[Trevor:] I said there's no need to lock it Mike, it's alright, you know.
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER]
[Trevor:] I just come back er ladies and gentlemen to apologize for this morning's cock up, I mean it was totally inexcusable of me. Er I'll explain why it happened an and then perhaps you'll hopefully find that you can forgive me, and er then I'll go on and say one or two of the things that I was gonna say this morning but er didn't. I made the mistake this morning of trying to squeeze in er before I came here to just cl try and clear another task. Er that was silly er I didn't allow myself sufficient time to prepare for this opening and ob obviously to compose myself. The result of that was that by the time I'd rushed across the road, dashed up the stair well found the place, dashed up the stairs, I was out of breath and er hadn't composed myself and I just res resembled a quivering blob that er
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER]
[Trevor:] that left you about er twenty past nine.
[speaker002:] [cough]
[Trevor:] I'd unnecessarily put myself in a stressful situation. It's rather interesting that the only two management er training courses I did last year, were er stress management and time management and I seem to cocked them both up
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER]
[Trevor:] [LAUGHTER] Er anyway as I say er I realized when I'd started talking er that I was digging a bigger and bigger hole for myself so I er I climbed out of it and and made an exit.
[Dennis:] And passed me the shovel.
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER]
[Trevor:] Er i it was insulting to you and I apologize for that. Both for not being prepared, not giving the opening of this course the importance that it did deserve, and obviously for the embarrassment that er you must have felt having to sit there while I made a total fool of myself. Interesting as well that on the subject here to discuss quality, and I didn't bother to, to put a quality presentation together. A a again I am very very sorry. If I'm g go over things that Dennis covered or that have already been covered this morning, I, I will be brief a and I just wanted to say these are some of my personal views on the quality initiatives. Er I know Hugh er a and many of the management team erm share most of them erm a i if not all of them. Our quality systems are about defining what we as a group are gonna do for our clients, our customers. Er without the customers there's no point in us being here at all. And we're gonna define when we're gonna come up with the goods as well. What are we gonna do? When are we gonna do it by? A are the two things that the client's interested in. Th the cost obviously i is a third point. But, but once we've discus defined who's gonna do what within the quality systems that, then we've got something to, to make a start from. And the quality systems will help us to monitor and identify where things are going wrong and once we know what is going wrong, we've got an opportunity to put it right. And that then gives us this spiral of improvement which is bound to impact on everything that we do. The management team are fully committed to the group's quality initiative. We consider that investment in quality is as important as improving the working environment, which we've obviously been er doing slowly over the last three years. And investing in CAD
[speaker002:] [cough]
[Trevor:] and MOS equipment, which again,we we've b successfully been doing over the last two or three years. So i i it sits side by side with the erm items that we'd decided are important for us to achieve our visions. The good housekeeping exercise which we've just circulated the documents on, which we'll be consulting on in two weeks time tt er it mainly is about changing the organization to allow us to delegate authority down to an appropriate level. And to ensure that we act as a group and not just a collection of separate offices. Er this of course will then improve the quality of the service which our customers receive. You'll have been briefed, I'm sure, about the two day management get-together that we're gonna have at Scarborough next week. All the function heads, most of the section engineers, all the team quantity surveyors and a good number of er senior project engineer, M S three type levels are gonna be there. I, I don't know how we're gonna get Bob's fishing rod on the train I'm a little bit worried about it but erm
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER] Get Bob on the. [LAUGHTER]
[Trevor:] getting him off the dodgems perhaps will be a bigger problem. Er the reason for the get-together is for us to look closely at the aspirations of the group within the immediate future, and taking us forward three to five years. Three to five years seems quite a long way forward in the current uncertain climate. But we've called the er the seminar, Shaping the Future. And I think you can rest assured that the quality systems will be the foundations onto which we will build any changes which are identified as being necessary, as part of next week's get-together. Without quality systems in place, we won't be able to tender in the future for design work which a lot of our clients will be offering. It was only because we had the quality systems in place, okay we didn't have accreditation er at the time, but the quality systems were in place, that we were invited to tender for the Crossrail project for Rickmansworth station. So again, everything comes back to quality and the C E D G being er essential a a and really er a building block for our future survival.
[speaker002:] [whispering] Okay [].
[Trevor:] Would it be alright if I stayed for the rest of the afternoon?
[Dennis:] I think actually Trev that was very very timely, cos that really sort of encapsulated what we said this morning, so thank you very much for coming back. Er You might have to find your own chair actually.
[Trevor:] Oh right.
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER]
[Trevor:] I can stand at the back.
