Plan: The plan part of PDCA of the material testing should involve the following actions

1. Identifying all materials that will be used in construction.
2. Documenting the requirements, read technical specifications for each material and align it with the design, drawings and contract documents.
3. Assessing the quantity of each material to be procured.
4. Develop a detailed Inspection and Test Plan (ITP). Use principles of statistical Quality Control to optimise the frequency of sampling and testing and tie it up with the acceptance criteria for each material.
5. Plan for resources required to implement the ITP.
    

Do: While an effective ITP is an essential starting point, its implementation is equally crucial. Some crucial aspects are enumerated here for a quick self-check and assessment.

1. Qualified Quality Control engineers, adequate sampling and testing facilities and well documented Standard Operating Processes tying all activities together are required.
2. Each lot / batch of incoming material must go through sampling and testing as mandated in the ITP.
3. Decision to reject or accept a batch as per the prescribed frequency (or set aside till a final decision is taken) must be documented and placed on record.
4. At any given time, the site must have adequate quantity of tested and accepted materials.
5. Traceability should be ensured so that we are able to identify the part of the structure where material from a given lot has been consumed.
6. Exhaustive record must be maintained which can be verified at any time during construction or even later during operation and maintenance phase.
    

Check: Despite a well-documented and implemented ITP, it is possible that some inadvertent errors take place and either defective material gets consumed in the works or proper evidence is not placed on record about 100% compliance with the testing requirements. To check this, the most cost-effective method is to audit the entire process of testing of incoming materials. An audit conducted by an experienced Quality management professional can unearth gaps in the system of material testing. Our experience suggests that the following gaps often exist.

1. Incomplete ITP, overlooking some materials or not identifying some characteristics to be inspected/tested.
2. Over reliance on Manufacturers Test Certificate (MTC). Often the manufacturers copy paste test results from one lot to many.
3. Not linking MTC with material in stock. This means that there is no physical identification to show that the MTC that the supplier has furnished applied to the lot delivered!
4. Ineffective sampling, not making it random but following a set pattern.
5. Lack of understanding of sampling plan & frequency on part of the QC Engineers.
6. Incorrect interpretation of the acceptance criteria and codal provisions.
7. Lack of application of mind about test reports and not recording acceptance/rejection of the lot explicitly.
8. Incorrect testing of materials due to deployment of untrained technicians.
9. Not waiting for testing of material and consuming a lot in anticipation of the lot being accepted later on.

Act: The last part of the PDCA cycle simply means that the organization [Quality manager] responds to the audit findings promptly and eliminates the gaps identified. Different actions that typically emerge from a proper root cause analysis of the non-conformities identified by the auditor are listed below.

1. Improving the ITP.
2. Ensuring that the QC Engineers responsible for testing of incoming materials understands the ITP fully. The most challenging part is to understand the statistical sampling plan and acceptance criteria.
3. Providing resources for inspection & testing where found inadequate.
4. Training lab technicians and ensuring calibration all testing equipment.

Drafting a Standard Operating Processe that brings together all stakeholders associated with material testing. These include the contractor, procurement department, quality team, execution team, billing engineer and planning engineer.