Power Performance believes that quality assurance should be planned and implemented in all construction projects in the Oil & Gas Industry. However, quality assurance is one of the most misunderstood terms in project management because quality assurance is often defined differently by the owner and the contractor.
To the owner, quality assurance is typically understood to be all planned and systematic actions necessary to provide adequate confidence that a structure, system or component will perform satisfactorily in service. To the contractor, quality assurance is typically defined as all those planned and systematic actions necessary to provide adequate confidence that all items designed and constructed are in accordance with applicable standards and as specified by contract.
Quality assurance includes two major elements. The first, quality control examination, comprises the examination of the physical characteristics of the structure, system, material, component, part or appurtenance and comparison to the acceptance standards associated with those examinations. The second, quality control administration, is the management and documentation which assure that the specified quality control examinations are carried out, and in many instances, this portion of quality control has been corrupted and has been called by its parent's name, quality assurance.
Commonly, quality assurance has come to mean the administrative procedures and quality control the actual examinations, procedures, limits and tolerances, which assure satisfaction of applicable standards and the project's contract requirements.
The ultimate goal of any quality assurance program should be a reliable and safe facility consistent with applicable regulatory and contract requirements and not some dream where quality assurance is somehow going to eliminate all errors and problems associated with project management and performance.
Quality assurance should be a prime responsibility and function of project management. In order for QA to be rationally applied, quality must be designed and constructed into the project. Quality cannot effectively be inspected in by a quality assurance organization. Effective project management should not separate the responsibility from the accountability for quality assurance. There is a quality assurance audit function that should be performed independent of the project in much the same way that fiscal audits are typically performed independent of the line organization being audited but other quality assurance functions should be performed by the project.
We hope that this introduction to our company's view of quality assurance and its relationship to project management can bring us together to assist you in developing and implementing a quality assurance program second to none. For more information click here to contact us