers.
Summary
There are many measures of project quality. To some, it’s a measure of whether the project was delivered on time and on budget. Others consider it a success if change orders are at a minimum and there are no claims. To others, it’s whether the project worked as intended. Still others will consider it a success only if it’s easy to operate and maintain. Quality means different things to different people, but it is the PM’s job to try to satisfy them all to the extent possible.
Providing a quality design is not an easy task. It requires special attention and dedication. This procedure has provided an overview of tools that are available and have proven their effectiveness in past practice. However, the essence of a QA/QC plan is not just the procedures, reviews, and documents. It is a persistent attitude and the willingness to check, and re-check as needed. QA/QC is tedious work that often goes unnoticed and unappreciated. It requires hours of time spent poring over the thousands of details that make up a set of contract documents. Hard work and attention to detail are the substance behind the QA/QC plan. There is no substitute for hard work and attention to detail.
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