[Dennis:] Right erm wh what we propose doing now i is just to, I've written up er your, inverted commas, answers o on the board. Erm we'll just er look at th those have a good bit of a laugh and a bit of a chuckle. Erm the idea then is to, to swap your project quality plans around the groups and then for each, the leader of each group to critique those plans, just briefly, a few minutes er and present that to the erm t to the group. And hopefully that will stimulate some discussion. Right. So tho those are the estimates of cost. Er they range from, sorry can you see that? They range from eight thousand two hundred and fifty pounds through to eighteen thousand one hundred and fifty. Erm I shall pass no comment on those, but I do know whose was the lowest bid.
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER]
[Dennis:] And we said it would be.
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER]
[Dennis:] Erm
[speaker002:] Cheapskate. [LAUGHTER]
[Dennis:] It's only because your boss is here, isn't it Bill?
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER]
[Dennis:] Erm issue of drawings to the er the client er the client wished to know, wished to know this. Er three of you told him when he was going to get it. Erm it's perhaps en encompassed in that which is the total completion er for the fourth group. And you also told the client
[speaker002:] [cough]
[Dennis:] er two of you told him when he was going to get the estimates. Erm
[Norman:] Er
[Dennis:] again
[Norman:] can you just alter the third one to the thirty first of August ninety three?
[Dennis:] Sorry. Which one?
[speaker002:] That one.
[Norman:] That one you had your pen on.
[Dennis:] That's three is it? Sorry. Beg your pardon. I was doing it under the covers you see?
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER]
[Dennis:] Erm so er I mean it could be argued that those figures go in there. I'm a a and they're not too bothered about that. Erm group number one offered to advise the client when he 'd when they'd finished the survey. Not too sure you would actually do that without erm,I, I've got no real comment on that i quite so simply
[speaker002:] [cough]
[Mike:] Okay Dennis?
[Dennis:] Yeah.
[Mike:] What I'd like is
[speaker002:] ?
[Mike:] Not yet. Because we're going to wait
[Dennis:] till you've s till er [LAUGHTER] you're present []. [LAUGHTER]
[Mike:] We're going to wait till er we've heard your critique on each other 's until we make our minds up. We'd like groups one and two to swap for comment please, and gr and groups three and four to swap for comment. Now could you get together and spend five or six minutes as a group, having a look at the other group's presentation and could you please make a note of the following. The good points, the points you disagree with completely, but most importantly of, of all, would you have been able to have worked from that particular quality plan as presented to you? In other words, was the quality plan sufficiently well completed for you to be able to utilize it? In earnest? So if you could just spend five or six minutes doing that and could we come back at twenty five past two please. Okay?
[speaker002:] ... [tape stops and starts] for me? young lady. from there. [LAUGHTER] from the end. [LAUGHTER] You're as bad as. Yeah. We're running. Testing testing. early on. [LAUGHTER] Right. Have w have we got one then? What's that?
[Norman:] Right.
[speaker002:] Right. Do you wanna? Is it group four's erm plan? No it's not group four cos they'll all escape. [LAUGHTER]
[Norman:] Group four. Yeah. Er so [cough] Yeah. Let's, can you see that Roger?
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER]
[Norman:] So they've got the project number Toytown. no problem there. Er we I can't remember if we
[speaker002:] be an R O R O W one? Yeah. R O W's a bit odd. That one's misleading Mhm. for a kick off. Do you want to make a note of that? Mm.
[Norman:] And extension varies by designs. Erm
[speaker002:] Not R O W.
[Norman:] Alistair erm he's, he's made himself er he has made himself coordinator.
[speaker002:] And section engineer.
[Norman:] And section engineer. I didn't sign it as coordinator.
[speaker002:] Mm.
[Norman:] Project engineer is Brian.
[speaker002:] Right.
[Norman:] No problem there really. that one.
[speaker002:] Have they got all the sections filled in? Didn't notice. Survey? It would be sent back if it wasn't filled in wouldn't it? Survey is all we said wasn't it? Mm. Yeah. We haven't got some of our headings. No.
[Norman:] Er project manager. Yeah the same trouble as er
[speaker002:] We just put today's date on which is fair Yeah. enough isn't it? Yeah.
[Norman:] IBIS I didn't notice. Did you?
[speaker002:] They've made that up I think. Mhm.
[Norman:] Mm.
[speaker002:] O Eight Nine Eight isn't it? IBIS numbers One O Two Double O.
[Norman:] Mhm. Survey of design. Er th they should have done the estimate
[speaker002:] Thirty percent. got thirty estimates there.
[Norman:] Now then
[speaker002:] ? Good man. That's against what, sorry? Er project remit. Project remit. Well they've written it in but they haven't ticked it. They haven't got any specification laid out. [whispering] [] [whistling] Alright. So
[Norman:] Mm.
[speaker002:] affect that. Shouldn't they tick this box?
