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Chapter 4 · Lesson 3 of 6Topic: Managing the work

Quality management

Quality management is how a company makes sure its work meets requirements every time: planned checks, records, and fixing the causes of mistakes. Model checking is quality control for information, and it fits into the company's quality system.

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Mayainformation manager
Even if you do this every day, watch for this: Quality control finds defects; quality assurance prevents them. A coordinator who fixes the same naming errors every week is doing QC forever. Fix the cause (the template, the training, the export setting) and record it, and the errors stop.

Quality management is how a company makes sure its work meets requirements, every time, not just when someone senior checks. Most design and construction firms run a quality management system, often certified to ISO 9001: written procedures, planned checks, records, audits and continual improvement. Information work fits right into it.

Basics
Quality assurance (QA)Quality control (QC)
AimPrevent defectsFind defects
Examples in BIMTemplates, standards, training, the BEP, mobilisation testsModel checks, IDS checks, naming checks, clash tests, reviews
WhenBefore and during the workAfter the work, before it's shared

Information quality in practice

  • Checks before sharing: naming, status, coordinates, required properties (IDS), clashes within the discipline.
  • Records: what was checked, by whom, with what result.
  • Non-conformances: when a delivery fails a requirement, record it, fix it, and ask why it happened.
  • Improvement: fix causes in templates, procedures and training.
Story · Fixing the same error forever
How it goes wrong

Every week the coordinator corrects 30 file names from the same subcontractor. After six months the errors are still there; the coordinator is the quality system.

How it goes right

The coordinator raises a non-conformance, finds the cause (the subcontractor's office template uses its own naming), gives them the project template and adds a naming check at upload. The errors stop within two weeks.

In BIMpediaCheck the BIMpedia Clinic against its ten requirements and read the result the way a reviewer would.
Mayainformation manager
Your turn. Give it about 10 min and work it out on your own before you open the model answer: that is where it sticks.
Exercise: QA or QC? 10 min

Sort these into QA (prevention) or QC (checking): (1) a project template with levels and naming; (2) running the IDS check before sharing; (3) a mobilisation test exchange; (4) a weekly clash test; (5) training new modellers on the BEP; (6) an NCR for missing door data.

Key takeaways

  • Quality assurance (QA) is the planned system that prevents defects; quality control (QC) is the checking that finds them.
  • Many firms run a quality management system (often to ISO 9001) with procedures, checks, records and audits.
  • Model checks, IDS checks and naming validation are QC for information; templates, training and procedures are QA.
  • Non-conformances are recorded, fixed, and analysed so the cause is removed.

Your notes

Related tool

Check an IFC model against an IDS file and see which elements fail, and why.

Open IDS Checker →

Check yourself

3 questions · 2 right to complete
  1. 1. What is the difference between QA and QC?
  2. 2. The same naming errors appear every week. What's the best quality response?
  3. 3. What's a non-conformance report (NCR) for?
0 of 3 answered
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