Statistical process control in industrial construction engineering organizations.

摘要

The 1980s have seen the emergence of quality as the top strategic issue for the American industry. Statistical process control (SPC) is an important element of total quality management. Though SPC techniques were originally developed for manufacturing, they have been successfully applied to certain administrative and service functions. The objective of this research is to demonstrate the applicability of the principles and techniques of SPC for quality control and improvement in engineering/design organizations involved in industrial construction.;The quality measures in design engineering organizations are identified based on literature review and interviews with engineering and construction organizations. The applicability of SPC techniques in engineering organizations is demonstrated by using data from the literature and presenting examples from the literature and from interviews.;A conceptual model for application of SPC in construction engineering organizations is presented. Data from one owner engineering organization and one design engineering organization are used to illustrate the application of the model.;The major conclusions from this research are: (1) control chart and acceptance sampling techniques can be used in industrial construction engineering organizations for quality control and improvement; (2) quality measures should include cost and schedule measures in addition to defects measures; (3) demerit rating schemes can be used to overcome the problem that errors vary in seriousness; (4) a change in culture of the organization is required before SPC techniques can be effectively used.