Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Construction Management
Construction Management
Chennai - 020
EMBA/ MBA
Managing Quality
Quality Assurance Personnel: The role of the quality assurance
personnel is to ensure that the quality control program is functioning
properly and its intent is carried out diligently.
QA Procedures:
Review adequacy of the quality assurance plan:
•Determine if the work practices are such that the expected
quality standard will be met.
•Examine the quality of the ongoing and completed work to
determine that it meets or exceeds the project requirements.
•Ensure that the material used meets project quality standards.
•The finished work is sufficiently protected from harm or damage.
•Issue a report of acceptable work as well as any substandard
work.
•Track the corrective work and issue status report until
satisfactory completion.
•Examine the quality control methods being used to determine if
the supervisor is properly controlling construction activities.
•Review processes, practices and procedures. and identify
possible areas for change so as to improve the quality of the
resulting work
•Recommend any changes to project staff and/or management.
•Review QC documentation to ensure adequacy of systems.
Quality Management Process Outline:
Introductory Statement
1.Program Elements
•Policy and Procedures
•Goals and Objectives
•General Quality Management
•Roles and Responsibilities
•Approvals and Reviews
•Document Control
•Process Improvement
•Project-Specific Quality Management Plan
3.Construction Operations
•Zero Defect Program
•Quality Assurance Administration
•Roles and Responsibilities
•Inspection and Testing Plan
•Inspection Checklists
•Quality Assurance(QA) Process
•Specified Quality Requirements
•QA Process
•Pre-Installation Meeting and Inspection
•First Work-in-Place Meeting and Inspection
•Follow-Up or Daily Inspections
•Inspections
•Inspection schedule
•Pre-Cover-Up and Pre-Closure Inspections
•Documentation
•Written Report
•Digital Pictures
•Nonconformance Procedures
•Report
•Tracking
•Correction
•Material Verification
•Water Intrusion Prevention
•Preconstruction
•Inspections During Construction
•Protection of the Work
4.Closeout
•Closeout Procedures
•As Builts
•Punch List Work Management
•Systems Turnover Practices
•Startup
•Testing of Systems
•Training of Personnel
•Documentation
•O&M Manuals
•Final Acceptance
5.Postconstruction
•Warranties
•Warranty Management During the Warranty Period
•Warranty Callbacks after the Warranty Period
•Resulting Damage
•Postconstruction Documentation
6.Abbreviations
7.Glossary of Terms
8.References
9.Attachments
•Meeting Documentation
•Preconstruction Meeting Agenda
•Pre-installation Meeting Minutes
•First Work-in-Place Meeting Minutes
•Reports
•Daily Quality Control Inspection Report
•Subcontractor's Daily Quality Control Inspection
Report
•Nonconformance Report
•Checklists
•Construction Site Inspection Checklist
•Preclosure Inspection Form
•Logs
•Inspection and Testing Log
•Nonconformance Report Log
•Digital Photo Log
•Warranty Work Log
•Sample Plans
•Subcontractor's Site Specific Quality Control Plan
•Inspection and Testing Plan
•Water Intrusion Management Plan
•Sample Punch List
Conclusion
A contractor must have a robust quality management program as
it is critical to the overall success of a construction project. An effective
program creates a process for clarifying standards and requirements,
established means and methods for managing the process, defines
responsibilities and accountabilities, and adds another avenue to more
effectively manage the supply chain, while it reduces misunderstanding
and potential conflict. It effectively facilitates and manages the
collection of data, identifies performance discrepancies and
nonconforming work, and substantially increases efficiency by
reducing defects and punch list work, which aids in. improving the
working relationship with the design team and the project owner. It
systematically manages quality and enhances the contractor’s project
delivery, increases productivity, eliminates or reduces waste, and
ultimately improves profitability.
Mistakes in Bills
The actual quantity of work for an item may differ from the estimate at
tender for a number of reasons. In the case of excavation for instance
the removal of unsuitable material or the extent of rock or the extent of
tunnelling in particular classifications of ground, may only be estimated
from ground investigation information and not known until work is
carried out. Similarly the length of piles driven to a specified set may
not be known precisely at each pile location.
Apply the contract rates unaltered to the changed quantities for the item
of work;
Adjust the contract rates for the item of work, if the difference in
quantities makes the balance of the rate inaccurate, leaving all other
items including preliminaries unaltered. If this is the intention
contractor’s will need to have included in the price for quantities -
related site overheads in the prices for work items and not in the
Preliminary Item rates
Adjust the rates for other items of work, when planned execution is no
longer valid due to the difference in quantity for the item of work.
Adjust the prices for preliminary items, which are affected by the
difference in quantities. This will create difficulties unless the
preliminary item is clearly time-related and the effect can be assessed
on a time basis or if there is a build-up of the preliminary item prices.
Manpower Planning
Manpower planning is the process of estimating the optimum
number of people required for completing a project, task or a goal
within time. Manpower planning includes parameters like number of
personnel, different types of skills, time period etc. It is a never ending
continuous process to make sure that the business has the optimized
resources available when required taking into consideration the
upcoming future projects and also the replacement of the outgoing
employees. It is also called as Human Resource Planning.