[Norman:] N erm
[speaker002:] Oh I see what you mean. Yeah. fill ours out.
[Norman:] Specification. Well we did because we said we'd have to specify what to. They'll produce design drawings and thirty percent estimates er one and a half miles of train line. One down, one mile on the up, double junction below twenty mile an hour speed limit. Agreed that. up.
[speaker002:] diverting and land purchase negotiations.
[Norman:] Yeah. [cough] W we did exactly er We, we, we just sort of noted it on there
[speaker002:] Mm.
[Norman:] and there. Er now then
[speaker002:] They haven't got er meeting, anything about wh er A weekly report. No repo no mention of a report
[Norman:] No.
[speaker002:] reporting
[Norman:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] at a at any intervals.
[Norman:] No. Ah. Right. Let's have a little look here. All they've done here is done liaison with the S and T. I would have thought that was really irrelevant. Since we know what the speed is.
[speaker002:] Mm. Mm. Yeah.
[Norman:] Er that is, is valid. But erm no reference to locating services
[speaker002:] Mm.
[Norman:] which will want to know. N no er reference to access and land ownership which we need to know for the survey. W we w we would need to know and be involved in locating services.
[speaker002:] Our works bridges responsibility statement not completed.
[Norman:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] That's. Works bridges responsibility statement not completed. Yeah.
[Norman:] Ownership we would want to er erm mm. No milestone dates quoted.
[speaker002:] No milestone.
[Norman:] And er project meetings not allowed for.
[speaker002:] No allowance project meetings. Mhm. And theirs was nearly twice the price of ours. They just added their
[Norman:] Er I think they, they were a bit more [LAUGHTER] my, my gut feeling on this what it would cost somewhere around about twenty five grand
[speaker002:] Mm.
[Norman:] er to honest. That er it in actual fact and I'm gonna hold you lads to all this.
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER]
[Norman:] Erm Yeah. Erm No cross-sections.
[speaker002:] No cross-sections. Right.
[Norman:] Erm
[speaker002:] This is on the project quality plan now is it?
[Norman:] Only one longitudinal section drawing, it would b it would be a big one.
[speaker002:] Yeah. But we need?
[Norman:] Yeah. That'll be, we, we sort of weighed up from the length of what we had to show
[speaker002:] Mm.
[Norman:] and we, we reckoned er alright. they've shown their certificate of er compliance. Won't argue about that, we didn't.
[speaker002:] Okay.... [whistling]
[Norman:] Not much really
[speaker002:] There's a lot of technical work supervision in there. My God.
[Norman:] Mm....
[speaker002:] Maybe they're allowing thousand six hundred hours?...
[Norman:] It seems that, that seems a lot. Do you agree?
[speaker002:] Yeah. Hell of a lot. Yeah.
[Norman:] Query.
[speaker002:] Is that just for supervision? Not the actual technical work itself? That's just supervision or does that mean the technical work and supervision?
[Norman:] Well I think we should query this. This is on appendix D two one. Er technical supervision, query two thousand six hundred hours. Which is nearly a year.
[speaker002:] Mm. [LAUGHTER] [LAUGHTER] Two thousand six hundred two thousand six hundred hours?
[Norman:] Well it's over a year a on er working days. That's at ten hours a day.
[speaker002:] How many hours did we put down for working on? Two thousand six hundred at twenty pound an hour? How long did we say for the survey? A week each? That's. Yeah. Oh no, two weeks wasn't it?
[Norman:] Yeah. It's cos it's er
[speaker002:] The thing is should have been nearly seventy five hundred. We've got five hundred down for
[Norman:] That's right. One fifty and two sixty two seven five O.
[speaker002:] right surely. But if that's hours
[Norman:] Seems a seems a lot.
[speaker002:] That must be DOPACS units....
[Norman:] Well
[speaker002:] Ah.
[Norman:] possibly. But a again erm
[speaker002:] Because An hour far too much. if you were, if you add two thousand seven hundred and fifty hours at twenty pound an hour you'd be well over eighteen thousand.
[Norman:] Yeah. So th th are the are these DOPACS units then?
[speaker002:] Yeah. I think they must be. Mm. Oh right. Mm. Yeah. That means the survey comes out roughly at what we estimated. Yeah.
[Norman:] Right. Yeah.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[Norman:] Er Okay then. Right. That's that explained. Well they, they've put the thirty estimates er thirty percent estimates in there. That we, we just showed them over here, apart from that th their format's the same....
[speaker002:] [whistling]...
[Norman:] Yeah. These are DOPACS units.
[speaker002:] Mm.... Mm.
[Norman:] Can you see where the escalation is c in cost is? Ah. Right. They've got earthworks. Earthworks in. That's, that's for a start....
