Project Quality
1. Quality in projects
1. Among four elements of project, "schedule", "cost", "quality" and
"safety", "quality" is often left aside.
2. At commencing the project, all project members gather to consider
risks caused by quality.
3. If attention is always given to "quality", then, "schedule" and "cost"
can be easily accomplished.
2. Importance of quality
1. Requirements by clients to project execution are (1) high
performance, (2) completion as early as possible, (3) high technical
level, (4) inexpensive price, (5) not defective,
2. Mistakes or defects of product quality not only lose clients'
reliability, but also require tremendous quantity of manpowers, time and
expenditure for countermeasures and recovery.
3. Consideration for quality in every phase of project such as contract,
design, purchasing and construction is needed to deliver products with
which clients are satisfied. That is Total Quality Management or TPM.
4. In conclusion, quality is a theme for which all the project members
must participate. A quality assurance department only supports the
project.
3. Quality standards
1. At the contract stage, performances, specifications, standards,
testing and guarantees clients request are clearly described. For example,
definition shall be explicitly made for testing methods of welding parts,
and guarantees of no rain leak 20 years after construction and of no
trouble for one year and a half after machine delivery or for one year
after production start.
2. For this purpose, the company's quality standards shall be submitted
to clients, explaining how far the company's, industry's or national
standards can accomplish clients' requirements.
3. Quality standards to be specially adopted for the project, if any,
shall be well understood by the project members. Influences or risks
shall be predicted on problems specific to the project, such as corrosion
by chemicals, insulation to high temperature, high pressure to reaction
and danger by high speed.
4. Terrifying defects
1. If defects due to
quality malfunction are
found in the project
execution stage, it will be a
disastrous tragedy.
2. Imagine potential
defects produced during
design or manufacturing
appear in the construction
stage, As shown in the
conceptual sketch, the later
the defects are found, the
bigger the damages
become.
3. Recovery costs
consisting of defect removal costs and new installation costs are
practically required. These costs will be higher when the project is
progressed.
4. The schedule will be also affected to recover the defects. This
affect will be bigger when the project is in a final stage.
5. Actually various measures will be taken to prevent the schedule
delay, which will result in increase of the construction cost.
6. In particular, defects after the plant is handed over to the client will
possibly make him request the opportunity loss caused by the plant shut
down.
5. Quality cost
1. Quality cost consist of defect
prevention cost and quality
evaluation cost. The former
includes reviewing design
documents, purchasing
equipment and materials, training
workers' skill, etc.. The latter
includes testing received
equipment and materials, checking
construction works, etc..
2. If contents, products or
performances are checked for
every letter of documents, every
part of equipment and materials or every work of workers, it may realize
"zero defect". The quality cost will be, however, a tremendous sum.
3. On the contrary, the quality cost will be zero if the project is carried
out without quality concept, but the recovery cost will be terribly
increased.
4. Refer to the conceptual figure. Quality management to minimize the
sum of quality cost and recovery cost is adopted. It is important to keep
a quality level to some degree and to correspond to an occurring defect
5. Since 100% quality control is impossible, projects shall be
considered to have some potential defects which will appear some day.
6. Expenses for defects may be said to be a purpose of contingency
fee.
7. In case of new product development projects, the principle of
1:10:100 exists. This means 1:10:100 corressponds to
design:manufacturing: market. If troubles occur, only mistakes shall be
corrected in design stage, works or labors shall be lost by 10 times
inmanufacturing stage, but 100 times expences shall be required for
product recovery in arketing stage. Furthermore, Social reputation is
possibly lost with unfavorable attitude against claimes. Actually, it may
be 1:100:1000.
6. Budget cut
1. At the beginning of or during projects, budgeted cost cuts are often
ordered, A good example is to cut 10% of the design fee.
2. An attention must be paid, for the budget is sometimes cut by
sacrificing the quality.
