Our “quality language” needs to be simplified before we can solve any industry-wide quality problems. This requires refinement of terms like quality, quality assurance, and quality control.
I’ve struggled to find meaningful, tangible definitions for quality, quality assurance, and quality control – specifically for design and construction. Searching “quality assurance” in the ISO 9001-2015 (fifth edition) yields zero results. ASQ defines quality assurance as the “part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will [my emphasis- more on this later] be fulfilled.” In “The Management of Quality in Construction,” Ashford has a similar definition: “All those planned and systematic actions necessary to provide adequate confidence that a product or service will [again, my emphasis] satisfy given requirements for quality” (47). In “Managing Quality in Architecture,” Nelson describes quality assurance as having a focus on the client: “QA is best understood as express or implied promises to the client” (27). Oakland in “Total Construction Management: Lean Quality in Construction Project Delivery” defines quality assurance as “the activity of checking […] making sure that the product or service represents the output from an effective system to ensure capability and control” (33).
With what I’m about to say, I do not intend to offend any of the cited sources or their authors. These definitions are helpful, but not consistent. If I’m a project manager, superintendent, or architect, and I’m thinking about quality assurance, I need to know exactly what it means in relation to what I’m trying to accomplish in my work and role. The previous definitions do not address the problem of our need for one common “quality” language in the industry – rather they further diffuse it. It’s no wonder many project teams do not understand what quality actually is in design and construction. None of these definitions answer the question for the architect, superintendent, or project manager: “Why am I doing this specific task as part of quality?”
This goes back to my mission: simplify quality for all. How do we translate the meaning of quality assurance to a project manager, superintendent, or architect? They need to understand their system to utilize it. If they do not understand the system because the terminology or system itself is too complicated, the system will not get used and we rob our teams of the ability to produce quality work. (Assuming positive intent with our teams means failure is a fault of the system, or of management not simplifying and streamlining it.)
It wasn’t until I read “Quality in the Constructed Project: A Guide for Owners, Designers, and Constructors” that quality assurance became more palpable for me. “QA and QC are two separate functions” (191). This statement resonated with me. I was hopeful that I’d found a clear definition until I read on and came across the following sentence: “[…] QA refers to quality assurance activities that are the responsibility of the owner or its agent. QC refers to quality control activities that are the responsibility of the design professional and constructor.” While this is true from a contractual standpoint, it is not tactical or simple. This means that the designer and contractor have no quality assurance responsibility (they do) and it assumes most owners are sufficiently experienced in design and construction to understand and manage quality assurance themselves (they’re not).
I dug deeper, holding onto the idea that “assurance” and “control” were indeed two separate sets of activities. (While this may not be new information for many quality professionals in the industry, I admit it was to me.) I’m hesitant to admit that Wikipedia helped me get a better understanding:
“Quality assurance is the idea of ‘defect prevention’, while quality control is ‘defect detection’.”
Then I read further in Oakland’s “Total Quality Management”:
“Quality assurance is the prevention [emphasis is my own] of quality problems through planned and systematic activities” (38).
How do we apply this to design and construction? How do we establish a tangible, standard meaning for quality assurance in the industry?
Note my previous emphasis on the word will. Combine that with prevention. Both terms refer to some future state. I may get a lot of negative feedback writing this, but in design and construction, quality assurance is not monitoring or verifying the quality of the product or service meets the specified requirements. That is quality control (a state of the past, what’s already occurred or been installed). Monitoring and verifying are done via inspection with use of a checklist, which can only occur after the work started. If the work didn’t start, there’s nothing to inspect, thus nothing to control. If there’s nothing to control, we can only assure. Clarity on this point comes from the effectiveness of inspections. Inspections only tell us when work is installed incorrectly, thus inspections are not an effective tool for prevention. (See my notes on “The Checklist Manifesto” for more on this topic.)
To simplify the definitions for quality assurance and quality control, I propose the following:
The difference between quality assurance and quality control is the start of the work.
Any activity prior to the start of the work is quality assurance. Activities occurring after the work starts are part of quality control.
To assure the work will be installed per the requirements, we need to plan. Those planning activities are all part of quality assurance:
- Preparatory / Preconstruction / Pre-Installation Meetings (regardless of whether your organization thinks of these as specific to a subcontractor / trade or Definable Feature of Work / task).
- The first phase of USACE’s 3-Phase system would be considered quality assurance.
- Setting budgets for 3rd party / special consultants.
- Client discussions / understanding your client’s intent.
- Planning / preventing the occurrence of a problem.
- Once the work is installed (started), we can only prevent the recurrence of a future similar problem.
- Creating inspection checklists.
My main point in clearly delineating between assurance and control is that depending on what activity you are performing – either before or after the work starts – depends on the type of checklist or tool you will need to use. It helps our teams understand that there are specific activities that can only be done as part of quality assurance – before the work starts – to prevent a problem from occurring.
If project teams can’t tell the difference, they don’t know what to do and what types of questions to ask.
Cited Sources
- American Society of Civil Engineers. Quality in the Constructed Project: A Guide for Owners, Designers, and Constructors. Reston, VA, 2012.
- American Society for Quality. “Quality Assurance and Quality Control.” https://asq.org/quality-resources/quality-assurance-vs-control
- Ashford, J.L. The Management of Quality in Construction. New York, NY, TJ Press, 1989.
- Nelson, Charles. Managing Quality in Architecture: Integrating BIM, Risk & Design Process. New York, NY, Routledge, 2017.
- Oakland, John S. Marosszeky, Marton. Total Construction Management: Lean Quality in Construction Project Delivery. New York, NY, Routledge, 2017.
- Wikipedia. “QA/QC.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QA/QC.
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