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What is quality assurance and how does it impact organisational performance? Quality assurance (QA) is all about taking proactive measures to ensure that the processes, tools, and practices you implement meet necessary standards right from the beginning. A well executed quality management plan serves as the backbone of successful projects, laying a solid foundation for excellence.
This means aligning your organisation’s expectations with your customers, and being explicit from the get go. We often observe that while customers may have excellent quality management plans, a crucial and sometimes overlooked step is how quality management is lived on-site during construction. This can lead to a significant disconnect between the project management team’s expectations and the actual quality outputs. Issues often remain unresolved until the project is well underway or difficult conversations with stakeholders become unavoidable.
This is why being proactive about a quality management plan is crucial. Once a plan is established, it’s essential to determine how it will function for each team, identify which aspects need adjustments to ensure effective teamwork, and most importantly, ensure project managers can seamlessly integrate the plan into new projects with minimal challenges.
Having a good quality management plan is important but unless you put that plan into action on site and day to day, the process loses all impact. Why should organisations prioritise QA? It’s about maintaining high standards, prioritising QA results in fewer reworks, reduced costs and ultimately better project outcomes.
How QA drives sustainability
As we strive for a sustainable future, quality management emerges as a crucial catalyst for sustainable change. Why? Because sustainability goes beyond merely using eco-friendly materials; it’s about reducing waste, minimising rework, and ensuring project longevity.
How can we minimise risks and cut rework costs? By focusing intently on quality. This involves capturing the right evidence at the right time, securing approvals, and understanding specific project requirements. Digitising your quality management plan allows for real-time monitoring and management of quality, reducing risks and delays while aligning with sustainability goals.
Digital transformation plays a pivotal role here—it not only saves costs upfront but also standardise processes. By leveraging a digital platform, you can replicate sustainability and cost savings across every project. This digital-first approach enables the swift deployment of quality tools for new projects. Furthermore, an integrated quality management plan ensures that your team knows how to use these tools consistently across different projects. Repeating this process with similar clients leads to sustainable outcomes over time.
What is good quality assurance
What does good quality assurance look like at an organisational level? It’s about having a clear structured approach that everyone can follow. It means standardising processes, leveraging digital tools for consistency and ensuring that every team member understands the importance of quality in every task they perform. This feeds directly back into creating sustainable outcomes and the fundamentals of QA. Being proactive and understanding how your quality management plan is managed by each of your different teams so that your teams can then better manage those quality outcomes. It’s important that organisations take a step back to thoroughly and evaluate their projects, identifying what has been successful, what hasn’t, and what changes are needed.
Now that we’ve made the change, the next step is implementing it with the right tools. By tools, I don’t just mean digital solutions; it’s also about understanding the resources you need, the size of your quality team, and identifying team members outside the quality department who grasp quality outcomes, and actively contribute to achieving them on-site. It might also mean educating team members on the importance of a well-documented quality management plan.
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An organisation that operates with a proactive quality management plan is essential for achieving high-quality outcomes on every project. A well-documented and easily accessible quality management plan is crucial. This means that each project team understands how quality impacts their specific project. Being able to provide a clear roadmap to implement the organisation’s quality plan for any project, regardless of its size or value. Having the ability to welcome a new project manager who can seamlessly progress on a project without worrying about quality issues because everything is correctly set up, helps to foster a good relationship with stakeholders and ensures the delivery of positive outcomes.
Building a culture of continuous improvement
Creating a culture of continuous Improvement is essential for optimising existing processes without having to reinvent the wheel. Handling inspections and audits in real-time instead of having incomplete ITPs and checklists. This means you can ensure that quality is maintained throughout the project life cycle, which drives efficiency. What does this really mean?
Let’s break this down: optimise existing processes without reinventing the wheel. Quality showcases your expertise to the industry, making excellence a core part of your organisation’s identity. You deliver exceptional work, supported by employees who fully grasp project requirements.
Quality isn’t just a buzzword; it’s your promise to both current and future stakeholders that your projects stand the test of time. When we talk about optimising existing processes, we mean recognising the great work you’re already doing and identifying where quality can seamlessly integrate.
How can I empower our teams to capture reliable evidence and ensure it is securely documented? How can I guide the team to thoroughly cover all bases, acknowledging that even the most diligent work can miss critical aspects due to job specifics or particular requirements. Empowering your teams to perform at their best fosters a culture of quality. This includes conducting real-time inspections instead of waiting for the team to complete ITPs and checklists post site-visit.
Getting teams to understand exactly what data is being collected, why that data is important and how their physical roles of creating these structures is important. The impact helps to drive a culture of quality.
Once teams grasp the impact of their work, they not only understand the quality objectives but also become proactive in driving those outcomes.
They can begin to take ownership, saying, “I want to implement this because I saw how effective it was in our last project.” Initially, this might seem challenging, but as you continuously communicate the importance and engage the teams, it becomes clear that this isn’t just another mundane quality module. It’s a way to showcase the excellence of their work. This inclusive approach fosters a unified effort and makes it easier to achieve truly transformational quality outcomes.
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