Owner Project Management Approach for Quality Performance of a School Project

Construction is one of the most complex industries due to its heavy influence in lots of elements and involvement with many parties such as the Owner, the Consultant, and the Contractor etc.. This leads to the difficulty in managing the quality of product in construction. Since clients are becoming more and more demanding on the product quality, construction companies in this high competitive market are now striving to improve the quality management aspect as much as possible.  There is no doubt that apart from the traditional relationship, quality has become one of the key factors in the survival and success of construction companies.

In Viet Nam nowadays, there are many issues related to the quality of construction project. Therefore, one being able build a quality management system for a particular project will certainly gain a competitive advantage over the competitors and meet the client’s expectation accordingly.

Recently, there have been a lot of foreigner investors come to Vietnam and invested in the development of international schools with high quality facilities to attract potential parents and satisfy their expectation. Unfortunately in some cases, the investors cannot get what quality they were guaranteed due to the following problems:

 1. Project delayed

2. Poor coordination between Contractor and Sub-contractors

3. Miscommunication among participants’ parties

4. Poor management in terms of scheduling, planning, controlling, etc.

5. Low quality in finishing work.

Mr. Nguyen An Vi Nghia made a case study which objectives were to: (i) study owner project management for managing quality performance starting from design, construction and handover; (ii) discuss strengths and weaknesses; (iii) propose recommendations; (iv) highlight lessons learnt; and (v) develop a Quality Management System framework.

 

Conclusion

The following conclusions were drawn after accomplishing the objectives:

 

Objective 1: The purpose of this study is considered and analysed the way the owner managed the quality performance of school project from the design stage to handover construction stage. The author found out that the way the owner managed the quality of project was not good enough, and there were many serious problems remained.

Objective 2: Strengths and weaknesses

Some major strengths of project were identified such as:

1. Standardized information by owner such as colour, size of function rooms, furniture arrangement, design brief, draft design, etc.

2. Owner has the technical team, who able to support with the design and construction work.

3. The school is a simple building for construction.

4. The owner is an expert in school operation and they have run many schools before.

However, some major weaknesses and sources of the problems were also identified such as:

1. The owner’s requirements and expectation were unclear from the beginning. Owner was the source of problem

2. The designer did not conduct a land survey before designing. Designer was the source of problem

3. Tender document was insufficient and inconsistent. Owner, designer and appraiser was the source of problem

4. Project members did not know clearly about the project’s objectives. Owner was the source of problem

5. Unrealistic schedule. Owner was the source of problem

6. Unclear responsibilities and scope of works in the contract. Owner was the source of problem

7. Owner did not test and commission before signing off the handover letter. Owner was the source of problem

8. Owner did not prepare any form or check list for inspection. Owner was the source of problem.

Objective 3: Recommendations

In order to solve and to prevent the problems, the author proposed the following:

1. The owner needs to provide clear requirements and expectation in the beginning of each step

2. The owner needs to request designers to go to the land site to study the land condition and the design should be suitable with land condition.

3. The owner should provide sufficient tender document for bidding and make sure that the contractor’s proposals followed the template. By this way, it will be easier for the owner to compare “Apple to Apple”.

4. Before the start of the construction, the owner should organize the meeting to brief all project members about project’s goal and their expectation for the project

5. The owner needs to have a good master schedule to ensure that the construction work has sufficient time for proper construction. They need to recognize that “if we have unrealistic time, we will not have good quality product.

6. Besides providing clear requirements and expectation, the owner also needs to write down clearly the responsibility and scope of works of other parties related to project.

7. The owner needs to conduct the testing and commissioning of the whole school before signing off the handover letter. For efficiency of the testing and commissioning step, the owner needs to appoint people who have fully knowledge for testing and commissioning parts.

8. To save the inspection time and more efficiency inspection, the owner needs to prepare the check list and tools related to the work they want to inspect.

