Quality management plan

A quality management plan is usually a contract deliverable, submitted for review within a set period after award and before work starts on site. Most clients specify what it has to address, and most builders work from a corporate system tailored to the job.

The content is reasonably consistent across Australian commercial projects.

Scope and standards. The project, the works covered, and the standards that define compliance, including the National Construction Code, the relevant Australian Standards and the project specification.

Responsibilities. Who holds quality accountability on the project, from the project manager down to trade supervisors, and where the corporate quality function sits.

Document and design control. How drawings, specifications and revisions are controlled and issued, so work is built from the current approved set.

Inspection and testing. The register of inspection and test plans for the project, the hold and witness points, who signs off, and what records are produced.

Subcontractor and supplier control. How trade packages are assessed for quality capability, what each subcontractor must submit, and how imported materials are verified.

Non conformance and corrective action. How a non conformance is raised, dispositioned, closed out and trended, and when a corrective action is required.

Handover. The records that make up the quality handover, including as built drawings, test certificates, warranties, manuals and the completed inspection records.

Audit and review. The internal audits planned for the project, and how the plan itself is reviewed and kept current.

For a deeper look, read What is an ITP and ITC in Construction? A Complete Quality Control Guide. Try the free ITP Builder.

The plan is the system. The inspection and test plans are where it becomes specific, and the checklists are where it gets recorded.

A quality management plan says that concrete works will be inspected and tested in accordance with an approved inspection and test plan. The ITP for in situ concrete then lists each activity in sequence, the inspection or test at each step, the acceptance criteria, the hold and witness points, and the record required. The inspection and test checklist, or ITC, is the form the supervisor completes on the day, signed and dated against the actual pour.

That hierarchy matters as soon as a client or certifier asks for evidence. The plan proves there was a system. The ITP proves the right checks were planned. The completed checklist proves they happened on this slab, on this date, by this person. Missing the bottom layer is the most common failure, because the plan and the ITPs are written once while the checklists have to be completed every day.

The same chain runs through non conformances. A failed check becomes an NCR, the NCR is dispositioned and closed, and the trend across NCRs is what the review and audit sections of the plan are supposed to pick up.

The three terms get used loosely on site, and the distinction is simple once it is stated.

Quality assurance is about the process. It asks whether the system is capable of producing compliant work: whether there are procedures, whether people are competent, whether the right ITPs exist, whether audits are happening.

Quality control is about the product. It asks whether this particular element complies: the survey check on the setout, the slump test on the concrete, the test on the membrane, the inspection before a wall is closed up.

The quality management plan is the document that sets out both for a specific project. It describes the assurance arrangements and it schedules the control activities.

Where this matters commercially is in what the client is actually buying. A plan full of assurance language with no scheduled control activity produces a tidy document and defective work. The reverse, inspections happening with no system behind them, produces work that may well be compliant with no way to prove it at handover.

Submitting the corporate manual with the project name changed. Reviewers see hundreds of these. A plan that does not reference the actual specification, the actual trades and the actual hold points is a compliance exercise rather than a plan.

Writing ITPs for everything and completing none. Coverage looks impressive at submission and collapses in delivery. It is better to scope the ITP register to work that genuinely needs it and complete every one.

Leaving hold points undefined. A hold point stops work until it is released. If the plan and the ITPs do not say who releases it and how much notice they need, the choice on site is to wait or to proceed, and both are bad outcomes.

No link to the handover requirements. If the records the contract requires at completion are not identified in the plan, they get assembled retrospectively from memory, which is exactly where handover delays come from.

Never updating it. Scope, trades and methods all change. A plan still reflecting the tender design when the job is halfway through is not controlling anything.