CV787-CONSTRUCTION QUALITY AND

SAFETY MANAGEMENT

Quality Assurance

Dr. C.RAJASEKARAN

Dept. of Civil Engineering , NITK

 CV787- Construction Quality and Safety Management

Quality Assurance – An Introduction

Quality assurance is a broad term encompassing the
application of standards and procedures to ensure that a
product or facility meets or exceeds a desired performance
criteria.

A way of preventing mistakes or defects in manufactured

products and avoiding problems

Quality assurance in construction activities guides the use of

correct structural design, specifications and proper materials
ensuring that the quality of workmanship by the contractor
/sub-contractor is achieved and finally maintaining the
structure after construction is complete through periodic
assessments for maintenance and repairs.
Dr.C.Rajasekaran, Department of Civil Engineering, NITK
 CV787- Construction Quality and Safety Management

Quality Assurance – An Introduction

Quality assurance is a process based approach whose prime
objective is to prevent defects in deliverables in the
planning process itself to avoid the rework, which costs a
lot.

Quality assurance is a proactive process, and it starts at the

very beginning of the project to understand the product’s
stated and non-stated requirements and expectations, and
then develop the plan to meet these requirements and
expectations.

Quality audit is an example of a quality assurance process.

Other examples of quality assurance are training, process
definition, selection of tools, etc.
Dr.C.Rajasekaran, Department of Civil Engineering, NITK
 CV787- Construction Quality and Safety Management

Quality Assurance – An Introduction

Dimensions of quality assurance
 Quality characteristics: properties that define

the nature of a product for quality control

purposes. Example- dimension, color, strength
etc
 Quality of design: designers often specify not

only the desired characteristic that defines a

product but also tolerances or ranges for
acceptable variations from the standard
 Quality of conformance: it is the degree to

which the physical work produced conforms to

the standards
Dr.C.Rajasekaran, Department of Civil Engineering, NITK
 CV787- Construction Quality and Safety Management

Quality Assurance – An Introduction

Quality assurance also means establishment of a
quality system which can demonstrate the
requirements. Unfortunately, in many
organizations, names have changed from the
quality control units to quality assurance units
without any change in the working or strategy or
even in the attitude of the quality personnel.

Dr.C.Rajasekaran, Department of Civil Engineering, NITK

 CV787- Construction Quality and Safety Management

Quality Assurance Activities

Quality assurance activities used to be defined to
include:
 how the organisation develops policy in respect to quality;
 the allocation of responsibilities for quality within the
organisation;
 procedures used to carry out the needs of the business;
 the standards to be attained in the workplace;
 the documentation required to demonstrate both the
operation and maintenance of the system and the
attainment of quality.

Dr.C.Rajasekaran, Department of Civil Engineering, NITK

 CV787- Construction Quality and Safety Management

Quality Assurance
Elements of quality assurance

Dr.C.Rajasekaran, Department of Civil Engineering, NITK

 CV787- Construction Quality and Safety Management

Quality Assurance
Quality assurance process

Dr.C.Rajasekaran, Department of Civil Engineering, NITK

 CV787- Construction Quality and Safety Management

Difference between QA and QC

Quality Assurance Quality Control
In quality assurance, you plan to On the other hand in quality control,
avoid the defect in the first place. you try to find defects and correct
them while making the product.
Quality assurance is all about Quality control is all about the
prevention. detection.
Quality assurance is a process based Quality control is a product based
approach. approach.
Quality assurance involves Quality control is used to verify the
processes managing quality. quality of the product.
Quality audit is an example of Inspection and testing are examples
quality assurance. of the quality control process.
The goal of the quality assurance Quality control identifies the defects
process is to develop a process so after the product is produced but is
that defects do not arise when you not yet released or is still in the
are producing the product production phase.

