One of the main questions to answer when setting up a quality program is whether to centralize or decentralize the team, tools, and systems. J.L. Ashford’s book, The Management of Quality in Construction, clearly establishes the difference between each. Regarding centralized quality programs, from pages 55 to 56: “Under a centralized system, these operations [quality […]
Category: Quality
Why Quality Programs Exist (and my conversation about it with ChatGPT)
I wrote a few weeks ago in the newsletter about how they achieved quality constructing the Empire State Building without the formal quality programs we have today. I’ve been trying to dig deeper on this topic for three years with no luck. (If anyone has any solid resources, please contact me.) Given my research struggles, […]
Advancing Construction Quality 2024 – Phoenix, AZ
I’m a huge fan of Hanson Wade’s “Advancing Construction” conference series. I’ve attended the Design Quality Management, Operational Excellence, and Construction Quality sessions the past few years and have become a regular presenter. (I most recently gave a presentation on checklists at the Design Quality Management conference in Chicago). These conferences are great opportunities to […]
Simplifying Our Quality Systems
How can we simplify our quality systems? Project quality plans are often diluted – spread out across multiple documents and shared locations. Even our terminology – quality management, quality assurance, quality control – is too complicated for the teams in the field installing the work. Project teams are incentivized to utilize cumbersome corporate processes, yet […]
More on Quality Responsibility
I recently read about the idea of construction leaders writing the work instructions for processes they utilize – such as their quality programs – instead of a corporate overhead resource. I’m still reflecting on this and not sure if I agree. My guess is most of you will find it extremely contrary to our modern […]