Objective iv: Highlight Lessons learned

 

Below are some of the works owner needs to prevent and some works they need to maintain and improve:

1. Prevent changes.

2. Prevent contractor to construct the work without site engineer’s supervision

3. Prevent construction’s finishing stage in rainy season.

4. Prevent or reduce the construction works during studying time.

5. Prevent unrealistic duration for construction fixed by owner.

6. Provide the design brief and draft design as requirements of project’s concept design.

7. Provide the furniture manual is required for project’s concept design. The owner hired a professional foreign consultant company for concept design and hired a local consultant company for basic and detailed design. This was a good idea since it saved the design cost. However, the owner needs to manage their communication with each other and control them accordingly.

8. The owner in-house project team was appointed as the project management team. However, the allocation of team members should be more sufficient since the personnel are trained properly to manage the construction project.

 

Objective v: Develop a quality management system framework

 

The owner can use that QMSF for their future projects in term quality approaching. After studying the above factors, the author found that the problems related to communication, unclear requirements and unreasonable schedule were the most common problems occurred in school project. And that was also the main caused for project delayed and not good quality as well.

 

To support the theories in this study, the Quality Management in Construction Project eBook was the main source for theoretical and management tool to manage the quality in construction.

 

Besides some studies as mentioned above, the report still has some limited and did not study clearly the following parts:

1. Financial source is the most important for construction project and it affects directly to the quality of product.

2. How to manage the contractor and sub-contractors in term of quality

3. How to manage the quality of work in construction site

4. The applicability of the proposed solution in reality.

5. Managing the contract in terms of consultant and construction

6. The situation of this study is from the owner’s view. Thus, the study just studies some factors related to the owner’s view only.

 

Recommendations

 

In general, to prevent problems occurred; the owner should follow some recommendation as blow:

1. More careful in feasibility study

2. Clear requirements from initial step of project.

3. Clear consultant’s responsibilities and write down clearly their scope of works into the contract.

4. Get user involves in the beginning of project to prevent the changes and not usage. It is a waste of time and money.

5. The owner is developing more and more school projects. Thus, they should standardize all school facilities, brand and design requirements from the design step to handover step so that the quality of school project will be getting better and better.

6. Try to manage the time schedule and plans to avoid the unreasonable time schedule. It is one of the major factors that affect the quality of project.

7. Applying the tools to measure the quality of product.

Design process

1. Applying quality management system framework

2. Applying QA/QC for design process

3. In the tender requirement, the owner needs to specify that the contractors’ proposals must follow exactly 100% of the owner’s BOQ (including format, content and specification). In case the contractor has some comments or further proposals, they should put it in an appendix of proposal. The BOQ’s specification needs to specify the materials, brands and sources of equipments. To study the contractors’ proposals, the owner needs to have professional people who have fully knowledge to check and compare the contractors’ proposals and make sure the comparison is “Apple to Apple”.

 

Construction process

1. Applying Construction Quality Assessment System (CONQUAS) for quality assessment.

2. Using QA/QC for construction process

3. Using some tool to measure quality as CONQUAS

4. Preparing and using check list for construction inspection.

5. Nowadays, almost people prefer has good quality for their project and they have recognized that high quality and more investment will go together. Thus, CONQUAS method will be used more in the future, because it is very useful for quality assessment. Regarding to some of recommendation for construction process, I would like to recommend that owner should use Quality Management System Framework as proposed in Chapter 3 (please refer 3.8 of Chapter 3) for whole project as standardize and consistent for their school system overall of the world. Besides, Owner applies CONQUAS method for quality assessment

Abstract

In construction project, the scenario of each project is not the same. Only if small thing goes wrong in construction phase, nonconforming work is very difficult for us to repair or take remedial action and in some cases it is impossible to get fixed. Furthermore, quality management is affected by many elements such as manpower, technique, unforeseen weather etc. Therefore, construction phase is very difficult to determine the expected quality.

