A New Methodology for the Quality Control Review Process for Roadway-Engineering Plans: A Case Study

Abstract

This field project report provides an analysis and evaluation of an alternative quality control method to the traditional quality control methods for the conformation of engineered roadway plans against the various standards of design. The new method will shift the timing and method of quality control review of engineered roadway plans in such a way that overall effort is decreased, checking process duplication is eliminated, and comment resolution is well documented and tracked for closeout. The report finds that when the quality control process is completed in synchronization with design, and not at the end of design, major design flaws will be found sooner, and the likelihood of project delay is decreased. It is recommended that the new method of quality control be applied to all future roadway design projects. This report also makes note of some of the limitations of the project. Some of these limitations include the unique nature of the project being an intersection improvement project without structural design components, the small footprint of the design, and general improvement of an existing condition vs. a brand new design from scratch. Another limitation of the project is that there are no true metrics to record the traditional quality control methods to compare to the updated method. It does not make economic sense to budget a project to be reviewed two times, with one based on the original method, and the other based on the proposed new method.