Weekly Quality Area Topic (10.24-10.29): The relationship between quality, cost, and schedule

The relationship between schedule planning management and cost management, quality management, and resource management is mainly reflected in the following: 1. Schedule delays increase costs and lead to poor allocation of resources； 2. Compression of the timeline (rush work and accelerated progress) may lead to quality issues as well as increased resources and costs ； 3. Quality issues can lead to rework, increased costs, and delays in schedule ； 4. Cost cuts may lead to delays in progress and quality issues ； 5. Insufficient resources can lead to cost overruns, delays in schedule, and quality issues. This is also related to safety; it is necessary to establish a proper safety responsibility system and ensure adequate quality oversight. If everyone acted in accordance with these principles, there would be so few shoddy construction projects in society. Highways would not need to be repaired just 80 days after they were opened to traffic, and bridges wouldn’t collapse before they could even be used. In short, people, driven by greed, will ignore everything in pursuit of immediate profits; conscience and morality no longer exist at all. I really hope that in this society, good deeds are rewarded and evil deeds are punished. Or a bond of cause and effect.

This post was last edited by yzhang2010 on 2011-10-24 at 11:24. Progress _ The relationship among cost, schedule, and quality. The three objectives of engineering projects—cost, schedule, and quality—are interrelated in both contradictory and complementary ways. 　　(1) Opposing relationships 　If the project progress is to be accelerated, it will be necessary to work overtime or increase the number of construction machinery and workers, which will directly lead to higher costs ； Furthermore, accelerating the progress often disrupts the original plans, leading to a disconnect between various stages of the construction project, increasing the difficulty of control and coordination, and potentially having an adverse impact on the project quality or leaving hidden risks related to its quality. 　　If investment is to be reduced, it is necessary to consider lowering the functional and quality requirements, and to use inferior or standard engineering equipment and building materials; at the same time, the schedule can only be planned on the basis of minimizing costs, which results in a longer construction period for the entire project. 　　(II) Unified relationship: If higher functional and quality standards are set, although this requires an initial investment increase, it may reduce the operating and maintenance costs after the project is put into use. From the perspective of life-cycle cost analysis, this represents an investment savings. Additionally, from the standpoint of quality control, if strict quality controls are implemented during the construction process to ensure that the project meets its intended functional and quality requirements, this not only reduces the costs associated with rework during construction but also **lowers the maintenance costs after the project is operational. On the other hand, strict quality control can also help ensure progress. If quality issues are detected during the project implementation and rectified promptly, although it requires time and additional costs, the impact on the overall project schedule is less severe than that caused by failing to carry out repairs in time, which can lead to serious quality problems in the project. This article is reprinted from 51test.net: http://www.51test.net

While ensuring quality, it is necessary to accelerate the production process as much as possible; without progress, there can be no benefits. Therefore, it is important to maintain product quality, organize production in a scientific and rational manner, and improve the efficiency of the enterprise.

Several different milestones should be established. When the project is underway, emphasis is placed on maintaining quality and controlling costs; once the project reaches a certain stage, a review is conducted to summarize the progress. If any issues related to quality or cost are identified, corrective actions can be taken. This is to avoid discovering problems toward the end of the project, which would force a complete restart from scratch, increasing costs and affecting progress. At the same time, examine the cost expenditures at each distinct node; if the expenses exceed the limit at the current stage, cost control can be strengthened before the next milestone.

High quality comes at a high cost, and the relationship between quality and cost is not proportional. Once quality reaches a certain level, increasing it by even a little more requires an extremely high cost. Conversely, once the cost-quality ratio reaches a certain threshold, investing more money yields only very limited improvements in quality. Just as the difference between scoring 100 points on a test and 99 points is by no means just one point – it represents the difference between perfection and imperfection – students have to pay a much higher price to earn that one point from 99 to 100 than they do to earn that one point from 59 to 60. Some say that projects are projects with imperfections; there are no projects in the world that achieve their set goals 100% perfectly. There are always some shortcomings in project delivery, partly due to the many changes that occur during implementation, and partly because the cost required to achieve perfection is often enormous.

Reply to 5# gzy2050: At each set progress milestone, it is necessary to summarize the experiences gained, to determine whether the quality requirements have been met, whether costs have been reduced, and if any time has been wasted. How exactly can a perfect balance be achieved between quality, cost, and schedule?

Reply to 7# yuanyongan: It requires the support of the broader environment~~

Reply to 7# yuanyongan: That’s right. In fact, a fixed measure can also be established for this purpose, as an official means of quality control.

While quality is certainly something to strive for, cost must also be taken into account, and schedule is related to the level of costs. What businesses need is to achieve the best quality within a specific cost range. Of course, it’s not the case that if you prioritize speed, you can’t control costs, or that if you prioritize quality, there will be no progress.

I think every company should consider this; at the very least, a summary should be made after each project is completed. See if there are any areas that need improvement, and whether it’s possible to speed up the process while maintaining quality and saving costs! Or study how to improve the quality!