Besides, scope of the work, cost and time of delivery are also important characteristics of quality. Quality in construction project is not only the quality of product, technique and equipment used in construction but the total management approach from the beginning of project to completion stage. The quality of construction depends mainly upon the control and monitor of construction, which are the primary responsibilities of the contractor.

This report has been analysed based on a real school project in Viet Nam and discussed clearly about project performance from the beginning step to the very end. And then, it also proposes solutions on how to get better performance for any cases especially school project.

Regarding to the practice process, the report has also built the quality management system framework to serve as a management model for developing school projects in Viet Nam.

 

Quality Management System for Consultant Supervision of a Building Construction Project

The aim of the quality management system is to create high quality products, meet the customers’ need, fit for use or purpose and conform to requirements. Quality in construction projects is not only the quality of product and equipment used in the construction of a facility but the total management approach to complete the facility. The quality of construction depends mainly upon the control of construction. The construction cost and time of delivery are also important characteristics of quality.

In Vietnam, the quality management system, ISO 9000 and Total Quality Management, is also applied in construction field. ISO 9000 and Total Quality Management are considered as the most effective ways of quality managing. However, in recent years, when Vietnam adapted the international integration policy, both public and private sectors have also invested in Vietnam. Due to competition, many contractors bid at a very low cost just to get the project, thus, suffering the quality. Many completed projects have many defects especially high-rise buildings. Therefore, quality control system of the consultant is strongly necessary for both owner and contractor to assure quality and prevent any unexpected hazards.

Mr. Nguyen Tien Dung made a case study which main objectives were to: (i) know the quality management system of consultant supervision to manage construction works of a building project; and (ii) analyze the strength, weakness and problem.

Conclusion

Quality management system of consultant supervision is to manage implementation of quality management system in construction works by contractor as well as to ensure the quality of construction works complying with specification, and standard requirements. Both consultant and contractor control the quality of construction project to meet and satisfy client requirements as well as all contractual requirements at optimum cost and time.

This case study was performed aimed to control the construction measures which are related with quality control. This quality control is conducted based on the Vietnam standard and regulation. These provide contributions to comply importance standards and regulations which directly affect quality control in construction.

The quality management system in my company was based on the ISO 9001:1994 requirement system. The major issues of quality control are managing of incoming materials, monitoring and controlling of production process, testing and commissioning of the finished product. The system includes:

1. An organization structure, responsibility and authority in quality management system

2. Scope of supervision consultant process

3. Project procedure implementations

- Document system and data control

- Process control

- Inspection, testing, measuring and test equipment

- Inspection and test status

- Control of Non-conforming product and corrective and prevent action

- Control of quality records

- Internal quality audits

- Training

Furthermore, the case study also set up the communication process of managing quality and communication channel between the owner, supervising consultant, designing consultant and contractor to solve problems at the site.  The purpose is to solve quality issues concerning construction projects. Besides, documentations and data records for quality activities have also been mentioned. A model for managing quality has been defined and shown to apply to any construction project. The model involves multi-levels quality management participation, including contractors, engineers, and managers. It describes the quality management tasks and the roles supposing in a system relating construction quality control, quality assurance, and the interface between them. The report also shows the understanding of how quality management is implementation and engages participants at several management levels.

The quality management system functions as practiced in building construction. A system method to quality management, which emphasizes the main quality activities, has been reported. The case study also shows quality issues and QMS procedure, implementation problems regarded to analyze the strengths, weaknesses, problems and proposal possible recommendation of solutions to achieve quality and timely progress. However, due to limited time, the report only discusses about consultant supervision in controlling quality management system of a contractor in construction phase. There is remaining of time control, cost control which are very important of project in construction phase.

Strength

1. For quality policy and QMS

- The QMS implemented based on ISO9001 quality approval system with clear organization structure of each member. Project quality plan provides details on company policies and specific requirements of the project. System procedures state how the company policies are to be implemented, what is to be done and who has to do it. Obtaining and maintaining ISO9001 accreditation is a confirmation of top management’s commitment to the customer that a first class service shall be provided jointly by the project.

