Project Management Scope

It all depends upon. Difficult to comment off hand.

If the PM company is reputed and capable enough, there is sufficient back to back guarantee and penalty involved and lastly no code issues are there, you can leave it on them. Especially if your company does not have the capability.

In case there exist a doubt on integrity - then of course you are not supposed to go ahead with him in the first place

In acse you have a bit doubt on capability then it may be wothwhile to put an extra supervisory body over him

In a long career in Inspection and QC and now in manufacturing managements, i have a firm belief (may be personal)

If a manufacturer wants to cheat no amount of inspection can really catch him, especially assuming the manufacturer is technically sound. Unless of course your inspector is too intelligent and think in his shoes. This is simply because he does the things that are difficult to catch and your inspector will not be there all through the execution 24x7.

he does the works where cheating is necessary when he is not around, and by the time he is expected, his cover-up is over. In these there will be always small signs left out, that requires real experience to catch.

When the requirement of code etc is there, it is the mandatory requirement and then there is no option.

I prefer occasional supervision and audit from your company, but putting an independant inspector, well I don't have very good experience with that (We have employed the top most few and I am not impressed)

In my experience, 26+ years and counting, outsourcing the QA/QC aside from the PM has been a double edged sword. It gives the Owner the watchful eye from an independent firm; however, some (most) of those firms were self-serving and their watchful eye was too watchful if you know what I mean. My suggestion is, if your company has performed a careful objective selection of a known firm with experience in PM and QA/QC, then go with it and keep an internal eye on the QC. At the moment you see a problem brewing, then bring up another outside selection option. I recently performed as the Program Manager for an Owner (a school district) and I was responsible for building a number of new schools - which had a lot of piping sub-projects. I also managed a large cable comm project, in conduit, similar to a piping project with same arrangement. On these and others I used CM and/or PM firms that also did QA/QC and I did not experience any problems with the arrangement. Feel free to send me an email at this site if you want any details, but my recommendation above will stand - unless you are wary of the PM QA/QC firm for some reason, and that's a different story.

Dear Val Andre,

We are an independent international consulting and project development firm. Prior to us accepting a project we require certain areas in a project be defined. In this case we would firstly have the following questions:

1. What is the project? What is the pipeline going to carry?

2. All project management areas of responsibility include QA/QC as a matter of project protocal. Dependent on what the project is, as defined, where the project is located, what is the avenue of supply, would determine whether or not a separate QA/QC supervision firm were engaged. It is normal practice that the PM Firm have full authority on execution of the project. If the client, (you in this case), wish to hire an independent QA/QC authority, then it would be feasible that that scope of work and all its effects on the project were eliminated from the PM scope of work, making it difficult for you the client to ascertain who is responsible for what?

In most cases the PM Firm would not have the internal capacity for full and complete QA/QC and would hire an independent firm anyway, depending on the complexity of the project, however reporting to the PM Firm. But in any case either the PM Firm has the authority to execute and implement procedures to carry out the responsibilities of the project or he doesn't, in which case up-front negotiations will determine what is included and who is responsible for what.

It sounds to me that you have experienced some difficulties, to say the least, in previous projects. You have asked for advise in the case we thought you might be wrong. I can't say you are wrong, just yet, until I know more about the activity.

Tom tcinc002@aol.com

I'm not a PMP but I do have my BSBA and my concentration is in Project Management. Part of my course work involved taking courses in quality control.

The Project Manager is responsible for assessing risk and keeping the project under budget. He will have people responsible to him for monitoring quality of the project.

I would recomment not hiring a separate agency for the purpose of quality control, you would essentially be having two people there capable of doing the same job with the potential of bumping heads together. It would be better to hire your project manager and ask him if you should hire a separate crew for quality control.

I would suggest not to engage another QA/QC orgn. as it makes matter worse and no value addition as such.