| Pay Attention to
Systems
The editorial in
the May 31 issue implores us not to stifle innovation as we
remove the root causes of the Paris Charles de Gaulle airport
concourse collapse (ENR 5/31 p. 56). The root causes
exist in our systems of "processes and procedures"
for ensuring that the "millions of details mesh on our
projects." The public cannot rely on our collective individual
memories to prevent recurrence of such disasters.
As designers and builders further
explore the wild side of design with short-er timeframes and
smaller budgets they must institutionalize their learning
within their companies and projects. They must continually
improve their process-based management systems for effective
organizational learning so the root causes of such disasters
are eliminated. Unfortunately, systems receive little attention
in owner organizations and the industry’s firms of project
managers, designers and constructors. Too many projects completely
ignore or ineffectively use and improve their process-based
manage ment systems to assure quality while adding value faster
and preventing loss sooner.
ISO 9001 specifies the use of process-based
management systems to eliminate the root causes of waste and
ineffectiveness from the many interacting processes within
the modern construction project. This standard is the
American National Standard for quality management systems.
The design and construction division of the American Society
for Quality publishes and maintains ISO 9001 Interpretive
Guide for the Design and Construction Project Team. It explains
how the owner, project manager, designer and constructors
interpret the standard to more effectively interconnect, use
and improve their parts to their organizational and project
management systems.
All design and construction disasters
can be traced back to deficiencies in their realization systems.
For example, Peter Reina’s excellent factual report from
France indicates several possible root causes related to the
system’s failure to conform to clauses in ISO 9001. These
may include its failure to validate the concourse column designs
and column construction processes in accordance with clauses
7.3.6 and 7.5.2 of ISO 9001:2000.
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