- The primary goals are to exceed the standards and requirements stipulated by our Clients in terms of quality, time and cost efficiency. The project is treated as if our own, and take great satisfaction and pride in the achievement of these goals.

2. For document, data control and project communication

- Project document are controlled in accordance with company system procedures to ensure the registration, distribution, security, accuracy.

- All incoming and outgoing documents are reviewed for accuracy and adequacy prior to issue and distribution to all relevant parties.

- Project manager shall always ensure that obsolete documents are not used for construction purpose. Invalid and/or obsolete documents shall be removed from the relevant sets of documents unless they are retained for legal and/ or knowledge preservation purposes in which case they shall be clearly identified as a Superseded document.

- Project communication: a clearly system used for this project for internal and external relevant parties. All project information shall be put in daily file and sent circular to all project staffs to read to update and get information to perform project effectively.

3. For construction control and quality control

- Construction management control will be achieved through programming activities. Based on the “For Construction” program including mile stone date, the supervision consultant will check and control detailed programs for each section of works called short term programs.

- Construction control will be achieved through the use of inspection and test plans that detail or reference the required standards to be achieved under contract. Inspection and testing will be carried out on this project to verify that the specified requirements for the product are met

- An non-conformance report will be used to record non-conformities. All non-conformances will be identified and monitored by project quality assurance manager.

Recommendation for further study

1. In order to achieve the efficient of the Quality management System, the responsibility, fulfill task of each member should be clearly identified.

2. Top Management commitment includes:

 - Establishing the quality policy to comply with requirement and continuous improvement.

- Establishing quality objective to meet product requirements

- Reviewing the quality management systems to maintain progress

- Ensuring necessary resource

- Measuring customer satisfaction at all levels

3. Continuous improvements the effectiveness of quality management system through:

- Quality policy

- Objectives

- Audit results

- Data analysis

- Corrective and preventive action

- Management review

4. Focus on the customer and the employee

5. Everybody’s participation into quality management implementation

His thesis abstract is copied and pasted below.

Abstract

The report applies Quality Management System (QMS) ISO 9000 for project management and consultant supervision of a building construction project. It express the key issues in Quality Management System for supervision consultants and contractors. The report describes the quality management system with clear responsibilities of personnel and the role in a plan relating to quality control, quality assurance and quality improvement in construction project. Therefore, the role of supervision consultant is very important to ensure the project to achieve and meet with client requirements.

The report methodology is highlighted as the main philosophy which refers to the theories, local standards system and International Standard Organization ISO 9000. Moreover, the report also collects different source of data including company quality management system, project documents, project agencies, newspapers, construction law and standards in Vietnam. As a result, the study has shown the factors that most effect to project quality plan and the key issues to control project quality and quality management system framework for consultant supervision of a building in construction phase.

In this study, a quality management system of supervision consultant is established. This helps supervision consultant to control quality management system, procedure and implementation to ensure high quality product to meet customer’s requirements, expectations and definition of quality. Furthermore, the study also analysis the strength points, weakness points, quality problems for continuous improvement process to achieve higher demand of customer.

Project Owner’s Quality Management System: A Case Study of Phu Tho Building Resettlement Project

Construction industry is one of the key industries which have been proved through the total capital each year. To manage a project is very complicated because of many elements and parties involves in every phase of the project. Therefore, every project must develop the effective strategy to achieve the success. Thus, quality is the critical problem that should be paid more attention to ensure that the project could be run smoothly and effectively.

If the poor quality management exists the project will face with many difficulties which may lead to the project failures. On the other hands, many problems will occur through conflicts between parties, a lot of waste, rework, claims etc.

Implement the effective Quality management system (QMS) is the critical success factor and require more efforts not only from the project owner but also from the consultants, contractors, suppliers and clients as well.