Progress Initial/peak Final
Design fee 80～90% 20～10%
Contribution to quality 10～20% 90～80%
3. For example, in the stage of 80 to 90% design fee, only 10 to 20%
of quality works are contributed. In the final stage, however, only 10 to
20% design works determine 80 to 90% quality works.
4. The budget cut causes qualitative defects due to skipped viewing
works. The same work omission may occur in the phases like
procurement and construction.
5. If the budget is padded, above problem may not happen. An careful
attention shall be paid to the project with severe budget and without
money and time to spare.
7. Utilization of experiences
1. Qualify problems may occur in repeated projects as well as in new
projects. A great deal of care is given to the innovative technology, but
skipping procedures in fully accustomed projects sometimes causes
serious problems.
2. Troubles and quality problems of various past projects shall be
carefully learned. A termination report must contains not only success
stories but also failure stories. A company must have "corporate culture"
to open up failure without hiding it.
3. If same designers, same suppliers or same contractors are always
adopted so as to avoid failure, no cost cut or technical progress is
expected. Past experiences shall be stored in the form of business or
technical documents, and anyone can be selected as a project member if
he has similar experience and knowledge.
4. In particular, for overseas projects, items understandable implicitly
or as common sense in Japan can not be understood by foreign people.
All information shall be explicitly explained to the people with different
culture and language.
8. One hundred visits to workplaces
1. Defects produced in the phase of design or procurement emerge at
construction sites. The earlier quality defects are found, the faster
measures are taken and the less recovery costs are needed. "One hundred
visits to site" is a term to be often used by a detective for criminal
survey, which will be applied to earlier discovery of defects. A
supervisor shall frequently visit workplaces to observe works and to
speak to site leaders.
2. Site situations change day by day. Defective parts expand everyday
as if a malignant tumor grows. A workplace lying on the surface
yesterday is often hidden by a cover today. Walk around the site, listen
to workers and stay at an important place to observe the situation. An
old saying "A flying crow always catches something" can be applied.
3. Such acts to which persons in charge are liable are not allowed that
they conceal their failure, postpone measures to be taken or entrust
defects to others. The top management and managers must always begin
with thanks to informers and discoverers of defects.
4. In accordance with the project phase, once a week or a month, a
quality audit by the project managers and persons in charge shall be
conducted, The audit themes are determined in advance and the
results are filled in a check sheet during patrol.
5. The safety control starts with housekeeping and workers' manner.
This will be applied to quality control too. Working sites where rules are
followed keeps quality.
Ref: Predictive diagnosis for failure of machinery using Acoustic
Emission technique is introduced on the journal of the JSME
(Dec.2002). Walking around sites may mean discovery of abnormalities
of the workplaces without using an AE sensor.
9. Construction supervisors
In this article, supervision in the case of "FOB + supervisors" contract is
discussed from the view point of quality.
1. Supervisors are dispatched with a mission of proper installation and
starting up of the delivered equipment and materials in the client's plant.
Their jobs, obligations and rights are specified in the
dispatcher agreement.
2. The client places orders the construction works to some contractors
and is liable for the works in the FOB contract which differs from the
Turnkey contract. Supplier's supervisors give instructions for
construction.
3. Supervisors mostly instruct subcontractors to manage quality and
safety matters such as job contents, work schedules, installation manuals
and inspection methods after erection. In other words, quality and safety
are the most concerned item for supervisors. It may be supposed that the
client is liable for the work volume and the supervisors for the work
quality.
4. More defects which frequently occur in plant construction due to
unskilled or few experienced workers or their skipping of
procedures than due to incomplete performance or failure to meet
specifications of equipment and materials. In such cases, the supervisors'
responsibility will be a problem.
5. The supervisors can not supervise all workers and can not instruct
them continuously through their working time. It is important to give
instructions with written paper, not orally, to construction workers
through the client's responsible person.
6. The principal job of supervisors is to find and solve quality and
safety problems as early as possible. For this purpose, they must keep
constant contacts with client's persons in charge and contractors to hold
good communication and get confidence.
