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.