Literature Review
Discuss About The Fundamentals Of Quality Control Improvement.
Project management is a time bound endeavor which undertakes the practice of initiation, planning, execution and controlling of the task. The principles of effective project are time, quality and cost (Mitra, 2016). A successful project can be defined as the one which has been effectively completed within the stipulated and cost while delivering expected quality to the client. Project quality control is one of the major elements of project success. The current study will focus on analyzing different aspects of project quality and control. An in-depth analysis on the subject of total quality management and continuous improvement will be undertaken (Mir & Pinnington, 2014).
The study will evaluate the project “Perth Children Hospital” for the evaluation and analysis. The mentioned project failed due to some governance and construction issues. The cost and quality of the project was not delivered effectively which delayed the overall project completion. The analysis of the issues related to the subject will be discussed and examined. The case will be analyzed under theoretical concepts to create an effective understating about real life project situation.
This section of the study will focus on undertaking an effective and in-depth understating about different aspects of project quality and control. The literature section will develop a theoretical perspective about continues improvement and quality design, measure and control aspects.
Continuous improvement is one of the most crucial and significant part of project quality and control. It is an ongoing process which focuses on developing the quality of the product and process to improve for well defined results. Hornstein (2015) defines continuous improvement as the process of small but significant improvements which creates a well defined impact on overall project success. It is an ongoing cycle which encompasses the positive changes in the process thus managing the quality aspect in a significant manner.
Wang, et.al., (2015) stated that the continuous improvement in projects helps in ensuring that the progress and quality standards are met properly. It is process which brings gradual change to manage the standards and quality of the final outcome. The argument against the stated process indicates that it is not effective for long term business success as its cost is high. Lou, J., Xu & Wang, (2017) however stated that implementing the process of continuous improvement may minimize the possibility of errors and will ensure the quality as per the benchmarks and standards. It helps in saving the overall cost of improvement and error management. The stated process is high effective and significant for prefect success.
- Plan: This section of pr the process focus on developing an effective and well defined pan for setting up the standards adopting those for successful project competition. This stage efficiently evaluates the objectives that a project requires and strategies to efficiently attain the set objectives (Liu & Shi, 2017).
- Do: This phase focuses on implementation of the plan and executes it in the same manner. It is the stage where all the plans are efficiently communicated, training and development is provided and process is explained efficiently. This is the phase of action and execution.
- Check: The continuous improvement is an ongoing process hence the process of comparing the actual performance with the expected performance is continuous. The project management and supervisor analyze the progress and develop preventive actions to ensure the quality, time and cost factors (Tang, 2016).
- Act: This phase of the process focuses on analyzing the scope of proposed changes and whether the changes will be temporary or permanent in the project. At this stage change management aspect is planned and managed to ensure the project success.
Continuous Improvement
The analysis of the process thus helps in creating a clear and well defined picture of the process of continuous improvement and its role in the success of the project. Implementation of the stated strategy helps the project manager in efficiently analyzing the progress, quality and success aspects for the project (Acebes, et.al., 2014). It is cost effective process for long run as it minimizes the errors. Moreover continuous improvement results in managing the resources of the project in an efficient manner which provides a significant result for the success of the project.
Quality is one of the critical and most significant part of a project. In order to analyze and improve the quality of project, managers implement the process which efficiently monitors and regulates different phases of project progress thus creating a significant success in the overall project completion (Kalyan, et.al., 2016). DMAIC process is a five phase process which is effective means in managing and controlling thr project quality and outcomes. Different phases of the project include:
- Define: This phase focuses on analyzing, defining and developing the quality standards, project goals and objectives. This is one of the most challenging phase as it focuses on defining the project objectives and standards which will ensure the project success.
- Measure: This is the phase of the process which measures the performance to analyze the standards and evaluate the progress. It helps a project supervisor in collecting the data and evaluates the performance (Leming, 2017).
- Analyze: This is the phase which compares the actual with expected quality. If the variations are found the process of improvement is planned and managed. Also the cause of variation is determined to minimize it for the future.
- Improve: This phase of the project is the one where performance improvement is attained by elimination the root cause of all the variation within the project. It is an effective process of creating quality aspect for the project.
- Control: The final phase of the project is the one whereby the performance and process of the project is efficiently managed and controlled by the management to ensure high and significant quality of the outcomes (Lijun, Haoran & Yanhua, 2016).
Perth Children hospital (PCH) is $1.2 billion project which will replace Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH) into a children’s hospital providing all the facilities and medical amenities of the treatment of children. The proposed project was a large construction project which was stipulated to complete in April 2015 however the major issues on the construction site delayed the project competition. As a major construction process the principle of continuous improvement and project quality design and control are the integral part of the project success. Construction of a building is a well aligned process where different activities and process are efficiently managed and integrated to achieve the success of the project. The process of continuous development will ensure minimum errors and effective check of the project progress which will result in long run success and cost effectiveness. In addition to this, quality design, measure and control aspects are significant in construction project as it ensures that the progress of the project is effective and there are no errors in the process thus the actual construction is similar to the expected project.
Perth Children hospital (PCH) is $1.2 billion project which will replace Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH) into a children’s hospital providing all the facilities and medical amenities of the treatment of children. The stated project was a major construction project which failed due to some common issues and project management errors. The stated project has been chosen for the research to evaluate and analyze the quality aspects which contributes in the success of a construction project. The evaluation will also identify the models and strategies which are applied in the construction project to manage the quality aspects. PCH develops an effective understating about the issues which led to delay in the project and errors in construction site. The gap in project quality principle will also be discussed and analysed through the stated project.
