Quality assurance in the planning process

Plan­ning errors cost time, mon­ey and some­times jeop­ar­dise the over­all suc­cess of the project. Indus­tri­al plan­ning projects are not about track­ing down errors ret­ro­spec­tive­ly. The focus is on organ­is­ing com­plex inter­re­la­tion­ships at an ear­ly stage and mak­ing them man­age­able. Sol­id qual­i­ty assur­ance there­fore ensures that risks do not arise in the first place.

This arti­cle shows you why Project Qual­i­ty Man­age­ment (PQM) is impor­tant, how respon­si­bil­i­ties are allo­cat­ed and address­es the require­ments of the SIA 2007:2001 stan­dard. In addi­tion, we at SOLTIC share with you our expe­ri­ence of qual­i­ty assur­ance in the plan­ning process.

Three SOLTIC employees look at planning documents spread out on a table

Project quality management: sustainable planning

Qual­i­ty assur­ance in the plan­ning process focuss­es on the per­for­mance and reli­a­bil­i­ty of plan­ning ser­vices. It does not pri­mar­i­ly serve the pur­pose of con­trol, but rather the sys­tem­at­ic mas­tery of com­plex­i­ty.

Con­struc­tion and infra­struc­ture projects bring togeth­er a large num­ber of stake­hold­ers, inter­faces, stan­dards and depen­den­cies. With­out struc­tured project qual­i­ty man­age­ment, there is a risk that func­tion­al, sched­ul­ing or eco­nom­ic require­ments will not be ful­ly met.

The SIA stan­dard 2007:2001 “Qual­i­ty in Con­struc­tion — Devel­op­ment and Appli­ca­tion of Man­age­ment Sys­tems” under­stands qual­i­ty as the inter­play of prod­uct, process and organ­i­sa­tion­al qual­i­ty. It demands that qual­i­ty in the con­struc­tion indus­try is not under­stood as an end result, but as the result of a planned and doc­u­ment­ed process.

Qual­i­ty assur­ance is there­fore part of the man­age­ment task of every project. It enables trans­paren­cy, trace­abil­i­ty and a con­tin­u­ous improve­ment process.

Prac­tised project qual­i­ty man­age­ment has two effects:

  • Tools for project suc­cess
    Risks are recog­nised at an ear­ly stage, devi­a­tions are cor­rect­ed and addi­tion­al costs are avoid­ed.
  • Knowl­edge build­ing in the com­pa­ny
    Expe­ri­ence between projects is sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly fed back, which con­tributes to organ­i­sa­tion­al devel­op­ment.

Tasks of the client vs. tasks of the planner

Qual­i­ty man­age­ment is a joint respon­si­bil­i­ty of the client and the plan­ner. The tasks dif­fer, but com­ple­ment each oth­er in the goal of achiev­ing a func­tion­al­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly opti­mised result.

Responsibilities of the client

The client is respon­si­ble for the qual­i­ty of the tar­get def­i­n­i­tion. This includes

  • Require­ments plan­ning
  • Descrip­tion of the func­tion­al require­ments
  • Deter­mi­na­tion of cost and dead­line tar­gets
  • Deci­sion on the applic­a­ble norms and stan­dards

Only if the ini­tial para­me­ters are clear­ly defined can the plan­ner trans­late them into a ver­i­fi­able per­for­mance process. In prac­tice, it has been shown that clients need sup­port above all in plan­ning require­ments and defin­ing spec­i­fi­ca­tions. SOLTIC’s expe­ri­enced team will sup­port the client in defin­ing objec­tives if required, in order to cre­ate a sol­id foun­da­tion for plan­ning.

Responsibilities of the planner

The plan­ner — in the case of com­plex projects usu­al­ly the Gen­er­al plan­ner — is respon­si­ble for the qual­i­ty of tar­get achieve­ment. This includes

  • Method­i­cal plan­ning
  • Coor­di­na­tion of all par­ties involved
  • Ensur­ing tech­ni­cal accu­ra­cy
  • Doc­u­men­ta­tion of the work steps and basis for deci­sion-mak­ing

Accord­ing to SIA 2007, the plan­ner is oblig­ed to apply the qual­i­ty man­age­ment sys­tem spec­i­fied or joint­ly defined by the client. He must doc­u­ment his process­es and reg­u­lar­ly review their effec­tive­ness.

