Quality Control
Quality control is a wide-ranging subject, with many different meanings. Landscaping, as a profession, involves working with a very diverse and extensive range of products, materials and systems, on an even wider range of sites, soils, locations, uses and variety of designs. There can never be a bullet-proof document produced to cover all eventualities encountered when working on construction projects in the real, on-site, world of landscaping.
Add diverse temperatures, ambient moisture contents and wind desiccation into the mix, when trying to control the quality of every ingredient in the specification for a particular operation is sometimes very difficult.
It is possible however, to maintain a system of working that enables strict compliance with certain rules, devised and followed by your company, to ensure that standards are met at all times by regular testing and recording of those landscaping operations and materials.
An example of this ethos may be the receiving of imported topsoil to a site. Having agreed with a supplier that a certain grade of soil is acceptable, for a multi-load operation, you need to ensure that the same quality arrives each and every time. One load of sub-grade soil could, in some circumstances, require you to remove all previously imported soil from site, due to potential contamination.
Another example may be paving, especially natural stone. Sandstones and Limestones are most likely to arrive in sealed crates, and it is not possible to check every slab contained inside. Some may have hairline cracks that are not obvious until laying begins. Some may be more porous than others, with uneven surfaces, with ridges and micro-dips making laying difficult, even within the same crated batch.
Dimensions of some of the less expensive paving products may not have been produced to the same compliances and tolerances as more costly materials, and these variations can cost more in time and effort, requiring trimming to make them ‘fit’ into even random rectangular projects, simply due to their non-standard sizes. You save money on purchasing the product, then waste it on additional labour and saw blades.
For this reason, maintaining quality of workmanship, products and materials is a very important element when contracting, as without strict controls, one poor quality batch of material – or one mortar/bonding slurry mix that is weaker than it should be – an otherwise well-constructed project may fail with expensive consequences.
