Quality Assurance / Quality Control
Quality Assurance / Quality Control
This domain tests whether you can separate quality assurance from quality control and apply the Division 01 quality requirements during construction. The CCCA exam expects you to know who plans quality, who verifies it, and what the contract administrator does when work fails a test.
Core rules
- Quality assurance (QA) is the planned, systematic activity that gives confidence the work will meet requirements: prequalification, submittal review, mockups, first-article inspections, and defined procedures.
- Quality control (QC) is the contractor's inspection and testing against specified tolerances. A QC plan should identify inspection and test points, hold points that require the architect's release, and records.
- Division 01 Section 01 40 00 Quality Requirements typically names reference standards, testing-laboratory duties, special inspections, mockup acceptance, and rework. It supplements, not replaces, the general conditions.
- Submittal review is QA evidence. Approval of a shop drawing does not relieve the contractor of responsibility for dimensions, quantities, or compliance.
- A nonconformance should be documented, segregated where practical, dispositioned (rework, repair, accept by written variance, or reject), and re-verified. Do not let a failed test disappear into a daily log.
Worked example
The specification requires 4,000 psi concrete and says no individual 28-day cylinder may fall more than 500 psi below the specified strength. A set of three cylinders averages 3,800 psi, but one cylinder reads 3,450 psi. The contractor argues that the average passes. Reasoning: the individual result is below the 3,500 psi floor created by the specification, so the set is a nonconformance even though the average is acceptable. The contract administrator documents it, requires the contractor to propose evaluation by core testing under the referenced concrete standard, and withholds acceptance until the cores or other approved evaluation show the in-place concrete is adequate.
Traps that cost marks
- Treating the architect's periodic site visit as the contractor's QC inspection.
- Assuming submittal approval transfers design responsibility to the architect.
- Confusing QA (procedures and confidence) with QC (measurement and testing).
- Missing a designated hold point and letting work proceed without release.
- Accepting a manufacturer's certificate when the specification requires independent test reports.