Contractor Quality Control: An Evaluation

CQC (Contractor Quality Control) is a system mandated by certain government agencies to place the entire responsibility for quality control on a project upon the contractor. The contractor is required to submit a quality control plan, the extent of which depends on complexity of the project. Extensive experience has shown serious deficiencies in the system which can result in inferior quality, early failures and major repair expense. CQC encourages contractors to select inspectors based on lowest prices rather than professional qualifications. Quality control is too important to be left to low price bid shopping! It is argued that the system invites abuses due to lack of oversight, and many specified tests are never accomplished and often failing test results are screened out of the submittals. Quality control should be the responsibility of the design professional.