Part 1  -   Challenges, the Laws of Physics, Project/Construction Management and Reality

 

Project/Contract Quality 

The normal practice in projects is all participants are responsible for quality.   But an Owner’s Contracting Office (CO) professes that a contractor is solely responsible for the quality of contracted work.   Consequently, the Construction Management Office (CMO) interprets that the Construction Manager (CM) is not responsible or accountable for contractor quality and workmanship or for quality assurance in the construction management plan.   As a result, the CO’s belief perpetuates the understanding by the CMO and Project Management Office (PMO) that the contractor is solely accountable to comply with the contract and make corrective actions at their own expense.  

A standard Construction Management Plan (CMP) includes a quality assurance plan that establishes the monitoring practices, tools and techniques and the documentation for validating quality is met.   Quality requirements are identified in contracts, project plans and program plans.   And for projects funded by the federal government, there are specific requirements for an independent organizational silo that is responsible for quality control and quality assurance.  

• Quality control is the process, means and methods, checklists to identify the requirements and to record actual measurements, and to define pass/fail criteria. 
• Quality assurance is the process of reviewing quality control plans, monitoring quality control processes, monitoring quality control documentation, verifying segregation of rejected deliverables, and validating corrected products meet contract requirements.

With the contractor solely responsible for the quality of its own work, the PMO supports the CMO’s use of a skeleton staff for observing the work and monitoring progress.   As a result, the CM typically splits work assignments between in-office administrative activities and field visits to multiple construction sites.   While on-site, the CM does not allow its staff to directly execute typical responsibilities in the construction industry such as:

• Review contract drawings and shop drawings with the contractors’ in-progress or completed work
• Issue Corrective Action Requests (CARs) to address poor quality, incorrect installations or resolving conflicts with space that is allocated for future contract work
• Issue Field Change Requests (FCRs) to address differing site conditions or coordination of work with predecessor contract work and adjacent contractors.

By the CO’s interpretation, the PMO and CMO are not required to continuously and proactively monitor the contractor’s work and to direct the contractor, which would mitigate the risk that the work is unacceptable or uncorrectable at final inspection.  As a result, the CO is accepting the risks for: 

• Poor quality of contractor work will be identified by CM and Owner during the final inspection
• Corrective action on contractor work after final inspection will impact contract schedule and create consequential costs.     

Reality A

According to the Construction Management Association of America (www.CMAAnet.org), construction management professionals provide a vital service on projects:

• They typically do not perform the actual construction tasks themselves, but act as advisors, charged with assuring the project progresses smoothly and achieves the owner’s business objectives.
• These specialists oversee different aspects of the project including: scheduling, safety, cost estimating, design, quality assurance, value engineering, commissioning, construction inspection, risk management, and more. Most CMs have backgrounds in civil engineering; many are contractors or architects. 

Reality B

Quality managers are often under-utilized, under-appreciated by project managers, and miss-understood by many others.   But they are a valuable resource for planning preventive actions to avoid quality problems and for corrective actions to resolve quality problems that occur on purchased materials, construction products and system deliverables.   Under these conditions, Quality personnel will take leadership roles to:

• Enforce contractor compliance with contract requirements and approved quality plans
• Verify the CM is following an appropriate construction management plan and project quality plan
• Monitor PMO implementation of a Quality Management System that uses the best industry practices for the domain scope.  

Reality C

At final inspection, early work that is observed and found non-compliant may not be correctible to comply with contract requirements because it is no longer possible or practical due to limited access and the installation of later work.   As a result, corrective action may require a major construction effort that impacts project expenses and schedule or may create major changes in successor contracts to adapt to non-compliant work that is accepted by the CM, CO and Owner as-installed.

Federal government requirements for construction management can be found at https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/docs/FTA_Construction_Project_Management_Handbook_2016.pdf.

Role of the Consultant Construction Manager

For all but the simplest project, you will need project staff with expertise and experience in construction management beyond the capability and capacity of the Agency’s regular employees, for which the Agency will need to retain a (CM) consultant. The CM acts as the Agency’s representative with the contractors, oversees what work the contractors perform pursuant to the contract drawings and specifications, inspects the work as acceptable, and recommends payment of contractor invoices. The key CM staff person is the resident engineer (RE), who is principal point of contact with the contractor and is stationed at the site for larger projects, and for smaller projects visits the construction site one or more days a week.