Risks are to be reduced in a tar­get­ed man­ner and oppor­tu­ni­ties utilised through suit­able mea­sures. This is based on the client’s risk strat­e­gy, which defines which project par­tic­i­pants are respon­si­ble for indi­vid­ual risk aspects and which risks are trans­ferred or accept­ed. The plan­ning and imple­men­ta­tion of the cor­re­spond­ing mea­sures is the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the rel­e­vant depart­ments and serves to effec­tive­ly man­age the iden­ti­fied project risks.

Challenges in practice

In prac­tice, qual­i­ty prob­lems often arise at the inter­faces between the client, gen­er­al plan­ner and spe­cial­ist plan­ners. Par­tic­u­lar­ly in large projects with sev­er­al con­tract lev­els, respon­si­bil­i­ties can become unclear.

Our expe­ri­ence from project prac­tice shows that it is pre­cise­ly at these inter­faces that con­sis­tent clar­i­fi­ca­tion of roles and com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels is cru­cial in order to avoid delays, sup­ple­ments or dupli­ca­tion. The clear sep­a­ra­tion of roles with shared respon­si­bil­i­ty is the core of a func­tion­ing qual­i­ty cul­ture.

Structure of quality management

An effec­tive qual­i­ty man­age­ment sys­tem must be both struc­tured and adapt­ed to the size and com­plex­i­ty of a project. Ide­al­ly, the struc­ture should fol­low the phas­es of SIA 112 and the plan­ning and deci­sion-mak­ing stages defined there­in.

Project qual­i­ty man­age­ment is divid­ed into three cen­tral process­es:

  1. Qual­i­ty plan­ning
    Def­i­n­i­tion of qual­i­ty objec­tives, inspec­tion points and respon­si­bil­i­ties for each plan­ning phase
  2. Qual­i­ty assur­ance
    Mon­i­tor­ing and doc­u­men­ta­tion of ongo­ing process­es, check­ing plan­ning doc­u­ments and inter­faces
  3. Improv­ing qual­i­ty
    Fol­low-up, lessons learnt and adap­ta­tion of meth­ods for future projects.

At SOLTIC, this prin­ci­ple is imple­ment­ed in a prac­ti­cal struc­ture that com­bines two key ele­ments:

  • Project mon­i­tor­ing
    We assess each project on a quar­ter­ly basis using a stan­dard­ised mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem. In doing so, we assess and doc­u­ment the risks in the dimen­sions of qual­i­ty, costs and dead­lines. Devi­a­tions are dis­cussed in the project team and sta­bil­i­sa­tion mea­sures are defined if nec­es­sary. This mon­i­tor­ing does not serve as an exter­nal con­trol instru­ment, but as a tool for self-man­age­ment with­in the project.
  • Coach­ing by the man­age­ment
    Par­al­lel to project mon­i­tor­ing, each project man­ag­er is accom­pa­nied by a mem­ber of the man­age­ment team. Both dis­cuss project risks, deci­sion-mak­ing process­es and resource issues in reg­u­lar coach­ing ses­sions. These meet­ings cre­ate spaces for reflec­tion in which oper­a­tional issues can be dis­cussed with a strate­gic per­spec­tive. This pro­motes the qual­i­ty of deci­sions and strength­ens the per­son­al respon­si­bil­i­ty of the project man­agers.

Win-win: ful­fils SIA require­ments and is lean

This com­bi­na­tion of sys­tem­at­ic mon­i­tor­ing and per­son­al coach­ing ful­fils the require­ments of SIA 2007 for inter­nal audits, but is delib­er­ate­ly designed to be lean and prac­tice-ori­ent­ed. It focuss­es on the effec­tive­ness, not the for­mal­i­ty of the sys­tem. Expe­ri­ence shows that plan­ning errors, coor­di­na­tion gaps and sched­ule devi­a­tions can be iden­ti­fied at an ear­ly stage — even before they become struc­tural­ly or finan­cial­ly rel­e­vant.

Challenges in practice and solutions 

In prac­tice, qual­i­ty assur­ance rarely fails due to a lack of pro­ce­dures, but rather due to their con­sis­tent appli­ca­tion. The great­est chal­lenges lie in the man­age­ment of resources, inter­faces and com­mu­ni­ca­tion. 

They are the most fre­quent trig­ger for qual­i­ty assur­ance cut­backs. In phas­es of increased work­load, plan checks or doc­u­men­ta­tion steps are short­ened in order to gain time in the short term.

Solu­tion: It is more sus­tain­able to pri­ori­tise QA inspec­tion points accord­ing to their risk poten­tial and thus deploy resources in a tar­get­ed man­ner.

