Category Archives: Construction

Pulling Back the Curtain on Risk and Rework

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We are builders, and as a byproduct of the job, we are worriers. There are many things that can go wrong on a construction project, but if you have the right people using the right tools, much of the risk can be averted. Our superintendents sleep well at night thanks to Kitchell’s relentlessly comprehensive Quality Assurance processes. Given the fact that fewer than 10 percent of commercial contractors have adopted a formal Quality Assurance program, it’s a safe bet that superintendents at other firms are walking around with circles under their eyes and consuming copious amounts of coffee.

Kitchell is an employee-owned company in business since 1950, with 80 percent of our business from repeat clients. Our keen focus on effective and measurable risk management leads to a great rate of return from our existing clients. In 2006 we formalized our processes with the establishment of a full-time Quality Assurance group to provide independent oversight and guidance to project teams.

Fewer than 10 percent of commercial contractors have adopted a formal Quality Assurance program. Fewer still measure the costs of quality due to rework. Our Quality Assurance program is based on verification and recording of the conformance of the work to the contract documents. All nonconforming work is corrected BEFORE becoming rework.

The perils of rework and how to avoid it

By its definition, construction is a high-risk endeavor. We see a strong correlation between rework occurrences and an increase in construction defect claims. Rework can also lead to higher safety incidents, pushed construction schedules, compromised quality, late delivery due to out of sequence work and billions of dollars a year in lost revenue.

In the long term, rework and added risk affects a construction company’s reputation and its ability to preserve relationships with long-term clients and attract new business.

To improve the performance of projects, rework must be greatly reduced or eliminated. This, then, reduces risk. It is imperative to identify the causes and proactively address issues beforehand. A proactive approach to building – inspect, record and correct nonconformances as the work is placed—is a hallmark of Quality Assurance.

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Numbers don’t lie: We have avoided nearly $24M in rework costs since 2007

 “If you can’t measure quality, it doesn’t exist,” says Bill Vandrovec, director of Kitchell’s Quality Assurance program. “We are committed to continuous measurable improvement and we capture project field performance metrics (conforming and nonconforming work), which has become not only an effective tool for ongoing work placement in the field, but also an invaluable historical data base for trending analysis, trade performance over time and project approach fine tuning for future work.”

Using real time metrics coupled with our field inspection protocol has allowed us to focus on aspects of work that have historically been shown to have a higher incident of nonconformance. For example, higher nonconforming rates on perimeter window sealant joints led to a special focus on this work, resulting in a significant decrease in testing failures and warranty call backs. Conformance trending analytics have shown that since we’ve started our Quality Assurance program, there has been a steady increase (3% per year) conforming to nonconforming items of work.

Our current conformance percentage for 2015 is 97.6%. In other words, less than 3% of work initially placed needed to be corrected BEFORE it ever became rework! We call this a provable example of continuous measurable improvement.

We love the feedback we receive regarding our Quality Assurance program. “Kitchell has a very effective way of harnessing data pertaining to vulnerabilities and nonconformances, analyzing it and proactively using that data as part of its ongoing process improvement strategy,” says James Shay, risk management executive, American Contractors Insurance Group. “So instead of ‘starting from scratch’ with each new project, they are able to capitalize on historical intelligence—at great financial benefit to owners and advantageous to the entire construction process.”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

Muzzling noise never more critical than when building above babies

Originally Seen in the Pages of Arizona Real Estate Magazine…

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Noise, vibrations, dust and other disruptions are always a concern during hospital construction but never more (potentially) problematic than when the youngest, most vulnerable patients are a mere 5.5 inches away on the floor below. This is what’s happening right now at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, as shell space is built-out above the hospital’s Pediatric Epilepsy Monitoring Unit (PEMU), a joint program with Barrow Neurological Institute. In a PEMU, each patient’s room is outfitted with video equipment to capture seizure activity while a child’s brainwaves are recorded. The feedback is used to obtain highly accurate diagnoses and treatment plans.

