Two Quality Documents That a Quality Engineer Can Issue to

Construction Team
In the ongoing construction of any civil engineering projects there will be problems we
encounter at the site and we cannot avoid it. Like for example mistakes of width of the footing
not as per approved drawing, material used for the footing like steel or spacer, size of the door
openings not as per drawing etc. But these problems sometimes happen on site and we cant
control due to various kinds of reason.
If the quality engineer noticed the problems or issues on site he may write or issue either of the
two documents depending on the status of the problem. Here are the two quality documents that
a quality engineer can issue to a construction team.
1. Site Observation, SO

Site Observation is an issue or problem that a quality engineer noticed during the activity
on a site like for example concrete casting of foundation without extra number of
concrete vibrator the quality engineer may write a Site Observation for that problem
because maybe during casting there will be technical problem occur then alternative
shall be required.

Another example is pouring concrete during hot weather or during high ambient
temperature he may write a Site Observation if the ambient temperature is above the
maximum limit during concrete pouring.

2. Non-conformance Report. NCR

Non-conformance report meaning is A failure to comply with a requirement of a companys
quality system.
With the meaning itself you can easily identify the non-conformance on and after and during the
activities at the site.
Here are two types of non-conformance that you can notice:
a. Non-conformance during the work

The example of this nonconformity is adding water on fresh concrete during pouring.
Standard or Specification says no water shall be added to the fresh concrete. So quality
engineer must prevent the people to add water, this act sometimes site crews doing during
concrete pouring.

b. Non-conformance after work

In many instances the non-conformance in this nature are sometimes hard to close or it
can be closed by structural calculation when it comes to the non-conformance on
structure, the closure of such non-conformity is depending on both client and contractor
internal arrangement . The example of this nonconformity is the Structural beam offset 20cm from Gridline. This NCR happened when I was in my previous company in
Dubai. So the beam was already casted and we cannot demolish or break that beam due
to the interconnection of slab with it and it casted monolithically. The proposed corrective
action is To submit structural calculation for the off set beam in order to verify if the
structure is still safe with the new location of the beam.

There are many instances of Site Observation and Non-conformance can be shown here but I just
made the above in order to give everybody an insight how to figure out and show the difference
of the two.