Where sev­er­al spe­cial­ist plan­ners work in par­al­lel, over­laps and depen­den­cies inevitably arise. Com­plex projects require team­work. A plan­ning team can­not be man­aged on the basis of inter­face or deliv­er­ables lists. The result would be that those involved do not work togeth­er on the over­all task and do not see them­selves as a team work­ing in part­ner­ship to devel­op the best solu­tion.

Solu­tion: It goes with­out say­ing that the basis of coop­er­a­tion in a project team is that the bound­aries and inter­faces as well as the plan­ning team’s deliv­ery objects are pro­fes­sion­al­ly defined at the start of the project (both with­in the project team and with the client). A struc­tured matrix of respon­si­bil­i­ties (e.g. RACI mod­el) and reg­u­lar coor­di­na­tion meet­ings with doc­u­ment­ed deci­sions reduce sources of error and facil­i­tate trace­abil­i­ty.

How­ev­er, the over­all man­ag­er is also a team coach. He steers and directs the col­lab­o­ra­tion. The focus is on achiev­ing com­mon goals. Keep­ing the team spir­it and moti­va­tion high at all times is a key recipe for suc­cess in com­plex con­struc­tion projects.

If expe­ri­enced employ­ees leave, they take project-spe­cif­ic exper­tise with them. This weak­ens con­ti­nu­ity. Train­ing new team mem­bers takes time and increas­es the sus­cep­ti­bil­i­ty to errors.

Solu­tion: Long-term projects require a struc­tured trans­fer of knowl­edge in order to avoid qual­i­ty loss­es due to staff changes. Stan­dard­ised plan­ning jour­nals in which assump­tions, vari­ant deci­sions and inter­face infor­ma­tion are record­ed in a com­pre­hen­si­ble man­ner are help­ful.

An addi­tion­al solu­tion used at SOLTIC is the role-based organ­i­sa­tion with­in the project team. This goes hand in hand with a clear def­i­n­i­tion of the tasks and com­pe­tences of each role and facil­i­tates the intro­duc­tion of new mem­bers to the project teams. In addi­tion, the com­pe­tences dis­trib­uted across the var­i­ous roles pro­mote a sense of uni­ty with­in the project team.

The increas­ing dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion of plan­ning (BIM/VDC) expands the pos­si­bil­i­ties of qual­i­ty assur­ance, but also requires a new dis­ci­pline in han­dling data. Errors in mod­el coor­di­na­tion or a lack of up-to-date mod­els can lead to sig­nif­i­cant col­li­sions dur­ing exe­cu­tion.

Solu­tion: Qual­i­ty man­age­ment is becom­ing an inte­gral part of dig­i­tal project man­age­ment. It not only mon­i­tors con­tent, but also infor­ma­tion flows and mod­el sta­tus­es.

In indus­tri­al plan­ning projects, an organisation’s abil­i­ty to learn deter­mines effi­cien­cy and error avoid­ance.

Solu­tion: Effec­tive qual­i­ty assur­ance does not end with accep­tance, but with the eval­u­a­tion of the entire course of the project. Sys­tem­at­ic “lessons learnt” process­es make it pos­si­ble to trans­fer both pos­i­tive expe­ri­ences and prob­lems to new projects. This cre­ates a cul­ture in which qual­i­ty is not con­trolled, but lived.

Conclusion

Qual­i­ty assur­ance in the plan­ning process is more than a for­mal sys­tem. It is an instru­ment of man­age­ment and com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Its suc­cess is based on three basic prin­ci­ples:

  • Clar­i­ty of roles
  • Reg­u­lar­i­ty of the review
  • Open­ness in reflec­tion

SOLTIC prac­tis­es the com­bi­na­tion of struc­tured project mon­i­tor­ing and per­son­al coach­ing. In this way, we show that qual­i­ty assur­ance can be effec­tive with­out being bureau­crat­ic. It cre­ates trust in the plan­ning, trans­paren­cy in the process and sta­bil­i­ty in the project result — and thus the basis for sus­tain­able qual­i­ty in the con­struc­tion indus­try.

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Whether logis­tics cen­tres, man­u­fac­tur­ing and assem­bly plants, lab­o­ra­to­ry or phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal build­ings — any­one who wants to ensure the qual­i­ty of their plan­ning project right from the start ben­e­fits from our com­pre­hen­sive over­all man­age­ment ser­vices. SOLTIC coor­di­nates all spe­cial­ist areas, ensures con­sis­tent process­es and pas­sion­ate­ly ensures that com­plex projects are realised on time, effi­cient­ly and suc­cess­ful­ly.

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Portrait Beat Fischer

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Beat Fis­ch­er
Mem­ber of the Exec­u­tive Board

beat fischer@soltic.ch

+41 61 551 74 73

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