QUALITY ASSURANCE FOR LOCAL AGENCIES
By MELVIN W. SMITH, Illinois Department of Transportation

Poorly built and maintained roads are both expensive and inconvenient to taxpayers. The service life, future maintenance costs, level of service and user costs are directly related to the quality of work performed on roads. The principle, that the delivery of safe and effective highway services is a duty owed to the taxpayer, is the basis for a Quality Assurance Program. In order to obtain a reasonable degree of quality assurance for local governments, minimum design standards and specifications should be established and enforced. All highway activities (planning, design, construction, maintenance, etc.) should be accomplished to ensure an acceptable level of performance.

Since most local governments have limited resources for inspection, sampling and testing, a quality assurance program must depend upon assistance from many individuals outside the agency. Such a program, therefore, must include the activities of consulting engineers who perform construction engineering services, materials testing laboratories, and contractors who perform the actual work. The efforts of all of these participants should be coordinated by a comprehensive set of design standards, long and short range work plans, specifications, utility regulations, sampling and testing guides and maintenance standards. However, the existence of these control mechanisms alone is not enough, local highway agencies must be sufficiently organized, staffed and trained to ensure compliance on the part of all concerned.

Regardless of how work is performed, public highway agencies have three basic options when faced with work or materials that do not meet specifications:

(1) Do not accept the work until the contractor meets specifications, either by removal, replacement or reconstruction.

(2) Assess price adjustments or special fees against the contractor to compensate for the future increased maintenance costs of substandard work.

(3) Accept the substandard work or material. Obviously, the latter is the poorest option and should not be tolerated.

Benefits of Quality Assurance

Quality assurance measures should result in the following benefits to local governments.

Greater Value for Money Spent — Quality assurance should ensure that the public receives the performance for which it has paid. Conversely, quality assurance should identify areas where more quality is being bought than is really needed.

Decreased Maintenance Costs — It is commonly accepted that roads and bridges that are well built to begin with will not be as expensive to maintain during their service lives.

Improved Performance — If designs and specifications are properly prepared and the quality of construction is well controlled then the end product should perform as expected. Service, as an element of performance, includes rideability, traffic capacity, load carrying capacity and safety.

Fairness to All Concerned — Quality assurance programs cannot be for the sole benefit of the public agency. Developers, contractors, suppliers and consultants all must be able to conduct their business at a fair profit. Everyone should benefit by clearly establishing what is expected, how it will be verified and the consequences of noncompliance. By knowing what the standards are from the beginning, those dealing with public agencies can afford to do their job right the first time.

Avoid Legal Hassles — When too much personal discretion and judgment is allowed, an agency is open to charges of favoritism and misuse of public funds. Quality assurance establishes clear rules and procedures and provides proven checks and balances.

Common Sense Approach — A quality assurance program need not be complicated. It should simply be a common-sense approach to ensure that the public dollar is well spent.

Should you want additional information concerning Quality Assurance for Local Governments, please contact the National Technical Information Service, Department of Commerce, 5285 Port Royal Road, Springfield, Virginia 22161 and ask for Report No. FHWA-IP-83-1. •

Credits to: Zane Wickham, Policy and Procedures Unit.

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