For a proper Construction Quality Management, changes must be tracked by a Request for Information Process. No change will be applied to the Contract Design and Construction Documents unless it passes through the RFI Process. Only upon the Architect of Record’s approval will changes be applied and approved for implementation. The source of these RFIs could be the contractor, owner, or the architect side. Since changes to the contract drawing and specifications mean impact on cost, time or quality they must be controlled as closely as possible and identified correctly for change order process.
RFI Reasons and Primary Responsible OAC Parties
To simplify, here are the top fourteen reasons in four categories of
- Requirements
- Added Scope: Addition of Work to the original Scope Requirement
- Deleted Scope: Deletion of Work from the original Scope Requirement
- Incomplete Plans/Specs: Architect’s Error or omission in Contract Documents
- Design
- Coordination: Coordination among different Engineers and Design Consultants
- Design Clarification: Further clarification needed to understand the intent of the Design
- Design Change: Request to change design per Construction Team
- Construction
- Constructability Issues Design did not consider difficulty in constructing as detailed
- Construction Coordination Planning & Coordination of construction-related activities
- Change of Staging/Planning Planning & Sequencing of work due to limitations during construction
- Management
- Different Method Change in Means and Method request by the Construction Team
- Material Change Change in Products and Material requested by Construction Team
- Value Engineering Cost Reduction and Improvement requested by/for Owner
- Conditions
- Utility Conflict Utility preventing construction from proceeding construction as designed
- Differing Site Conditions Unforeseen and Unknown site conditions discovered during construction
RFI Primary Responsible Party
When it comes to placing blame, CQM Methodology is very cautious on burdening a single entity or take part in a blame game of pointing fingers. As CQM promotes good Quality Culture, the entire team must share responsibility in identifying the root-cause of problems and issues as soon as possible, have honest and open communication, be creative in finding optimum solutions, and document lessons learned for everyone’s benefit. However, if the project is not contracted as an Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) approach there will be no mechanism to share the risks and rewards in a fair and collaborative way that ensures everyone’s interest in a cooperative way. Therefore, CQM Methodology advocates the use of IPD culture and methodology even for traditional and design/build projects to protect the integrity of the Quality Program.
Therefore, for tracking purposes of a proactive approach to CQM Methodology’s Preventive Program, knowing the primary sources of RFI generations with root-causes of bad quality will help the listed primary responsible parties to keep a better look out.