Dr.C.Rajasekaran, Department of Civil Engineering, NITK

 CV787- Construction Quality and Safety Management

Organization for Quality Assurance

The quality assurance objectives of the various parties
associated with a construction project differ and often
conflict

 The owner wants to maximize the quality of

characteristics associated with the intended function of a
project

 The designer wants a level of quality that will assure

satisfactory performance of the structure and be a credit
to his professional reputation

Dr.C.Rajasekaran, Department of Civil Engineering, NITK

 CV787- Construction Quality and Safety Management

Organization for Quality Assurance

 A constructor on a fixed price contract will be interested
mainly in satisfying the specifications at minimum direct
cost

 Increasingly, external regulatory agencies are setting

quality standards characteristics that may not even be
directly related to the primary function of the project,
and often with little consideration for cost. Example-
control on emissions to the environment

Dr.C.Rajasekaran, Department of Civil Engineering, NITK

 CV787- Construction Quality and Safety Management

Organization for Quality Assurance

Typical Organizations
 Resolving the conflicts in objectives between the various

parties generally makes the organization and

responsibilities of quality assurance system different
from project planning and control system

 For conformance oriented quality control, more

attention is given to separating the responsibility for
judging quality from those charged with carrying out
the work

 In traditional competitively bid public works, quality

control is one of the primary responsibilities of the
resident engineer and his inspectors
Dr.C.Rajasekaran, Department of Civil Engineering, NITK
 CV787- Construction Quality and Safety Management

Organization for Quality Assurance

Typical Organizations:
 The relationship is shown in Figure 1

 Even in design construct work, owner or governmental

requirements often mandate that quality assurance be
separated from production operations. Figure 2 shows a
setup typical of a nuclear power plant

Dr.C.Rajasekaran, Department of Civil Engineering, NITK

 CV787- Construction Quality and Safety Management

Figure 1.
Quality Control Organization in a Competitively Bid Public Works Project

Dr.C.Rajasekaran, Department of Civil Engineering, NITK

 CV787- Construction Quality and Safety Management

Figure 2.
Quality Control Organization in Design-Construct Project

Dr.C.Rajasekaran, Department of Civil Engineering, NITK

 CV787- Construction Quality and Safety Management

Organization for Quality Assurance

 The idea is to setup an autonomous, independent and
objective group that is free to apply controls without
fear of ensure from higher levels in the operations
organization

 In professional construction management, the

professional construction manager provides objective
third party input into determining the quality of
design, as well as inspection services to control
quality of conformance

Dr.C.Rajasekaran, Department of Civil Engineering, NITK

 CV787- Construction Quality and Safety Management

Organization for Quality Assurance

Tasks, Responsibilities and Procedures

 Figure 3 uses a convenient matrix form to show the

important relationships for quality assurance and
summarizes the whole program

 The preparation of such a chart can spotlight areas of

conflict and omissions at the planning stage

Dr.C.Rajasekaran, Department of Civil Engineering, NITK

 CV787- Construction Quality and Safety Management

Fig 3. Quality Control Matrix

Source: “System for Control of Construction Quality,” Journal of the Construction Division, ASCE, Vol. 98, No. CO1, March 1972

Dr.C.Rajasekaran, Department of Civil Engineering, NITK

 CV787- Construction Quality and Safety Management

Organization for Quality Assurance

Delegating Responsibility and Authority
 In addition to the organization charts given in Figures

1 and 2, a linear responsibility chart, such as that

presented in Figure 4, clearly shows the
responsibilities and relationships among the key
parties
 Preparation of such a chart requires a thorough

understanding of the project and the contractual

relationships of the parties; it also clarifies
ambiguities and identifies omissions and conflicts
Implementation
 Figure 5 gives a detailed example of how the
procedures operate in the case of quality control on
concrete construction
Dr.C.Rajasekaran, Department of Civil Engineering, NITK
 CV787- Construction Quality and Safety Management

Figure 4.
Linear Responsibility Chart (LRC) for Quality Control
Organization

Source: “System for Control of Construction Quality,” Journal of the Construction Division, ASCE, Vol. 98, No. CO1, March 1972

Dr.C.Rajasekaran, Department of Civil Engineering, NITK

 CV787- Construction Quality and Safety Management

Fig 5. Flow Diagram,

Quality Control of Concrete
Construction

Source: “System for Control of

Construction Quality,” Journal of the
Construction Division, ASCE, Vol. 98,
No. CO1, March 1972

Dr.C.Rajasekaran, Department of Civil Engineering, NITK

 CV787- Construction Quality and Safety Management

Dr.C.Rajasekaran, Department of Civil Engineering, NITK