橋梁尖兵 (A Soldier of the Bridges

(Note : This article is to introduce the Construction Quality Management System for Public Works that was issued by PCC (Public Construction Commission, Executive Yuan) in October 1993 and was currently adopted in the general public works in Taiwan. All authorities of each level government, public schools and public enterprise agencies shall follow this System unless specified otherwise when they have a procurement case of public work.)

It is very important to reinforce quality management, promote construction quality and establish an effective quality management system in the public works. For letting all workers who joined the public works to understand the importance of construction quality they are required to use the system management and effective control procedures during construction. Consequently the quality of public works can be in compliance with the requirements of design specification. PCC integrated some major international and local quality management regulations and compiled the Construction Quality Management System for Public Works. It consists of following three levels of quality management.

2.          The First Level

The Contractor shall carry out the first level of quality control in the system. The detail activities are as follows.

(1)   Establish a Quality Control Organization.

(2)   Compile a Quality Plan.

(3)   QC engineer shall implement following Major Works:

l          Prepare a quality plan.

l          Conduct internal audits.

l          Analyze and correct the defects, provide preventive measures and follow up.

l          Manage Quality Documents and Records.

l          The other promotive actions on Quality Control.

(4)   Full-time responsible engineer shall execute following Major Works :

l          Supervise quality and site engineer’s activities for ensuring quality plan to be properly performed and complete monitoring reports.

l          Advise construction Technical and Safety issues.

l          Attend inspection, audit and quality assessment activities.

l          The other promotive actions on Quality Control.

(5)   Others

The contractor shall submit QC engineer’s resume to Project owner for approval before construction. Project owner shall register QC engineer on PCC’s web site for future tracing and follow the same procedure when QC engineer being replaced.

3.          The Second Level

Project Owner is responsible for the second level of Construction Quality Assurance. The detail activities are as follows.

(1)     Establish a Construction Supervision Team.

(2)   Compile a Supervision Plan.

(3)   Project Owner and his assigned Engineers should implement following Major Works:

l          Review contractor’s construction and quality plans and monitor his performance.

l          Review and spot-check the content of manufacture certificates, calibration documents and test reports of those material and facilities submitted by contractor according to the contract and supervision plan and fill out the checklists.

(4)   Project Owner and his assigned Engineers shall implement following Major Works:

l          Inspect and audit each construction activity according to the contract and supervision plan and fill out the records.

l          Inform the contractor of rectifying within a limit time when defects found.

l          The other promotive actions on Construction Quality.

(5)   Supervision engineer’s qualification shall be approved before construction and registered on PCC’s web site for future tracing and the same procedure shall be followed when supervision engineers being replaced.

4.          The Third Level

Government Authorities concerned and PCC perform the third level of Inspections and Audits to Construction Quality of the Project. The detail activities are as follows.

(1)   Establish a construction inspection and audit team in each level government.   The team members shall possess engineering background and not less than a third members shall be expert or scholar employed by outside the authority.

(2)   The scope and duties of the inspection and audit team are as follows :

l          Scope : The projects awarded or subsidized by central and local governments.

l          Duties : To inspect and audit quality and progress of the projects under construction in accordance with the contract and other relevant regulations. The inspection and audit may be conducted without notice.

(3)   The frequency of inspections and audits :

l          Not less than 20% of projects and not less than 20 projects under construction shall be inspected and audited. All projects shall be inspected and audited if the number of all projects under construction is less than 20.

l          The construction inspection and audit team shall submit his quarterly report to the respective government for reference by the end of April, July, October each year and January next year.

(4)   The major items to be inspected and audited by :

l          Government Authority concerned : records of reviewing quality monitoring system and supervision plan, management activity of construction progress and problem solving.

l          Supervision Team : procedures of reviewing supervision organization, method statement and quality plan, procedure and standard of random sampling and testing materials and facilities and inspecting and auditing construction activity, the content and its performance of supervision plan, such as quality audit, document and record management, the performance of tracing defect correction and monitoring construction progress.

l          Contractor : the content and its performance of quality plan, such as QC organization, major construction works, quality management standard, procedures of inspecting construction activity and testing material, self-checklist, NCR control, defect correction and preventive measures, internal quality audit and document and record management; the performance of construction progress management, acceleration measurement, safety and environmental issues.