Advanced Content Master's Series

Concurrent Session

M34 - Projects Are Unique, but What About Their Quality Systems?

Primary Presenter(s)

• 

  Zakaria Alhelal, MSc., CQE, PMP

  Quality professional
  Saudi Aramco
  Dhahran, Ash Sharqiyah, Saudi Arabia

Moderator(s)

• RC

  Ray Crawford

Level: Advanced

Every construction project is unique as it involves one or more elements that are different from past projects. Governments and corporations that run mega-projects should consider adopting more than one quality management system (QMS) for their project portfolios. Mega-projects are highly complex, and the quality management requirements to successfully execute these projects must be more advanced than one used for a residential building project. While a company is not required to have multiple QMSs, in some cases, adopting more than one quality system for different portfolios is beneficial. ISO 9001 can be used as a framework to develop comparable quality systems that enable an organization to benchmark quality performance, among different types of projects, and facilitate continuous improvement. In conducting the benchmarking, qualitative (process benchmarking) and quantitative (performance benchmarking) methods should be used. This session will demonstrate results of benchmarking QMSs for project portfolios, and addresses the critical issues to be considered when developing a QMS, including: organization design, management of the quality processes, and product requirements.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand why more than one QMS can be an advantage in government and organization projects.
• Benchmark and evaluate QMS performance using qualitative and quantitative methods
• Recognize the factors that impact organization design in a construction project, and how organization structure affects quality.
• Recognize the importance of centralization, systems integration, and existence of a feedback mechanism for organizational learning.
• Identify the critical elements of QMSs in project portfolios.