Mr. Nguyen Huu Ky made a case study on a resettlement project which 2 main objectives were to: (i) study the Quality Management System (QMS) model in a high-rise construction project from the planning phase to construction phase under the owner’s perspective; and (ii) analyze strengths and weakness and provide recommendation for improvement

Conclusion:

Besides a financial support, scheduling and quality plan for the project at the design stage, owners play a key role to deliver a project that meets quality requirements. To achieve this, owners need a system of quality control procedures for their content, manuals and instructions.

Firstly, the QMS of ownership is set up and committed by top manager and clear responsibilities of the members. Secondly, construction, procurement has been developed for selection of contractors and suppliers. Thirdly, the team ensures that the implementation process has to be consistent with the programs and plans submitted by the contractor and approved by the project management team. Finally, the QMS should be reviewed and improved the regular system. In the report, the author analyzed the QMS to find out the strengths and weaknesses under the owner’s perspective.

Moreover, from this case study, the author discussed the efforts of existing systems to improve project quality and effectiveness of the improved method. To reduce the problems of quality, project management team decided to improve the effectiveness of the program QA/QC increases the efficiency of monitoring, improving working conditions for workers and record all unsuitable products. Because of number of reasons, the operation is not enough to improve efficiency.

The result is the frequency of quality problems persist. The author proposed framework that helps the owner to resolve the issues and project management during construction. Framework of quality management system is proposed not only applied in the case, but also other projects.

However, because of time limitations, the report discusses the quality management system of the owners in the construction phase. There is the quality management system design and bidding phase is very important to the quality of projects.

Recommendations:

- Develop the quality commitment slogan with the top managers.

- Develop the full task sheet and attached responsibility. Provide task sheet for all employees.

- The internal audits procedures should be reviewed by the project team to verify.

- Provide the incentive system to motivate employees.

- Quality records must be filed and stored carefully. Explain the meaning of NCR to the contractors and supervisors.

- And encourage them to issue NCR. Training and show examples for site engineers.

- Provide training to engineers and workers. Establish motivation programs/ fine and award programs.

- Consider change to apply ISO in the next project. Train the team to understand and apply the ISO.

- Require the sub-contractors follow and commit with the QMS of the project. Set up penalties when necessary and provide the incentive when they obey the QMS.

- Set up the QA/QC project team focus on analyze the data and evaluate the current situation. This team responsible for report to PM and PD. This team involves every party in the projects.

- Consider develop full manual. Refer to other manual and instruction from other projects or companies which could be applicable.

- Improve coordination with designer in term of design and inspection. Conduct peer review.

- Established change order procedure. Monitor closely the change orders and ensure the Supervisor/ - Contractors are acknowledge.

- Develop the procedure of the information flow chart, responsibility flow chart to control the information.

His thesis abstract is copied and pasted below.

Abstract

The report refers to the issue of quality management in construction projects in Vietnam from the Perspective of the unit owner. The quality of the work plays an important role in the success of the project and should be considered a proper way especially in today's modern environment.

In this report the problem of the quality management system will be discussed and analyzed thoroughly. Through a typical project report will analyze and synthesize the strong points and also limited points in the current quality management system. The key factors affecting the implementation of the quality management system will be given in the report. From the evaluation of which we can draw lessons learned to improve the organization's management system to help improve the efficiency of the project.

The PhuTho resettlement project will be selected to become the typical project. Since the project has been implemented through the method to analyze the situation we will have a clearer view of the quality management system has been applied in Vietnam. Since then develop a system more suitable in the current situation. 

Application of Lean Production Approach in Integrated Project Scheduling Management

Construction project management focuses on the completion on time, ensuring committed quality, and within budget plan. Delay is one of the major problems in construction projects which is defined as the excess time in completing the project as specified in the contract, or project delivery commitments of the parties. Consequences of delay are different for different parties. As for the owner side, delay means loss of revenue due to late operation of the properties and unavailability of the facilities. To the contractor, delay causes increasing overhead and preliminaries costs, higher material costs by inflation, and due to labor cost increases. Delays can also lead serious effects such as lawsuits between the owners and contractors or contract termination. The effects of delay is illustrated below. 