The process of continuous improvement includes the following stages:
The purpose of the present study is to analyze the quality issues and measures for the construction projects. The study is designed and developed to evaluate the major issues which are faced by the construction sites and what impact does it cause on competition of the project. The study will also evaluate the project quality models and its role in project success. The current study will investigate the major issues which cause to the failure of PCH project and effective measures could have undertaken to minimize the quality issues.
Quality management is one of the major and most crucial part of project success. A construction project is a big project which demands an effective control of the activities and quality assurance at every stage in order to ensure the success of the project (Moon, Zekavat, & Bernold, 2015). All the activities of the projects are aligned tightly and delay in one activity may result in delaying the overall project. Hence the evaluation of PCH project quality will be undertaken according to continuous improvement model. It will underpin the significant principles of project quality. It will also be an effective model to evaluate and analyze the issues in PCH project.
PCH project was a vast construction project which failed due to lack of effective quality and management aspect. The project delayed the completion as there was some major quality issues faced in the progress. There were more that 10000 risks analyzed on the construction site out of which 4000 were successfully resolved. The analysis revealed multiple issues which led to the failure of the stated project.
As per the analysis PCH had significant delay in the competition of the project. The project was delayed by 2 years and the close analysis revealed that project quality was significantly hampered due to ineffective leadership and communication. John Holland was unable to provide a specific competition date, the resource allocation was ineffective, the ideal time in the project was high, and moreover the communication was ineffective which led to confusion on the site (Bovteev, et.al, 2016). Delay in continuous working and reworking on the designs was yet another issue. Lack of quality control resulted in the failure of the overall project.
There were some significant risks which resulted in project failure:
- Low quality standards: Construction site is not a short term project but is developed for a long time. Be posed to risk of accidents and incidences even after competition of project. Errors in design for the construction project may demand significant efforts to improve it because it is an integrated process and to fix one error the further progress may be ruined.
- Lack of continuous improvement: Lack of project quality and continuous improvement aspects increased the risk of quality standards for the construction project; this may prove to be dangerous for the site efficiency. Moreover as a hospital for children the risk of safety and security is a high concern. In effective quality may lead to accidents which will be ineffective for the overall project success.
- Client relation and identity: The failure of the project was in effective for the client relation and brand identity of the company as well. PCH was a government venture which failed due to ineffective communication control and monitoring.
PCH was efficiently evaluated and planned to create a major social impact on the economy. The project planning was effective and well defined. The project manager efficiently designed and developed the blue print of the project and the final outcome. The capacity of the hospital was planned efficiently to manage children needs. Also as a social project the planning of facility and design was critically analyzed. However the there was a significant gap in planning and execution due to lack of effective leadership. Ineffective team, resocurrce and time management was the result of the same.
Quality Design, Measure and Control
The analysis of project performance revealed that these were the issues which were not done well which resulted in project failure:
- Ineffective communication: the project objectives, contraction details and project principles were not effectively shared by the staff which resulted in project delay and failure.
- No monitoring: There was no monitoring and control on the site which resulted in continuous errors and rework for the project.
- Lack of leadership: Lack of leadership resulted in no guidance and proper monitoring of the project. It lead to wastage of funds, time and resources for the project. Moreover the project schedule was in effective and non achievable.
- No quality control: The quality aspect of the project was critically ignored which resulted in multiple errors for the project.
PCH project was a major failure which affected the time, cost and quality aspects. the major recommendation to enhance and improve such projects in the future includes:
Effective leadership: Effective leadership is the essence of the project success as it ensures all major aspects of project success and growth. Leadership helps in ensuring that resource allocation is effective, progress is acceptable, quality and control aspect is supervised. In addition to this effective leadership help in efficiently managing the issues of emergency and failure. Leadership in PCH project was one of the major issue which resulted in the failure of the project in a significant manner. Effective leadership and control may have resulted in project success.
Continuous improvement: Continuous improvement process is an ongoing strategy which is adopted by the businesses and projects to ensure the quality aspect is efficiently managed and maintained. The stated strategy is effective in minimizing the error by creating quality outcomes at every level of the business process (Bragadin, & Kähkönen, 2015). Implementing the stated process in PCH may have developed a well defined means of project monitoring and control. This may managed the issue of designing and quality errors. It was effective for cost efficiency of the project.
Communication: Lack of communication was yet another critical factor which led to project failure for PCH. The issues of ineffective scheduling, lack of resources, rescheduling and redesigning etc were the outcome of the same. This created a major issue of failure for the project. Effective communication is thus the major success factor of project management. It helps in ensuring effective competition and success of the project.
Project design measure and control: Analyzing the quality specification and developing process to manage and maintain the quality is the initial phase of project competition. It creates a significant impact on the progress and success of the project (Cevallos, Jaramillo, Ávila & Aldaz, 2017). Quality of the project is one of the key principle which helps in creating a well defined measures of growth and development within the economy. Developing effective quality design, measuring and controlling the aspects of quality are the common aspects of the process.
Conclusion
A successful project can be defined as the one which has been effectively completed within the stipulated and cost while delivering expected quality to the client. Project quality control is one of the major elements of project success. Perth Children hospital (PCH) is $1.2 billion project which was a major construction project. As per the analysis PCH had significant delay in the competition of the project. The project was delayed by 2 years and the close analysis revealed that project quality was significantly hampered due to ineffective leadership and communication. John Holland was unable to provide a specific competition date, the resource allocation was ineffective, the ideal time in the project was high, and moreover the communication was ineffective which led to confusion on the site. Leadership in PCH project was one of the major issue which resulted in the failure of the project in a significant manner. Effective leadership and control may have resulted in project success. Lack of communication was yet another critical factor which led to project failure for PCH. The issues of ineffective scheduling, lack of resources, rescheduling and redesigning etc were the outcome of the same.
Justification for Perth Children Hospital
References
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