COVID-19 Impact vs. Quality Management

The globally raging COVID-19 pandemic has drastically affected economies and production activities. As a leading engineering company, CTCI has made efforts in all aspects to maintain a sustainable global operations and ensure its service quality continue to meet customer needs. This article offers a glimpse on the measures taken to deliver clients superior engineering services and uncompromising quality management by CTCI, “the most reliable global engineering services provider.”

Prompt Adjustment of Quality Management Work Plans

To reduce infection risks that come from physical interactions, CTCI has made some adjustments related to activities that involve more physical interactions, such as auditing, inspections, and routine quality inspections.

1."Remote auditing" or "remote inspection"
Remote auditing" and "remote inspection" offer a flexible yet effective way for auditors and inspectors to do their jobs through audio and video devices without being physically present at construction sites or physically in contact with people that are to be audited.
Many projects undertaken by CTCI are located in remote areas where communication is rather unstable. CTCI overcomes this problem with its superb communication technology and resources, which increases the feasibility of remote audit operations. 

For example, internet networks specifically allocated based on project scale allows setup of shared database on cloud platforms for pre-audit document review. Colleagues who are onsite can also use video software and mobile devices to send back information regarding site conditions for quality management check and status inspection.

In contrast to onsite audits and inspections, remote operation faces limitation such as restricted view range and network connection quality issue. Despite so, remote operations remain an effective option when other factors such as pandemic risk, transportation, and monetary costs are taken into consideration (this is especially true for overseas projects).

2.Improve routine quality inspections
During the pandemic, face-to-face contact should be avoided or reduced. To ensure proper quality management be implemented by project quality manager, there are inspection focuses—ranging from audit deficiencies and non-conformity report (NCR/DND) previously concluded by Quality Management Department, as well as top priorities demanded by the company. Project quality managers need to keep track of project status and report to the department weekly. 

CTCI’s long-term efforts in developing online information management infrastructures for various operations proved conducive for data-sharing environment. This allows project quality managers to use online data to check conformity status of current project against quality requirements. By managing quality as daily routine, issues can be timely spotted. After reviewing all project reports, if certain item seems to encounter implementation issue across multiple projects, the management team will then determine the root cause. If the root cause comes from improper management mechanism or procedural regulations, the department team will report to the top promptly and may modify standards/procedures so as to improve the overall quality management system. This, indeed, is what the concept of “continual improvement process” associated with Quality Management System is all about.

Immediate Understanding the Latest Measures and Information regarding Public Works

Some of CTCI’s projects are public contracts in Taiwan, and therefore requires observance to the directives of Public Construction Commission (PCC), Executive Yuan. Since May 2021, in face of the rising COVID-19 pandemic, PCC has issued multiple official documents and announced measures. CTCI has set up an information platform that allows project team members to quickly search and retrieve the exact information they want, saving them precious time. 

Moreover, CTCI continues to carry out training to ensure its employees understand quality management in public constructions as well as regulations. At the end of July, 2021, CTCI invited Ming Yu Wang, Section Chief of Department of Construction Management, PCC to talk about “Domestic Public Construction: Quality Issues and Policies.” The lecture covered quality-related laws and regulations, annual policy focus, common deficiencies, public work inspection experiences, and the authority’s practices in public work inspections. To lower Covid risks, most of CTCI attendees joined the lecture online.

Enhance Employee Awareness on Intellectual Property Protection

The attention to intellectual property protection is growing globally. From 2017 to 2018, CTCI conducted a large-scale review of intellectual property protection within the organization and sought improvement. After more than two years of implementation, an additional revision on the management mechanisms and related procedures took off in 2020 under the tripartite effort of Quality Management Department, the Project department, and Legal and Compliance Department. 

To ensure all colleagues are aware of CTCI’s policies on intellectual property and follow correct work procedures in their daily work, Quality Management Department launched a course called “Intellectual Property Knowledge Evaluation for All Colleagues,” accessible through CTCI University, the corporate online education platform. In total, 5,796 employees throughout CTCI Group, including companies in Taiwan and overseas, took the evaluation test. Employees must score full mark to pass the test.

Actively Communicate to Deal with Project Implementation-Issues

CTCI holds semiannual briefing sessions on regulations/procedures updates. This is an important time to collect feedback on project implementation and spot major issues. To timely deal with major issues, the Quality Management Department would hold workshops with project teams to discuss project details. 

For example, some project teams mentioned that the Two-stage-TBE and Stacked POR operation methods are not effective in helping the teams achieve expected results. The Quality Management Department therefore carried out reviews with relevant parties and sought improvement. Meanwhile, the Quality Management Department also held workshops with project teams and relevant parties to discuss and confirm the feasibility of the improved method. Again, due to COVID-19 precautions, only supervisors and key project personnel took part in physical discussion in the meeting room, with socially distanced seating. The rest of the colleagues joined discussion online.

Ongoing Review of Management System; Keep SOPs Up-to-date; Hold Briefing Sessions on Regulations/Procedures Updates

Despite the severity of the pandemic, CTCI continues to improve its management system and updates its procedures and regulations. 

1.Updated Procedures/Regulations 
Including: Remote video inspection as new option for verifying procured products; Fully integrated online system for Design Change Control; Fully online operation for Design Squad Check (Online Marking); and systematic control and tracking for Preservation Action List.

2.New Procedures/Regulations
For business development needs: "FEED Project Engineering Procedure" and "JV Project Operation Management Procedure." 

In line with global sustainable development practices: "Climate Change Risk Management Regulations" and "Project Power Consumption Evaluation Management Procedure." 

Document reviews were unaffected by COVID-19 pandemic, as review meetings were held via video conferences, ensuring timely communication with all parties.

In addition, CTCI held semiannual briefing sessions on regulations/procedures updates in January and August 2021 and January 2022 to ensure supervisors and project team members understand the background, key points, and expected outcome of the procedures/regulations updates. Briefing session for 2022 took place in January.

Conclusion

CTCI makes every effort to ensure all projects globally maintain supreme quality and stay on track, even in the face of COVID-19 outbreak. Client satisfaction is our priority, and we are able to make client happy by aggressively adjusting our quality management practices, refining and innovating management mechanisms, and paying attention to client needs, without compromising legal, contractual, and corporate requirements on quality.