l ISO 9001 Activities in P.W.D. l Quality Circle l

ISO 9001 Activities in P.W.D.

The P.W.D. of Maharashtra has a glorious tradition of over 150 years. The P.W.D. has done excellent works of roads, bridges, buildings etc. for public use. The P.W.D. has a disciplined working guided by P.W.D. Manual, Accounts code. Specification books, technical and administrative circulars etc.

The user public at large is the customers of P.W.D.. it is our aim to provide good service to our customers by constructing and maintaining Government assets in the best manner. We are aiming at quality of our construction within the available resources. However, we do not always succeed in constructing the works to the best level of quality for various reasons like lack of resourceful contractors, lack of support for experiment, lack of management training, lack of specilised technical training etc.

The present operative system in P.W.D. is perhaps not dynamic. Our aim is to bring in dynamism in our system. It can be done by commitment to quality proper documentation, implementation of quality system, management reviews, audit of external agencies and appropriate training at all levels within the organisation. A tailor made way to achieve these is to adopt the quality system based on the international standard that ISO 9001.

The organisation derives various benefits of ISO 9001 like increased credibility, having house in order, increased productivity, quality output, economy and consistency in organisation. ISO 9001 is an international standard of quality assurance in products as well as services. It involves customers, suppliers and sub-contractors. The essence of ISO 9001 is "Plan what you do", "Do what you plan", and "Document what you did".

The P.W.D. of Maharashtra has made a modest beginning of implementing quality system based on ISO 9001 within following circles & divisions namely 1) Mumbai Construction Circle, Chembur. 2)Designs Circle, Navi Mumbai, 3) Vigilance and Quality Control Circle, Navi Mumbai,Nashik, Amravati,Nagpur,Pune 4) National Highway Division No.5 ,Pune 5)National Highway Division No.6 ,Pune. 6)National Highway Division No.7 ,Kolhapur and 7)P.W.Division,No.2 Solapur,8)Public Works Circle,Ratnagiri alongwith the Divisions:i)South Ratnagiri Public works Division,Ratnagiri, ii)North Ratnagiri Public works Division,Ratnagiri,iii)Sawantwadi Public works Division,Sawantwadi,iv)Kudal Public works Division at Kankavali, v)Chiplun Public works Division, Chiplun

The following steps are involved in getting ISO 9001 certificate.

    1. Making a reference to Government about willingness of a division/circle to get ISO 9001 certificate.

    2. Awareness programme for all employees within the organisation.

    3. Imparting the training in documentation of qualify system based on ISO 9001 to the dedicated team of employees drawn from various cadres.

    4. Imparting trainers training to a few employees who are expected to train all the other employees within the organisation during implementation.

    5. Appointing implementation team and a Management Representative. When certification is considered for a Circle the Superintending Engineer is nominated as Management Representative and all Executive Engineers and a few Deputy Engineers comprise the implementation team.

    6. Status appraisal and Gap Area Identification. This involves comparing the present system of working to the requirement of ISO 9001 standard.

    7. Documentation. This involves development of Quality Manual. Quality System Procedure Manual, Instruction Manual etc.

    8. Implementation .. This involves training all the employees in the documentated Quality System base on ISO 9001 and implementing all quality functions in accordance with the documented system.

    9. Imparting Internal Quality Auditors Training to members of Core Group to facilitate assessment of Implementation of Quality System and effectiveness thereof.

    10. Imparting Lead Auditors Training to a selected group of IQA trained auditors

    11. Management Reviews.. Management Reviews are conducted by the CEO who is generally the Chief Engineer once in 3 months to review the implementation and effectiveness of the documented Quality Policy and Objectives. The Management Reviews also provide indication of visible support of top management to the activity.

    12. Registration.. This involves applying for registration with the certification agency with a view to get audited and certified.

    13. Final audit and Certificate.. The certification agency conducts a thorough audit of all quality function and issues certificate to the organisation.

    14. Surveillance Audit .. The certificate agency carries out surveillance audit every 12 months to ascertain continued effectiveness of the Quality System.

      The above procedure normally takes about 12 months time period from the stage of Awareness Programme to Certification