Anticipating future need was strategically built into the design of Phoenix Children’s Hospital’s 11-story patient tower, which opened to patients in 2011. Just a year after opening, plans were set in motion to populate the top floors, and today we’re creating extra capacity on the tower’s ninth floor. The 45,000-square-foot space will feature 48 patient rooms. Kitchell is back on site as the general contractor, HKS is the architect and CCRD Partners is the M/E/P Engineer.

Don’t drop anything!

Just imagine how quietly the construction team must proceed to avoid making even the smallest sound or vibration. Noise mitigation is priority number one. It’s a construction site where communication is done via whispers, texts and email, and all field supervisors have radios in case an immediate shutdown of construction activities is necessary. And it’s a site where materials are brought into the building via an external hoist.

Everything the team does requires advance thought, meticulous planning and ongoing communication with hospital staff, which began during preconstruction and included deputizing one of the nurses “construction project manager.” Nothing could be a surprise. Even something as seemingly mundane as lifting a pipe could be an issue, because of the potential of the loud “clang” as the result of dropping it. This advance thought included orchestrating a “make noise” session for staff a month prior to construction. Together with our trade contractors, we demonstrated all noises that could be a potential impact to the eighth floor. This included floor grinding, shot pins, scissor lifts, roto-hammers, cutting, chopping, dropped pipe, saw cutting, shop vac and core drilling.

How to eliminate nose

Here are some of the tactics being deployed to ensure the comfort of the children and their families below the jobsite, while allowing staff to do their work unimpeded:

  • A lift was built on the west side of the building to transport everything up and in for construction. Absolutely nothing is brought in through the inside of the building. The lift makes 100 trips daily. Because children love watching construction activities, we decorated the hoist with a decal of Superman so he appears to be flying each time the hoist passes in front of their windows.
  • As much work as possible was done offsite, completely removing significant noise and vibration from the job site. For example, headwalls were built offsite and then ingeniously “split in two” to fit inside the outdoor lift and reassembled once on site.
  • Ingenious phasing has been instituted. For example, the loudest activity is drilling into the floor (the ceiling of the 8th floor) which creates echoes and vibrations. Working with hospital staff, we developed a schedule to drill 30 minutes on and 30 minutes off.
  • Infection Control Risk Assessment (ICRA) containment on the 8th floor was meticulously planned and executed long before construction began. We used cardboard mock-ups to create the center core of the floor (nurse work areas) and then adjusted areas to fit the changing needs of the facility. These adjustments required plumbing revisions to approximately 30 rooms on the floor below.
  • Rubber mats were place throughout the 45,000-square-foot space to deaden the sound of the carts which traverse the expanse constantly throughout the day. And all cutting and chopping activities are required to be executed on a rubber mat.
  • We’re upgrading the existing shell space fire sprinkler system for the 9th floor build-out, which requires being “wet” every night to keep the system energized. To mitigate the risk of an overnight leak, and potentially putting the 8th floor at risk, we place sensors on the floor at the end of each shift. In the event of a leak, these sensors signal team leaders’ cell phones on a SmartThings app. This allows for response time to be minutes instead of hours.

The schedule of direct impact activities, such as drilling, cutting, and materials transport, are communicated proactively and requested adjustments are always accommodated. Our project manager meets with the nursing staff on the 8th floor each morning at 7:15 a.m. to ensure that the flow of construction above is acceptable based on potential changes during the preceding night. Additionally, Kitchell meets with the nursing staff weekly (enhanced by homemade cupcakes) to discuss upcoming activities. When concern for patients and families, communication with staff and thorough forethought are embedded into every plan and every activity, construction doesn’t need to create commotion and disruption, even in a children’s hospital. Meticulous planning and ongoing collaboration with medical staff makes the process seamless and rewarding for all. And cupcakes don’t hurt either!

Dave Cottle is Phoenix Children’s Hospital Vice President of Planning, Design and Construction.

Aron Kirch is a Kitchell project manager.