(Readers note: While my topic today specifically references ready mix concrete quality control, it is also applicable to contractors and any other industry, so I hope you will read on.)
Do you have a Quality Plan in place? You should. Of the 28 respondents to the 2010 NRMCA Quality Benchmark Survey published in the January issue of InFocus magazine (http://www.nrmca.org/news/connections/JanFeb2011.pdf), 86% said they had one. However, over half of the respondents to the survey were larger producers who produced more than ½ million cubic yards of concrete per year. These are the guys who bid on big projects and have probably been required to produce a Quality Plan as a condition in a contract. If you haven’t already read the article in InFocus magazine, I suggest you do.
Quality Plans aren’t just for the big guys, though. Practically every concrete producer should have a Quality Plan, and the NRMCA has made it ridiculously easy to produce one. As part of their P2P effort (Prescriptive to Performance Specifications), the NRMCA has produced a model Quality Plan that anyone can download for free and modify to fit their own needs. You can download it at http://www.nrmca.org/P2P/QMS%203%20parts%20small.pdf.
Why should you have a Quality Plan? There are several reasons I can think of, beyond the fact that sometimes it is a requirement to win a bid on a job.
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A Quality Plan holds you accountable. Even if you write a plan, then stick it in a drawer, some day you will run across it again, read it and realize, “Holy cow, I have done a really poor/great job of sticking to my plan!” It is easy to sit down in a nice, cool, quiet office and figure out what you ought to do. It is quite another to be outside in the heat or cold or rain and try to implement that plan. My father was fond of quoting baseball great Yogi Berra who once said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re liable to wind up somewhere else.” A Quality Plan helps you figure out where you want to go. After that you need to decide whether you want to stick to the Plan, or wind up somewhere else.
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A Quality Plan lets others in your company know what your expectations are of yourself and of others. A frequent cause of corporate strife is poorly defined goals and expectations. A Quality Plan helps define those expectations. If, at the end of the day, those expectations aren’t met then maybe the Plan needs to be changed or something has to be done to make certain the expectations are met.
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A Quality Plan makes a great “dead man’s book”. If you haven’t heard the term, imagine that you have your Quality Plan firmly established in your mind. Tomorrow you get hit by a truck. How does your company know what to do to maintain quality? A “dead man’s book” lets others know how others should carry on in your absence. In fact, I have one about personal finances for my wife in case anything should ever happen to me. Of course it is about 5 years out of date, but I know I need to revise it and I now have a start on how to do it.
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You might actually wind up with better concrete if you have a Plan and you work the Plan. Quality Plans aren’t there just to look pretty at submittal time. They are working documents that, if followed, should help result in a better product.
How do you create your own Plan? First, I would start with the NRMCA Model Plan. Although the current document is in PDF format, you can convert it to Word with a utility program, cut and paste text from the PDF or possibly even sweet-talk the NRMCA into sending you a Word version. If you get a Word version from the NRMCA, convert everything but the topic headings to Comments so you can hide them later.
Next, go through the major headings and write down what you currently do in your operation. This makes following the plan easy, since you are already doing it.
After that, look at ASTM C-94, ACI 301 and ACI 318 to see what their requirements are and incorporate those into the document. Did you find a few things you are supposed to be doing that you aren’t? Don’t be too surprised, and don’t be too worried. It may be that others are already doing the work for you, and you just need to ask for their data. Aggregate producers are usually running gradation tests continuously. Just ask for their data, but be aware that it might not reflect your material after repeated handling.
Finally, look at the major headings you haven’t filled in. You may not need to do anything but write down that you don’t do it, or that you are developing plans to do it. If you are a producer in a rural area, or primarily a residential concrete producer, you probably don’t have a strong QC program. However, don’t be fooled. Even farmers need good concrete. A hog wallow or dairy farm contains extremely aggressive environments when concrete is exposed to urine, fertilizer or lactic acid (from milk). Farmers don’t like replacing slabs every 5-10 years if they can help it.
What do you do if you don’t have a clue about where to start? There are lots of resources available to you, and many of them are free. Talk to your cement supplier or admix supplier. They have lots of free technical resources. Look at websites like www.aggregateresearch.com, or LinkedIn pages for the American Concrete Institute or Concrete Producer magazine. They have discussion areas where you can ask questions. Handley Wood use to publish Concrete Producer and on their website at www.concreteconstruction.net you can view back issues for free (this is one of the best free concrete resources on the Internet). The NRMCA, www.nrmca.org, publishes InFocus magazine, which you can view for free. Over the last couple of years they have published a series of articles designed to help the quality control technician or manager implement better quality control programs.
If those aren’t enough, why not spend a bit of money? Join your local ACI Chapter or Ready Mix Promotion group and talk to people at meetings. Join the national ACI or NRMCA. Hire a consultant. (Blatant plug alert: Command Alkon provides a fee-based service where I come out and review your QC operation and make suggestions on how to improve it. Just give me a call or send me an email.)
I really need to compliment the NRMCA on their efforts to improve quality control. Back in the 1950-1970’s, NRMCA did a lot of basic research on concrete and raised the level of knowledge in the industry. In my opinion, some of this effort died off in the recession period surrounding the late 1980’s. Now, with their efforts at P2P, the NRMCA has realized that many specifiers won’t be comfortable writing performance specifications until they are confident that even smaller concrete producers have the technology to produce quality concrete. The P2P program has forced the industry to “raise the bar” with regard to the technical capabilities of the ready mix QC department, and the NRMCA has several initiatives such as the InFocus magazine series and their new Technology in Practice publication series that are designed to help QC people do a better job.
I may have gotten a little verbose today, but my soapbox was a little larger than I realized. If you need any help with implementing a Quality Plan, drop me an email and I will do what I can to help.
