Building a Quality Program from Scratch

I start important projects by taking them apart and rebuilding them from scratch. It’s how I distinguish between what is required and what must be done to meet those requirements. Many quality management approval programs are recognized worldwide, and this approach works for any of them. The American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) 207, Standard for Certification Programs, establishes quality management expectations for structural steel contractors in the United States. The organization’s technical guidance for crafting robust quality manuals is free and easy to follow. This is how I write a quality program from scratch.

• Use word search or find to seek the first “shall” specified in the standard pertinent to the company.
• Copy the “shall” requirement into the quality manual outline.
• Figure out how the company will accomplish the “shall.” Talk with people.
• Tailor compliance procedures. See the paragraph below for more guidance.
• Copy the “how” to address the “shall” into the quality manual outline.
• Repeat until each “shall” has been addressed.

In between each specified “shall,” one can be creative. Reading between the lines of AISC 207 and its accompanying commentaries often reveals several opportunities for compliance. The standard defines the requirements; the “how” is up to the contractor.

One area where this approach becomes especially important is the development of quality goals. Once the required procedures are documented, companies still need meaningful ways to measure whether the system is working. One of my customers, a crusty old salt off Utah’s West Desert, turned poetic when I asked what his company’s quality goal might be.

“Make money!” he proclaimed.

That’s always the first answer from an owner. I reminded him that improvements in the balance sheet could become a long-term quality goal. Thinking up a measurable quality goal was not the first thing on his mind. He decided that tracking the date of receipt on the signed delivery ticket would become the company’s primary quality goal.

“If we don’t make our delivery date, we’re out of work,” he told me. “And if we don’t work, we don’t eat!”

Comparing as-bid dates to actual sign-offs is an easy metric to track, but it just didn’t feel like quality to me, and I said so.

He backed up the goal with historical data and a collection of well-worn war stories. These were things I didn’t know, but I learned. Project schedules are one arena where contractors have some control. The terms in their proposals are reflected in the approved contract documents. Meeting delivery commitments had also become a company symbol for positive teamwork during project execution. Delivery tickets captured that cooperation throughout the company. He was pretty poetic.

Old salt earned approved fabricator status. He went into the audit with the delivery ticket-to-invoice trail and no changes to the quality goal. Meanwhile, I continued exploring my own ideas about quality metrics. There’s always a little extra love in something built from scratch.

BILL KOMLOS (bkoz@arctechllc.com) is a Senior Certified Welding Inspector for Arc Tech LLC, Salt Lake City, Utah. He is also an AWS Counselor and 
Life Member.