Owner’s Project Quality Management System: A Case Study of Bored Piles Part of High Rise Building Project for Resettlement of People Relocated

The Ministry of Construction in Vietnam has issued new codes and standards in order to improve the quality and safety of the project and address the high requirement and concerns from the clients. However, some high-rise building projects for resettlement are doubted having quality problems during construction phase and after putting into operation. These projects might have various defects but the main factor causing quality problems is quality management system of the company.

Mr. Hua Van Hung made a study aimed to:

1. study the Owner’s project quality management practices from literature view

2. study the Owner’s project quality management practices in bored piles part of high rise building project for resettlement of people relocated.

3. develop Owner’s project management strategy framework for this part of high rise building project for resettlement of people relocated

4. discuss strengths and weaknesses

5. propose recommendations

6. develop a Quality Management System framework.

Conclusion

The Owner’s Quality Management System is responsible in managing the implementation of the quality management system of the Contractors’ construction works. Aside from the financial, scheduling planning and all contractual requirements at optimum cost and time, it is also responsible to oversee that the project meets the quality requirements.

In order to achieve it, the Owner should think the term Quality Management System (QMS) and refers collectively to the series of inter-related processes intended to manage the planning, design and construction activities necessary to deliver projects. The QMS serves as the vehicle to communicate and ensure to understand the contractual requirements and the process to be followed for successful project delivery.

First, the Owner’s Quality Management System should be established and the top management has to be committed. The Project Manager shall organize the project team and ensure that qualified and experienced staff is appointed for each position with clear responsibilities.

Secondly, procurement in construction has been developed for selection of contractors and suppliers, which are handled under close coordination with project engineer, in order to produce effective results from the project’s technical and management stand-point.

Thirdly, the project team is responsible for ensuring that the construction project performed meets the requirements established by the owner and also responsible for preparing the quality assurance manual together with quality control standards, and ensuring continuous monitoring and inspection is being performed by the QA/QC officers to guarantee that the QA/QC standards, procedures and tests are implemented throughout the project construction.

Lastly, the Quality Management System should regularly improve and review the effectiveness of the system.

In this project case, a part of bored piles construction of high rise building was an option, because this structure becomes popular in construction nowadays. The Quality Management System from the Owner’s project in the construction phase has been anatomized and pointed some strengths and weaknesses of the existing system. Moreover, the effort from this existing system has been discussed and improved project quality via this case study project. In order to reduce some problems in project’s quality, the Project Management team has made a decision to strengthen and increase the efficiency of Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC) programs, speed up and increase the efficiency of supervision work from Consultant, improve health and safety measures and record all non-conformance products. Due to some impacts and reasons, activities from improvement are not efficiently enough. As a result, the frequency of problems in quality is not completely reduced.

The author proposed some solutions for improving the efficiency of Quality Management System, and also proposed frameworks to help the Owner in solving problems and managing the quality project during the construction phase. In conclusion, this proposed framework, if effectively implemented would generate not only in this case project but also for the other project for all parties in the construction industry.

However, due to time constraint, this report only discussed the information relating to the Owner’s quality management system in the construction phase. In addition, there are remaining of quality management system in design and tendering phase, two phases are considered an important roles to the project quality.  

Recommendations

·     In order to ensure the efficiency of the Quality Management System, define clearly the responsibilities and designate appropriate members of the project team. When the member of the project team and their sub-consultants are competent and has teamwork, chances of quality are greatly increased.

·    Company quality manual would normally be produced by head office and authorized by the Chief Executive. It should set out the policy, organization and rules to implement company quality policy

·    Manufacturers’ and suppliers’ literature and instruction in procurement of construction should be developed and improved. Specifications often contain the requirement “to be fixed strictly in accordance with the manufactures’ instruction”. It follows, therefore, that these instructions become part of the contractual requirements, so when starting a project make sure that all such manufactures or supplier information is available on site.

·     Let the Contractor always understand that work performance has met in accordance with programs. Plan is a must.

·    Project Communication on a construction site must take place at all levels for a variety of reasons. All meetings involving the Contractor should be accurately informed for future references. Clear communication information such as requirements, expectations, scope, cost, schedules and technical data are vital elements in producing quality in constructed project.

·    One of the very basic requirements of a quality construction program is that the construction site must be kept clean. Materials and equipments must be neatly stored for future use. The reason is very simple. If a person comes to work and the workplace is disorganized, it will be difficult for him to believe that quality work is really a priority. The result is that an undesirable attitude would already be established for lack of quality. Conversely, if the worker arrives at the site that is clean, neat and orderly, a quality image is set. The worker can perform his tasks without interference. And lastly, in addition to the site cleanliness, another basic criterion on any quality construction program would be site safety, and this safety practices must be followed during construction.  

His thesis abstract is copied and posted.

Abstract

Construction activities is an important factor that contribute to gross domestic product (GDP) in most industrialized and developing countries contributes significantly to universal economic growth (Walsh and Sawhney, 2002). With growing commercialization of human activities, construction industry has been a major commercial activity. Stakes (capital investment) became high as technology advanced. Huge construction projects have been common. Large roads and rails system are taken up. Huge urban centers have been sprung up. Increasingly more and more people are getting engaged in construction and allied industries all over the world.

Unlike the construction sector, it is well-known precept that the manufacturing industry has notably well-instituted quality systems. This is due to the differing nature of the two-sectors. Manufacturing calls for repeat process with products primary put out in large batches. On the other hand, construction activities is undertaken in the main in single batches or projects (i.e. one building, one bridge, etc.). Although many of basic processes are repeated from job to job (e.g. concreting and plastering), the specifics of application are always changing. However, this is not to say that management systems, which have worked well in the manufacturing industry, cannot be applied to construction. Explains the rationale for project performances in construction phase, and then discusses the proposed solutions on how to get better performance for any cases especially bored piles part of high rise building project for resettlement for relocated people.

Quality is one of the critical factors in the success of construction projects. Quality of construction, as well as project success, can be considered as the fulfillment of expectations of the project participants. The construction sector in Vietnam has been struggling with quality issues for many years.

Regarding to the practice process, this report has also built the quality management system framework to serve as a management tool for developing next projects.