Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
EXTENSIONS AND ALTERNATIVES TO INSPECTION 33 during construction because inspections for quality assurance do not adequately address the users concerns. The integrated inspection plan (1) has input from the design, construction, and inspection organizations, (2) documents their concurrence in the plan, and (3) contains mutually agreed upon criteria for acceptance or rejection of work. Although the construction contractor is not generally involved in formulation of the plan, it is important that the contractor both understand the contents of the plan and recognize that the engineering, construction, and inspection organizations concur with it. An integrated inspection plan helps dispel a contractor's concerns about inspectors over-inspecting, an owner's concerns about the constructor's preferences for meeting schedule at the expense of doing the job right, and the designer's inclination to view a job as finished when the design is delivered to the owner. Potential sources of dispute surface during the review of the inspection plan and are resolved prior to the actual performance of work in the field. Like any other formal and consistent inspection plan, an integrated plan helps to assure the uniformity of inspections from one inspector to another and reduces the frequency of office consultations to review standards for acceptance of work. COST AND SCHEDULE PROTECTION PLANS The cost and schedule protection plan is a management tool intended to prevent problems that pose threats to cost or schedule due to the lack of conformance to required workmanship or material characteristics. Prior to construction, inspection personnel review construction schedules and specifications to identify those activities that can cause quality problems that may adversely affect the cost or schedule. These activities, termed ''quality critical,'' typically have one or more of the characteristics listed in Table 3.1. Quality-critical activities are included in the cost and schedule protection plan, which identifies the specific critical work
EXTENSIONS AND ALTERNATIVES TO INSPECTION 34 manship, processes or materials and the hypothesized modes of failure which are the most probable sources of quality failure. The applicable criteria for judging the risk are then specified and the inspections and tests needed to manage this risk are scheduled. Finally, the plan designates the persons or organizations responsible for inspections, tests or other actions designed to monitor activity and provide early warning of impending problems. TABLE 3.1 Indicators of quality critical activities (Source: committee experience) Activities are likely to be quality critical if they are -on the critical path or an accelerated schedule -repetitive and a generic defect or fault would necessitate many repairs -very labor-intensive to repair -an intensive user of expensive or hard-to-get materials -critical to facility operation -likely to be inaccessible for repair -historically a problem or source of high reject rates -dependent on high skill levels or certifications -dependent on special processes such as heat treating -subject to approval by outside organizations -complicated by specification, drawing or interface ambiguities -a user of in-place storage, temporary construction shoring, tracing, or weather proofing that could lead to damage of expensive equipment and materials -dependent on highly stressed and structurally significant components, high energy fluid systems, or other components whose failure would create life-threatening hazards to personnel When conditions arise that may threaten the cost and schedule, the inspection organization immediately notifies the construction organization and recommends corrective actions and recurrence control. Timely detection of unacceptable conditions precludes further wasteful processing of defective work and greatly reduces the costs and delays associated with repairs.
