Quality Management in Construction Projects: A Case Study of Quality Management in Construction Projects of an Oil and Gas Company

In recent years, Vietnam faces some big problems on the quality of performance during construction, causing damage to people and property. The reason was the lack of strict management on quality design and design verification in some works. The quality management in on site construction does not comply with state regulations and technical supervision.

Quality in construction may be better understood by its characterization: “meeting the requirements of the contractor as to provision of contract plans, specifications and other documents prepared in sufficient detail to permit the constructor, to prepare price proposals or competitive bids, timely decisions by the owner and design professional on authorization and processing of change orders, fair and timely interpretation of contract requirements from field design and inspection staff, and contract for performance of work on reasonable schedule which permits a reasonable.”

Quality in the construction project is also characterized by complete and open communication among all project parties, selection of qualified organizations and personnel by owner for all phases of the project, change orders in publicly bid projects within a predetermined budget, rapid resolution of conflicts and disagreement, and absence of litigation (ASCE 1988).

Providing quality in the construction of a project costs less, is safer to the public and site personnel and minimizes disagreements and subsequent litigation. Quality in construction results in significant benefits for the constructor (ASCE 1988).

Currently, although businesses involved in construction activities will apply quality management systems, but in practice there are lots of poor works that worries people and society. Consequences of poor quality can be damage to property and waste of money on business and community. It may also cause danger to people.

To ensure the effective application of quality management for construction projects, it requires strong commitment of business leaders and implementation of multiple solutions. Effective quality management can bring many potential benefits for businesses.

Mr. Le Van Thong made a study which main objectives were as follows: (1) Determination of quality management activities in the construction in the Oil and Gas Company; and (2) to discuss and review the effectiveness of quality management in construction of the Oil and Gas Company

Conclusions

Quality management system has been applied by PTSC companies in their projects. It brings success to the company for many years now, and became a famous company in the international market in oil and gas technical services industry in Vietnam. They have useful tools to avoid and mitigate problems and to improve quality performances with their projects. They have principles that, management is used to achieve effective cost control, quality control, schedule control etc. Many civil and industrial construction companies in developed countries have been applied successful Quality Management and got more profits, reduced time overrun and cost for reworks. They recognized the importance of the Quality Management, to identify, assess, prevent and manage all breakdowns and risks to projects, damage to property and working environment.

The quality improvement programs establish actions for achieving the objectives and targets, in line with the policy commitment of continuous improvement. When establishing targets, the following will be taken into consideration:
- Who do? How? Who supervise the provision of information; as executive / coordination / control is assigned in advance and all agents involved must comply.
- The system clearly and closely flexibility have created a positive consequence of works completed on schedule, ensure quality and safety.

Effectiveness of the quality management implementation:

After quality management implementation, there are some achieved results as listed below:
- Quality Assurance is to obtain completed construction that meets all contract requirements. Assurance is defined as a degree of certainty. Quality assurance personnel continually assure that the contractor's works comply with contract requirements.

- Quality Control is the successful execution of a realistic plan to ensure that the required standards of quality construction will be met. In QC, the contractor defines procedures to manage and control his own, designer of record, consultant, architect-engineer, all subcontractor and all supplier activities so that the completed project complies with contract requirements. For design-build contracts, this includes providing and maintaining a Design Quality Control plan as a part of the overall contract QC plan. This plan, as a minimum, must assure that all documents are reviewed by a technically competent, independent reviewer specifically named in the plan. This review cannot be performed by the same designers that produced the product. The design QC plan must be managed by a Design QC Manager who has verifiable engineering or architectural design experience or is a registered engineer or architect. The Design QC Manager is under the supervision of the QC Manager.

Recommendations

- The performance of Quality Management must be carried out permanently in the company to prevent all budget overrun, slow progress, reworks that might be happening from the existing projects and future projects.

- The performance of Quality Management must be a concerned from the top management to each one in the company.

- Examine the quality control methods being used to determine if the contractor is properly controlling design activities in design-build contracts.

- Examine the quality control methods being used to determine if the contractor is properly controlling construction activities.

- Make certain that the necessary changes are made in the contractor's QC system, if excessive construction deficiencies occur.

- Assist the contractor in understanding and implementing the contract requirements.

- Examine ongoing and completed work.

- Produce the quality specified in the plans and specifications and for design-build contracts in the Request for Proposal, as well as the contractor's accepted proposal.

- Develop and maintain an effective QC system.

- Perform all control activities and tests.

- Prepare acceptable documentation of QC activities.

His thesis abstract is copied and posted.

Abstract

In an organization or business will have a lot of construction projects, any project also is importance. Ensure the quality of the project is very important for each organization. Aware of that, the quality management has been applied widely in their construction projects. But how apply the successful model of quality management for a construction project that is still a big question.

Organizations in Vietnam as some other countries, in face, the signers disclaim the possibility of anticipating and detailing everything in the construction documents. Second, it is unstable for the construction environment. The complexity and size of project vary. Working conditions can not be somewhat control. The employee is variable; its composition, motivation and size change. Cooperation between contractor and subcontractors is problematic. Those will affect the quality management of construction projects and it makes the project to delay, re-work and increase cost.

So, how to manage the quality of the construction project effectively? This thesis will research about quality management in construction project through theory and real case that is applied in PTSC Production Services Company.