10.A pinch is a chance
1. Various problems arise in project execution. “Changes and
Negotiation” explained in this home page is one of the problems. Here,
project manager’s attitude for problems resulted from design and
construction is discussed.
2. At first, a project manager has to learn problems and failures that
occurred until the technology employed in the project was completed. It
goes without saying that he has to acquire a broad common sense on
various projects.
3. Nothing is more dangerous than believing that any problem cannot
occur as the company has an actual experience or persons in charge are
reliable.
4. The technology to be offered abroad is not one under development but
one already completed or ripened. The completed technology is often
stiffened and causes problems as it cannot correspond with changes in
environment and times.
5. Persons in charge of the completed technology often have no
experience of failure with a narrow technical knowledge and sometimes
stay in mannerism. They cannot oversee the whole, focusing their
consideration on local and partial points in case of changes and
alterations. This is one of reasons to cause problems.
6. Murphy’s principle law is “If anything can go wrong, it will.” If you
believe that a problem surely arises someday in a project, you can raise
an antenna overhead to find a problem earlier. According to the
Heinrich’s law of 1:29:300 explained in Project Safety, a number of
trifle problems may occur prior to an outbreak of serious problem. An
expert of experience often notices a problem, just watching the site.
7. A project manager must show his skill when a problem arises. A
project manager must consider he exists for dealing with a problem.
8. It is the project manager’s turn to fulfill his duties at encountering a
problem. You should not be proud of finding a problem. Your failure
may be pleasant to others. It is important to praise a person who gave a
chance or a notice for finding a problem.
9. How a project manager deals with a problem and solves it determines
his ability. A pinch is a chance.
10. When a problem is found, you must frankly admit it. You should not
hush up the problem, caring about the person or the organization that
caused the problem. The problem cannot be solved even if the
responsible person is blamed. Besides, his cooperation should be asked.
It is important to let him recognize that taking a responsibility is to think
of the solution, clarifying the cause of troubles.
11. One is apt to close his eyes to the problem and hide it, if its cause
belongs to him or his organization. Considering that it is shameful
behavior as a human being or an engineer to leave the problem as it is
and to finish the project, you have not any other choice.
12. At first, observe the problem and survey the range of its influences.
According to seriousness of the problem, choose the person or the
organization to consult with. The important advisers are your superiors
or project managers with rich experience.
13. Do not keep the problem within yourself and worry about it alone.
Then, the problem grows and measures to be taken now cannot be taken
later. Left to themselves, things tend to go from to worse (Murphy’s
law). The most troublesome person in an organization is one who
proposes the problem after raising it. Do not forget the spirit of
reporting, communication and consultation to related persons. Always
keep in mind these three actions.
14. Establish a problem solving team within the project team, making
clear its target, time limit and expenses. Open above fact to the related
people in the same way as the project started. In actual, measures are
taken secretly within the organization and the organization’s atmosphere
often becomes worse.
15. It is a crime against the project team and the company organization
as well as the client to hide the problem from others and postpone the
solution, for fear of its leading to your failure.
16. A project manger must take responsibilities for problems or failures
of the project, which bring him a stain upon his reputation. You must not
undertake a project manager, if problems or failures cannot be opened in
the organization.
17. A project surely finishes someday whichever form it takes. A project
may be disappeared, minimized, frozen on the way or completed in the
red. In any way, however, the project will finish and the team will be
broken up. In this elapse of time, activities of the project manger are
questioned. Even in case of project completion different from the
original plan, the project manager must take his responsibility with
attitude free from shame.
18. A project manager is responsible for preventing the recurrence of the
problems, recording them after their handling was complete. He must
make a summary on contents, history, causes and countermeasures, and
propose means for prevention of the recurrence.
19. A project remains in coming ages even if it is completed in the red.
The plant starts operation even if a big accident or trouble happened.
The pleasure as a project manger is to have done the best through the
project execution and not to receive an award or an honor.
（Note ： Regarding to Article 5 and 6, "Project Management" by Harold
Kerzner, 1998, is referred ）
