Ed McNeill, Senior Vice President at Turner Construction Company knows that implementing effective enterprise Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QA/QC) requires a consistent approach to jobsite observations and a structured method of analyzing and reporting all of the gathered information. Often, construction companies lack the ability to gather, analyze and share critical quality information in a standard way. At the enterprise level, it is difficult for management to track QA/QC compliance data for projects and subcontractors in a consolidated, timely fashion. Increased visibility into this critical aspect of quality, can reduce project risk.
“With tools such as Vela Systems, we’re able to make correlations and assessments of quality assurance with certainty because we’re getting factual, real-time data from the projects,” said McNeill. “We are documenting conformance to create a more balanced and positive methodology, as opposed to the industry approach of only documenting the negative on punchlists.”
Field Software Enables Comprehensive Quality Measurement
Vela Systems Checklists (QA/QC) software provides the tools and content needed to create an enterprise quality system. At the headquarter level, management can track quality compliance data for one or multiple projects in executive dashboards. Turner leveraged its headquarter-level library of standards checklists and supplemented it with project-specific quality checklists.
“For quality assurance, there needs to be a raised acknowledgement level of conformance and increased number of staff documenting that conformance,” continued McNeill. “From this, instances of nonconformance rise to the surface and those habits can be corrected quickly, improving the QA/QC process right then as well as over time.”
Quality Management Is Important Throughout The Project
Turner Construction Company has discovered the tight correlation between QA/QC and punchlists. What they’ve seen over the years is that without a proven and consistent quality assurance process, punchlists can become considerable and time consuming.
According to McNeill, “If there is not stellar quality assurance prior to the punchlist process, projects wind up with way too much activity at the end when there should really be far, far fewer items. For example, take the 10 Rittenhouse Square and Hampton Roads Naval Station projects, we have a quality program in place with subcontractors who are conditioned to do it right the first time, which is driving a very manageable, painless process of achieving the level of quality our clients require.”
The Benefits
Vela Systems software helps Turner Construction Company achieve the following results:
- Immediately gather QA/QC information from projects to proactively identify trends and reduce both jobsite and corporate risks.
- Understand both subcontractor and self-performed quality performance to better manage post-project evaluations and subcontractor selection during pre-qualifying, bidding and procurement.
- Avoid claims by providing a secure audit trail of the progress of quality and construction.
- Establish documentation consistency across projects.
- Save time on projects
About Turner Construction Company
Turner Construction Company provides building services to institutions that recognize the value of a partner who works diligently and creatively to find the best possible solution for each particular project. With construction volume in excess of $8 billion in 2009, Turner ranks first or second in major segments of the construction industry. Turner maintains a nationwide network of offices and a staff of more than 5,100 employees, performing work on over 1,200 projects each year. Turner’s nationwide presence offers clients the accessibility and support of a local firm with the strength, stability and resources of a national corporation.
About Vela Systems, Inc.
Vela Systems construction field software automates the execution and oversight of field activities on construction and capital projects. Instead of carrying a field notebook and paper plans or specs, jobsite users work with Vela Systems software on mobile computers to electronically access documents and to complete field reports, QA/ QC inspections, worklists, punchlists, update the BIM and many other critical field activities. Construction happens in the field – Manage it.™
