A team of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers quality assurance experts will visit Europe District December 7 to 11 to review processes and programs as part of the district's first Quality Assessment Peer Review.
During its visit, the review team from the New-York-based North Atlantic Division plans to review the District's quality assurance processes and programs to assist them analyzing, aligning, and enhancing existing quality assurance processes, as well as give the District an opportunity to ask for and/or discover enhancements to these processes.
In addition, the visit gives the NAD and Europe District teams an opportunity to share best business practices and lessons learned, said Jean Swalley, chief of Engineering Services for the District's Engineering Branch.
"We've had construction quality assurance reviews in the district, but this is different," said Swalley, who is working with Ken Turner, a program manager who manages the District's Quality Assurance Program. "For the first time the division is taking a holistic approach to quality assurance across the region, visiting each district to assess how we are performing from a quality standpoint through all project phases and to ensure we are headed in the right direction."
Unlike traditional inspections where a team inspects the process leading up to delivery of a product, the review team will look at the processes the District employs to ensure quality, said Darrell Deleppo, a program manager with the North Atlantic Division.
"We're taking the first steps in implementing the quality management system that's being implemented across the Corps," he said. "So during this visit, there are three important questions we're looking at - what processes do you use to ensure a quality product, do you use them, and are they effective'"
NAD's review team, led by Deleppo, will also bring members from other districts to go over the Europe District's processes and programs, including independent technical reviews, responsiveness to design comments, P2, value engineering, before contract award, and design build. The team will also discuss District initiatives - building information modeling systems, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and the Projects and Acquisition Portal.
"District employees have been involved in reviewing the NAD quality management program and our own existing processes since last summer in preparation for discussions with the assessment team," Swalley said. "We see this as an opportunity to gain insight and share information, and we want to get as much out of it as possible."
Deleppo said when they began planning the visits, they asked the districts what to focus on. So likewise, once the review is over, the team will look to the districts for feedback.
"The way we want to measure our successes is by asking the question, 'What did the Europe District get out of it'" he said. "We're trying to take our traditional way of doing things and transition them to the new way of doing things. Right now we're in a transition period."
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