June 21, 2006

Associations

Quality plans for engineers

SOPHIE KNEISEL

correspondent

KINGSTON

A quality management program should not be looked at as an added cost to doing business, but rather as a means of increasing a firm’s revenue, according to Randy Lewis, Vice-President of XL Design Professional, a U.S. insurance company.

Lewis asked a luncheon audience of about 50 Consulting Engineers of Ontario members if their concept of quality is mainly related to construction documents.

This is a mere 30 per cent of the quality issue, he said, pointing out that 70 per cent of claims against design professionals are not about the technical aspects of the work: client selection, contracts and the project team chosen are the major causes of insurance claims, with communications topping that list.

Lewis also asked if firms measure how much re-work they do. The unanimous response was negative. He concluded that his audience don’t know the true cost of this quality problem and to suggest that they should charge all re-work to a separate account for six months to get an idea how much this is is costing their firm.

“Focus on things that really matter to your client.”

Randy Lewis - XL Design - Professional

How firms measure quality encompasses many yardsticks such as performance, conformance, durability and serviceability, which were developed for the manufacturing industry. In service industries, consistency, accessibility and convenience, accuracy and responsiveness should be measured.

“Focus on things that really matter to your client at the end of the day.” The purpose of a quality plan is to reduce acquisition costs (such as business development), identify opportunities for training, build client loyalty and finally, to be better and get better. Lewis noted that few A/E firms (about 10 per cent) include the final point in their quality management plans. Since this aspect results in continuous improvement, it is vital.

“You need to know whether you’re getting better, through monitoring and continuous improvement,” he said.

Quality management is a process, and as such doesn’t have a definitive beginning and ending, he said. Many firms run into difficulty by trying to apply a project paradigm.

Leadership is essential to establishing a successful program.

“It has to be a top-down effort,” he said, adding that company executives should be reading at least four books about leadership a year to improve their capabilities. Accountability and empowerment are important, as is measurement to support continuous improvement.

Two methods for finding out how your firm is doing are client visits and surveys. Because client visits (one-on-one meetings at the clients’ office) are rarely done, they are a great way of distinguishing your firm from the rest. And although one should beware of “survey fatigue,” Lewis said surveying clients during the project cycle and after completion provides an excellent means of measuring quality and timeliness.

Survey results should then be delivered to the firm’s business unit managers, with low scores requiring a response to the client, ideally from a person in the firm who was not involved with the project at all.

Lewis described quality as “a mindset,” and said it has to be pervasive, affecting every area of a firm: its practice, marketing and operations. The program should be based on a four-phase cycle: plan (select what you want to improve); do (establish root causes of problems); check (measure the problem and its effects); and act (make changes).

Lewis suggested several ways to measure quality: net legal and settlement costs as a percentage of total revenue, or write-offs as a percentage of work-in-progress. It isn’t fast or easy, but you will see a measurable improvement over time, he said.

“The client’s perception of quality is the only thing that matters,” Lewis said, suggesting that some work may have to be done to help clients have realistic expectations. “There are three critical issues that drive quality, service and longevity of a firm, and they are: people, people and people.

“No matter how long the runway is, a pig cannot fly. No quality program can survive people who are unskilled or unmotivated.”

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