Implementing Processes for Quality Control in Construction

A sign posted at a job site read, “If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?” This quote from John Wooden, a Hall of Fame basketball player and coach, is as applicable to construction as it is to basketball. Poor quality work requires rework, delaying the project and increasing labor costs. On top of that, it tarnishes a construction company’s reputation. Doing the job right the first time reduces construction costs, increases profitability, and sets you up for more success in the long run.

Key Takeaways

• Developing and implementing quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) processes helps ensure that the projects meet the specified quality standards and the client’s expectations.
• Quality control includes all the procedures implemented in the field to ensure you construct a quality project.
• Quality assurance includes all the procedures used to ensure that your quality control program is being properly implemented and produces the desired results.

Benefits of a QA/QC Process

The construction industry uses quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) processes to ensure that construction projects meet the quality standards in the construction documents. Developing and implementing formal QA/QC processes has a number of benefits:

1. Reduces the amount of rework. - Using QA/QC processes reduces the amount of rework on your construction projects and helps ensure that the work is done right the first time. By reducing the rework, you eliminate the cost of rework and increase your profit. Keep in mind that it is cheaper to do the work right the first time than to do the work two or three times.
2. Improves your reputation. - When owners and designers walk the project and find that the work was done correctly the first time, it improves your reputation. This can lead to becoming the preferred contractor for the owners, resulting in more negotiated work or higher profit markups on your projects.
3. Improves profitability. - By establishing standard workflows that produce high-quality work, your crews can be more productive while reducing rework. When a process is used over and over again, the workers become more efficient at implementing the process and make fewer mistakes. Using standard workflows improves cost control and leads to improved profitability.

Quality assurance and quality control are two separate programs that work together to ensure your company produces a high-quality project. Let’s talk about quality control first.

Quality Control

Quality control is where the rubber meets the road. It is implemented on the job site and ensures that the construction project meets the quality requirements in the project specifications and drawings. The on-site project management team uses quality control procedures to verify that the construction process produces the required workmanship, complies with the building codes, and uses the correct materials.

Ideally, the construction processes will produce quality work the first time. When this doesn’t happen, the construction team must take corrective action to bring the final product into compliance. Once reworked, the poor-quality work must be reevaluated to see if it meets the requirements.

Many of the quality control procedures are found in the contract documents and specifications. Section 01 40 00 Quality Requirements of the MasterFormat® and its subsections identify the general quality requirements for the project, including the staffing and documentation requirements. It may also require that the general contractor develop and submit a quality management plan. The development of this plan is discussed in the quality assurance section. Additionally, product-specific quality control requirements are found in the individual product specifications. Carefully reading all the specifications is essential to identifying all the quality control requirements so that you can comply with them the first time.

One of the best ways that you can reduce quality problems is to make quality control a part of the daily routine rather than something that you do at the end of the job. Your on-site construction management team should walk the project every day and provide real-time feedback on the quality of the work being performed. When an in-house crew or subcontractor has completed their work and is getting ready to leave the project, your team should formally inspect the completed work before the crew leaves. It’s easier to address quality issues while they’re still on the job site than it is to get them to come back and fix the problems.

While most contractors pay attention to quality control because it is required as part of the contract, many fail to develop and implement a quality assurance program.

Quality Assurance

Quality assurance is the process of assessing whether your company’s quality control processes are meeting the contract requirements and the stakeholders’ expectations. It requires that you carefully look at how your company manages the project’s quality and find ways to improve your quality control processes.

The quality assurance process begins by developing a construction quality control plan for your company. This plan should identify your company’s organizational structure and the roles each person plays in ensuring the project’s quality. It should address the proper lines of communication across the owners, design team, suppliers, subcontractors, and your team.

We recommend that you assign a quality control manager to each project so that there is one person who is ultimately responsible for overseeing construction quality at the construction site. On larger projects, this role may be a full-time assignment, whereas it may be assigned to the superintendent on smaller jobs. This doesn’t mean that the quality control manager is the only one on the job who is concerned about quality. Everyone plays a role in producing a quality project. It means that the quality control manager is responsible for seeing that your company meets the project’s quality control requirements.

Your plan should also describe the quality control procedures that will be followed on the jobs. Among other things, it should address the following questions:

• How will the tests and inspections be documented?
• How will non-conformances and other quality issues be handled?
• What training will be provided to the team members?

Your plan should include the process for developing a job site construction quality management plan specific to each construction project. The plan should include a job-specific quality control checklist with all the testing and inspections required by the contract documents. The quality requirements will vary from job to job, so using a one-size-fits-all plan leads to performing unnecessary testing and inspections (costing you money) or, even more importantly, forgetting to perform a critical test or inspection.

You can prepare a list of job-specific tests and inspections by carefully reviewing the construction documents and noting the following:

• The required quality standards (such as ISO standards) that must be met.
• The required tests and inspections that need to be performed.
• The frequency of the tests and inspections.
• The test or inspection acceptance criteria used to determine if the quality standard is met.
• The paperwork required to document compliance with the testing and inspection standards.
• Where the testing and inspection requirements can be found in the construction documents so they can be quickly referenced when questions arise.

Using a spreadsheet is an easy way for you to organize this information. Here’s an example of what that checklist could look like:

• Standard
• Test/Inspection
• Frequency
• Acceptance
• Criteria
• Paperwork
• Source
• ASTM C31
• Concrete compression test
• 1 per truckload
• <= 3,000 psi at 28 days
• Submit a copy of the test results to the architect
• Section 3A – Concrete, subsection 3.3.d.

This list is provided to the project’s construction manager and the quality control manager so that they can make sure that all the required tests and inspections are completed. While preparing this list can be time-consuming, it is less costly than performing unneeded tests and inspections or missing a critical test or inspection.

Your plan should also include your requirements for a preconstruction meeting involving all stakeholders (owners, designers, subcontractors, and the management team) to discuss implementing the job site construction quality management plan. This gives you the opportunity to make sure that everyone understands their role in constructing a quality project. In this meeting, you should discuss:

1. The roles and responsibilities of the team for implementing the quality control measures.
2. The proper lines of communication for addressing quality control issues.
3. The process for documenting tests and inspections, including who will receive copies of the paperwork.
4. The process for handling quality issues.
5. The project-specific list of tests and inspections, including who is responsible for performing them and who is responsible for verifying that they have been performed and documented.

Make sure your plan also identifies how continuous improvement will become part of your company’s culture. This includes revising your quality control plan to include the lessons you learned on each project. When reviewing the lessons learned, assessing client satisfaction is a good idea, as it may provide insights into how to improve your quality control process.

The most important part of your plan is to include a process for auditing how the quality control procedures are being implemented and if they are achieving the desired project quality. It doesn’t do any good to have procedures if they are not being followed or if they are not producing the desired results.

Finally, your general contractor-subcontractor agreement should require subcontractors to follow these quality control procedures.

In summary, your quality assurance process is used to verify that your quality control procedures are working.

Final Thoughts

Quality is much more than something you slap on at the end of a project, like a coat of paint on a wall. It requires more than making a final inspection and completing the punch list. Quality is something that is built into the project from the start. It is something that is engrained in the very culture of your company. Developing and implementing QA/QC procedures helps you control construction costs, enhance your reputation, and make more money.

Further Reading: Foundations of Construction Project Management