Large businesses often work on forecasting and upcoming
opportunities in the pipeline. If these opportunities convert into actual
business, they would need manpower to start working on them. But the
dilemma is that what if they hired a large number of people to work on
an almost sure project but at the last moment the project didn't start on
time. What would the business do with the additional skilled
manpower. The other dilemma is that if they kept waiting till the last
moment for a project and when the project starts they might not have
enough manpower to work and deliver. These questions are solved by
the process of manpower planning.
Manpower planning also includes the details like how and when
will new employees be acquired. This whole process is done keeping in
view the goals of the organization, the future predictions for business
and changing technology trends. This helps the organization be
prepared for the future with the
correct manpower at their disposal for business prosperity.
Manpower Planning Process
HR department of every company has to constantly keep an eye
on the human resources that the company has. With every possible
event like change industry dynamics, increase in business requirements,
skills required for a particular technology etc, the need for having better
resources increases. The process and steps for having manpower
planning are as below:
1. Understanding the existing workforce: The HR department has to
thoroughly understand the manpower available with the company. They
should examine the background, skill set, qualification, location etc of
the entire work force so that they have a good idea regarding the pool
of talent which the company has.
2. Forecasting for the future: With constant changes in business
requirements, companies must understand the future trend and which
type of employees would be best suited for their organization. Hence,
companies must examine, evaluate and forecast the type of employee
workforce they want in the future years
3. Recruitment and selection: Depending upon the business
requirements, manpower planning leads to a much more well thought
out recruitment and selection pattern. This totally depends upon the
forecasts made and the business requirements. Hence, candidates with
better qualification, skill set, experience etc are shortlisted as
employees to best suit the future needs.
4. Training the employees: Employees who are a part of the
organization are trained to have the best skills, knowledge and
understanding about the current job as well as the future requirements.
All these above mentioned manpower planning steps help organizations
become better prepared to adapt to new technology, future industry
developments and even to face off with competitors.
HOW MAN POWER PLANNING WORKS
There have been two basic approaches that have been taken in
developing manpower planning systems for highway construction
organizations. One is the project approach and the other is the program
approach.
The project approach is designed as an operational tool and
dictates to the districts how they are to staff individual projects in the
field. The program approach is designed as a planning tool and assigns
total manpower resources to the districts for their assignment to
individual projects. A significant difference between the two is
accountability. With the project approach, the system, not the district, is
accountable for efficient manpower utilization. W ith the program
approach, each district is accountable for manpower utilization.
The program approach was selected for the Indiana manpower
planning system because district accountability was considered vital,
and because there are several uncontrollable factors that would be
almost impossible to effectively incorporate into a manpower planning
system. These factors require engineering and management judgments
that can best be made in the field and include: fluctuating contractor
work schedules, adverse weather conditions, material delays, strikes,
public reactions to construction projects, etc. The program approach
was also selected because it was felt that the wide geographical
dispersion of the districts made it impossible for the central office to
attempt to manage project staffing on an individual basis as would be
required by the project-oriented system.
The program approach also meets Indiana’s objectives for a
manpower planning program which are to:
(1) accomplish quality construction with minimum supervision;
(2) provide the means for simple and accurate forecasting of
construction supervision manpower requirements;
(3) balance construction manpower allocation to projected program
workloads in each district; and
(4) monitor the allocation and use of personnel during program
implementation.
The manpower planning system developed for Indiana is based
on the concept of applying established staffing standards to the
districts’ annual construction programs. This results in the
determination of manpower requirements for each district on a monthly
basis. A key to this system is the use of established staffing standards
for categories of projects. This allows the compensating error of the
system to ensure that manpower will be available for those projects that
require more than standard manpower by using the excess from those
projects that require less than standard manpower. It is this factor that
places responsibility for manpower utilization where it belongs in the
districts.
The manpower planning system has three key elements: (1)
annual construction program,
(2) project categories, and
(3) staffing standards.
The annual construction program consists of all known and
anticipated contracts that will be active during the construction season
within each district. This program provides the basis for the manpower
planning process. The reliability of the planning process is dependent
upon the reliability of the program. This program also provides the
monitoring capabilities of the system since fluctuations in forecast
workloads can be readily identified by additions or deletions in the
program for each district.
There are 18 established project categories in the manpower
planning system. These categories, being fairly broad in scope, permit a
wide variety of individual project types to be reduced in number to a
more manageable and limited grouping for the assignment of
manpower staffing standards. Staffing standards have been established
for each project category based on a “standard” or average project that
falls within each category. These staffing standards were developed and
established with the participation of experienced engineers from the
field. The end result of the application of annual construction programs
to established categories and staffing standards is a monthly
determination of each districts manpower requirements.
CLOSURE
In closing, I would like to point out that manpower planning
should not be considered a negative reaction to the way Indiana has
managed its construction function in the past. On the contrary, Indiana
has traditionally maintained high levels of service in the construction of
its highway system and has staffed the construction function in a
normally accepted manner. This is reflected in the comparatively low
construction engineering rate of 7.8% This is significant because each
per cent represents approximately 1.9 million dollars in operating costs.
This is a clear indication that Indiana is doing something right
manpower planning will help to ensure that Indiana will remain an
industry leader in the future.