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Quality Assurance, the Pay Me Now or Pay Me Later Paradox
The end goal of every renovation or new facility construction project is to commission the building with the fewest punch list items, system conflicts, and or equipment failures that may have been preventable with the right amount of attention paid during the construction process.
The University of Delaware has begun a process whereby mechanics representing critical trades pulled from the regular Maintenance and Operations workforce are placed on a Quality Assurance Team that works with contractors, architects, managers, and the GC and University Project Managers; to assist on the larger and more complex renovations of labs, classroom buildings, and new construction around the campus.
Trades that are represented include HVAC, Plumbing, Electric, and Carpentry. Often senior members of the mechanic team are tapped for their years of experience working with campus buildings and their knowledge of building systems and familiarity with University standards.
The Quality Assurance Team meets together formally on a monthly basis as the project gets off the ground, and then may meet more often as the construction schedule gears up. The mechanics and the managers they report to can expect that these team members may spend anywhere from 3-6 hours a month on unsupervised walk throughs and attending the meetings where issues are raised and discussed. The team members' number one priority is maintaining the campus, so tours and meetings have to take a backseat to pipes breaking and power outages.
Although this represents a cost and "downtime" for the manager that is trying to keep the campus running on a daily basis, the pay off comes later when the building comes on line and must be maintained, often by the same folks that worked on the Quality Assurance Team. Members of the team report that they can sometimes find in their walk throughs examples of workmanship issues, circuits improperly loaded, and equipment installed not according to University specifications.
The team members have tried not to be adversaries in their relationship with general contractors and project managers, but as another set of experienced eyes, possibly bringing up issues that others are not as familiar with or knowledgeable in that they know can cause problems down the road. One member of a recent team summed up their role as trying to make sure that what is installed can be maintained, which can be a different perspective from the construction troops focused on final completion within the time constraints given. If the QAT and its members are effective on a project, then it means that discovering an issue early or while in the initial construction phase can save a lot of money and heartache for the Facility Manager over tearing down walls and reconfiguring spaces or replacing equipment, once the building has been turned over to the occupants.
by Mark Mankin, Coordinator, University of Delaware