There are lots of researches which have been conducted in different countries with the result that delay problem is a common phenomenon in the construction project; it is more severe in developing countries and Vietnam is not an exception. According to many studies, there are many causes of delay, in which, ineffective planning and scheduling of project by contractor is a major factor because they used so many inadequate assumptions and estimations. Thus, application a right process in project scheduling is essential requirement to improve the delay problem.

Mr. Le Viet Hoa made a research aimed to introduce Lean Production theory and its application in construction projects in Vietnam. It is believed to bring an innovation in the scheduling process. The objectives of his were to: (i) study the theory of Lean Production; (ii) study the application of Lean Production in integrated project scheduling management; and (iii) discuss the benefits and obstacles in applying Lean Production theory in construction project scheduling.

Conclusion

The study introduced current practice in project scheduling management and how to apply the Last Planner System. As the result, the application this theory has so many benefits and obstacles to the construction project.

   

To remove those obstacles, training will be a key factor. All related workers and staff should undergo formal training on how to use this tool in a convenient and efficient way. Although training can lead to increase workload in the early stages of implementation, however, in the long term, it will serve to improve the efficiency of the construction companies and constitute an investment cost from the original training.

Furthermore, there are some issues that would be considered to follow for increasing the success rate of implementation:

-          If the LPS are not carried out in a systematic manner, it will fail. However, the project documents must be fully completed and discussed weekly;

-          The Project Manager must control the LPS, the organizations still needed approval against unsatisfactory performance.

-          The LPS will highlight which of teams don’t perform well. If the data will not be used for  managing performance, the LPS will be discredited and lost benefits; and

-          The LPS will bring out the poor Project Managers. This can trigger training and reassignment.

The thesis abstract is copied and pasted below.

Abstract 

Construction industry in the world in general and in Vietnam in particular is one of the sectors with the greatest contribution to the development of the national economy over the past decades and it also played an important role in creating jobs for employers in the country. However, the industry was faced with poor performance, low productivity, bad quality, delays and cost overruns. With the desire to reduce waste, overproduction and create value added for customers. Lean construction has developed in recent times for the construction sector by increasing the efficiency of the construction process by improving the production process and control the workflow in the construction activities.

Lean construction has been studied and applied successfully in several companies of the western countries and it is a topic that many scholars have been investing effort to further research and applied more effectively. This study tends to introduce the application of Lean construction contractors and construction managers in Vietnam to be able to use and combine other tools to improve project performance.

Manufacturing and Construction have significant characteristics different. In manufacturing, regularly finished products after ex-factory will be transported to the consumers through the distribution channels are wholesalers to the retailers by logistics network systems. In contrast, construction products, great value and cannot be transported. In addition, the construction industry is composed of three important features that is completely different to other industries which are: Onsite production, one-of-a-kind projects, and complexity. Therefore, although the Lean Production was implemented very successfully after the Second World War but the Lean Construction theory is still being developed.

EFFECTIVE PROJECT CULTURE FOR INTERNATIONAL LARGE CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

SEMINAR

EFFECTIVE PROJECT CULTURE FOR INTERNATIONAL LARGE CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

By

Dr. Hadikusumo, CEIM/MPM Coordinator

On 20 Jan 2013, MPM program organized monthly technical seminar with topic for this month is: Effective Project Culture for International Large Construction Projects with the participation of more than 30 participants with many nationalities.

During seminar, Dr. Hadikusumo shared about Large Construction Projects have been perceived as high risks and complex processes. The risks involved technical, commercial and political risks.  And, the processes included Conceptuael, Design, and Construction to Commissioning processes. The situation will get more complicated whn people with different cultures work together in a project. Thus, the understanding and management of cultural dimensions are of paramount important to put people to work together in harmony the complex construction processes.