Contractor-Led Quality Control and Quality Assurance Plus Design—Build: Who Is Watching the Quality?

Abstract

Recent innovations by the Arizona Department of Transportation (DOT) in the use of design—build procurement for highway construction are presented. Explosive population growth in Arizona has pushed its DOT to the limits of its capacity and has challenged the department to develop innovative ways to stretch its resources to meet its constituents’ needs. In 1996 the department spearheaded the passage of a pilot design–build law aimed at completing public-sector construction projects more rapidly than could be done by traditional methods. An evaluation of the material quality program used in the second design–build project in this program is described. The project reconstructed an extremely congested 7-mi segment of Interstate 17, a primary artery carrying 180,000 vehicles per day through the city of Phoenix, widening it from 6 to 10 lanes. The design–build contract was awarded after A+B bidding, which considered the bid price to do the work and the time required to complete the project, and was the largest ever awarded at the time. It was won by a design–builder who implemented a very aggressive schedule that required double-shift work for nearly 2 years. In another contracting first, the agency also assigned the design–builder responsibility for the quality control and quality assurance functions on the project, with Arizona DOT providing verification sampling and testing only. The concrete compressive strength and material density for the project are examined and are compared to statewide averages for traditional design-bid-build projects in which Arizona DOT performed the quality assurance function. Analysis of the data shows that despite a highly compressed schedule, the quality of the material on the project exceeded the project specifications and was similar to the quality of work completed for the state under traditional contracting methods with an Arizona DOT—operated quality assurance program.

Comparing Contract Administration Functions for Alternative and Traditional Delivery of Highway Projects

“…Although quality assurance is becoming the preferred term (Molenaar et al 2010), most of the agency representatives from the case study interviews still used the term QA/QC. Most agencies have a long history with DBB and construction manuals that detail their quality processes (Molenaar et al 2015;Anderson and Damnjanovic 2008;Ernzen and Feeney 2002). However, use of a DBB quality management system for an ACM can be problematic (Molenaar et al 2010).…”

The Credit Regulatory System of Public Investment Agent Construction Project

“…Construction preparation stage mainly studies the bidding procedures. In the construction process, organizational measures, technical measures and information exchange measures are investigated [8] .…”

Life cycle cost evaluation of alternatives to the nuclear density gauge for compaction testing on design-build projects

“…Thus, DBB project delivery is a "system where the constructor tells the owner how much it will cost to deliver the quality defined in the design within the specified period of performance" (Gransberg et al 2006). DB procurement normally demands that lump sum price be offered by the design-builder with scope being established within a collection of performance criteria and a specified performance period (Ernzen and Feeney 2002). This leaves quality as defined during the design process as the variable leg in the DB stool.…”

“…This issue led MoDOT and other state DOTs to adopt the use of contractor acceptance testing (Smith 2001;Turochy et al 2007) as described in a Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Technical Advisory 6120.3 (2004). The overall impact is that the owner has transferred some of its traditional QA field testing responsibilities to the design-builder and no longer needs as large a component of in-house inspectors and testing equipment on DB projects (Ernzen and Feeney 2002).…”