Improving Quality Assurance in Construction: Can Tho Storage Tank Capacity Enhancement Project Case Study, Vietnam

After implementing the first stage of the quality assurance and product improvement in construction program, Vietnam Minister of construction assessed that although the program has achieved success in the first stage, there are some difficulties need to be overcome comparing with the goal and requirements planned. Annually, accidents still happen on working site due to violation of quality management process and procedure. Lacks of owner’s care, some commissioning buildings have no operation and maintenance manuals. This leads to degradation, reduction of the building’s life span and become unsecured in operation (instruction of Vietnam Ministry of construction, 2006).

Quality in construction is measured through time, cost and scope in traditional way. Andrew argued that these indicators are simple and crude to gauge the project quality. Owners are more quality-driven than price and value driven (Dainty, 2003). Especially, in oil and gas facilities, expensive equipments related to each other in manufacturing line. If one component fails, the other will be affected like the domino effect. So it is necessary to recognize other components affecting construction quality in each stage of project life cycle through assessing effectiveness and efficiency of construction processes. From that point, processes can improve that satisfy the external and internal customers. As a result, the existence and success of Vietnam enterprises are confirmed in local and international arena as well.

Mr. Duong Thanh Hai made a study which main three objectives were: (1) modeling the construction quality assurance activities from design to commissioning in traditional procurement; (2) investigating problems in term of effectiveness and efficiency of processes and sub-processes in the model that affect quality issues; and (3) developing a tentative model that incorporates construction activities and quality improvement approaches addressing such problems.

Conclusion

1. Modeling the construction quality assurance activities from design to commissioning in traditional procurement

The case was the storage tank project using design-bid-build procurement approach. The owner had in-house staff working as construction management. The owner stated their needs to design consultant. The designer mapped out all construction law, codes and standards that have to be complied with and to control and assure project quality.

Based on the design, the owner gave the quality requirements to site surveyor, supervisor, and contractor. Then these people submitted their quality plans that satisfy those requirements. A quality assurance model was developed based on the discussion with project participants and analyzing archive. The model shows interaction among involved parties from design to commissioning.

2. Investigating problems in term of effectiveness and efficiency of processes and sub-processes in the model that affect quality issues

There were five major problems happened in the project because the involved parties violated the quality plan and also because of the gaps on those quality plans itself.

Problem 1: design materials unavailability in the market

The design materials are only available during the time that the consultant planned the design. During the procurement, the owner realized shortage then the designer had to re-work.

Problem 2: delay in pressing piles

Although all operating procedures were clearly stated in the quality plans, mistakes still took place. The bearing capacities of pressed piles were not the same as the designed figures. According to the plan, the contractor would have informed the designer when problems happened but they did not. As a result, the schedule was delayed.

Problem 3: supply delay of floating roofs

Floating roof equipments were supplied two months late. Those equipment trades were solely based on contract which the contractor cannot assure the supply on time. The contract had just compensated direct loss for contractor. Other indirect loss such as reputation, administrative, low morale actually cannot be recovered.

Problem 4: valves leakage

Design valves were not received on time because of the delay in supply. The contractor used temporary valves to replace designed valves during tank process testing. Unfortunately, the temporary valves cannot bear the oil load, so they leaked. Some arrangements should be carried out to make sure that supplies are available when needed rather than recovered from contract breach penalty.

Problem 5: oil leakage of existing tank system

Underground pipeline were maintained every 10 year. However, those pipelines failed one year before that time. Therefore, one burning accident happened during the transferring process of existing tanks. The underground pipeline should be monitored gradually during that period.

3. Developing a tentative model that incorporates construction activities and quality improvement approaches addressing such problems

In Petromekong, most of construction applied traditional procurement. Contractor requested for supplier’s quotation after they had got bid. However in oil and gas industry, oil constructions usually need long lead time materials and equipment. For this reason, the contractor faces delay of supply sometimes. The study illustrated “supplier partnership” approach should be used in such type of construction to improve procurement quality. Petromekong in-house investing department will arrange partnership with suppliers beforehand. Then the owner, suppliers, designer will optimize time, cost, quality and satisfaction trade-off for important long lead time equipments and materials.

A chain of tools is suggested to detect and solve those problems in advance. Quality improvement tools such as flowchart, check sheet, problem source investigating chart, brainstorming, affinity diagram, fish bone diagram, nominal group technique should be used orderly to improve certain construction processes. Such types of process are repetitive, measurable and have clear procedures. Company can monitor and record performance of those processes regularly. Whenever problems happen, company can immediately recognize warning signs and take actions beforehand.

His thesis abstract is copied and posted.

Abstract

Since Vietnam has had oil terminal system development plan, more tank projects have been invested to expand storage capacity. However, quality violation has been alert obviously. From that point, the study suggests model to identify and eliminate those problems beforehand.

The study used one tank project as case study to fulfill three objectives. Firstly, quality assurance processes in traditional procurement were modeled. Then, the researcher investigated problems adhering to these processes. Finally, an improving quality model was suggested addressing those problems.

The case study was collected from Petromekong Corporation located in southern part of Vietnam. The researcher utilized focus group qualitative method. The researcher discussed with investing department of Petromekong to elicit quality assurance activities of project participants. Then, the researcher defined five problems existing in the case: deigning unavailable material on market, delaying in pressing piles, supply delay of floating roofs, leakage of valves and oil leakage of existing tank system. The researcher looked for some quality improvement approaches from manufacturing industry since. Finally, after conducting expert’s assessment, the researcher demonstrated “supplier partnership” approach should be used in long lead time materials and equipment construction to improve procurement quality. Illustrating pile driving and oil transferring processes as examples, the researcher suggested a chain of tools to detect and solve those problems in the case study beforehand. Such tools are flowchart, check sheet, problem source investigating chart, brainstorming, affinity diagram, fish bone diagram, nominal group technique should be used orderly to improve repetitive, measurable and clear procedure construction processes.

Key word: quality assurance, Petromekong, oil storage tank, traditional procurement, quality improvement, construction problems, case study, Vietnam.