[speaker002:] And photographs. And photographs. Yeah. But they're not supposed to include it.... Er if they'd kept it separate. Don't liaison between Yeah. It's
[Norman:] Yeah. So if you take fifteen hundred off then that erm
[speaker002:] It was eighteen thousand I think it was more or less.... Plus sixteen. Plus photo plus photographs and they've seventeen fifty really.
[Norman:] We have. So er we've sort of er beaten it down at bit.
[speaker002:] points. Well there is there is a particular section for the photographs I think we've figured that one out actually. Oh have you? Er which is that? Yeah. ... They're on. [LAUGHTER] They have lot of technical work supervision. Two seven fifty divided by sixty three. What's that? It's about three weeks isn't it? That's a hell of a lot more than we put in didn't we? Yeah. Didn't we put er ten percent Yeah. of the job in didn't we? Yeah. We put a couple of days in I think in total. Yeah. That's where it's bumped up Norman....
[Norman:] It's er i erm tho those are DOPACS units, so if we e if we er divide by
[speaker002:] Well it's two hundred and something and a. Now what was it? It was three hundred and fif three and sixty five DOPACS units? About a week isn't it? Seventy five seventy threes?
[Norman:] Three six five isn't it.
[speaker002:] Yeah. Three six five a week so Erm Erm
[Norman:] Wh what's that?
[speaker002:] Six weeks roughly. Eight weeks. Eight weeks near enough isn't it? Yeah....
[Norman:] Eight weeks.
[speaker002:] No. That's totally over the top isn't it really?
[Norman:] Mm.
[speaker002:] But that er technical supervision seems very high. Which form's that on? That's on er Project plan D Five Eight. D D Five Eight.... It's prog er Technical work supervision. And he's got eight weeks. Mm.... They've got too many.... [whistling] I've put all the er the grades in the wrong way round. [LAUGHTER] They haven't done any or work operation checks. I started with highest worked on to the lowest. Ah. Is that on. Is that on another sheet? They haven't allowed for any
[Norman:] Fees are. Detailed design. That's the one. Th they've got that
[speaker002:] Right.
[Norman:] there.
[speaker002:] [whistling]
[Norman:] It's a pity we've not got a copy of our own.
[speaker002:] Mm. [whistling]
[Norman:] So what have we got Adam?
[speaker002:] Right. These are the points that we disagree on. Erm on the main header document, not R O Double O. Form D One, the project remit, no thirty percent estimates. No mention of any reporting. Works and bridges responsibility statement not completed. As well for the. Also no project meeting. And the project quality plan there's no cross-section drawings. Are you nearly ready? Yes. Okay. Don't what the good points were we haven't said any yet. And on extra works supervision. No. We haven't. single good point about it.
[Norman:] Erm Well basically
[speaker002:] Yeah. Yeah. It's realistic. The writing was good. Yeah. Oh did we have a look at that? Good point.... It was okay.... ... tape stops and starts]
[Mike:] Okay. Might I remind you please that when you're speaking into the group could you try and speak up a little bit because we've still got the tapes going. And er this young lady, Clare's terribly interested in the way in which we're using our language today, so er I hope that doesn't inhibit you. Right. Group three. Could we please have your comments?
[Norman:] [cough] Er group three. We're commenting on er er group four's erm er quality plan. Erm we don't see a great deal of difference that they've had the same problem as we've had, in that we ran out of time before we could put the er finished act together properly. Er so we've started off with a number of relatively nitpicking erm erm points. For instance the title we thought R O W was Toytown station, R O W was misleading cos b R O W stands for Renewal Of Way. Probably doesn't describe the project er correctly. Erm on the second sheet form D One the er erm thirty percent estimate box hadn't been ticked. Er there was a fairly comprehensive er specification. Erm in some ways more erm comprehensive than one that we provided. I i but missing out items that er that we'd shown. Erm also there was no er reference to er the er er frequency of reports at the bottom of the er bottom of the sheet. Er which er I suspect was due to the th the insufficient time to carry out the exercise. On the second sheet er of D One, the responsibility statement, er there were just a couple of boxes er ticked. Erm liaising with the operations manager route speed potential, since we know the route speed is twenty miles an hour, er I felt that probably wasn't really a vital item. On the other hand I would have ticked s erm location of services er and public and utility because th these are things that we need to know at the design stage. Likewise obviously for land and access, because we will need to know that for the survey work involved. Erm most of the other items o on the works and bridges would have been the responsibility of the project manager to er them. But those two in particular we felt that er we would do that as part of our er a an essential part of what we were trying to design. Er there's no, no milestones dates er er quoted but these of course have been given
[speaker002:] [cough]
[Norman:] so they have been considered. Erm number of projects meetings er wasn't er wasn't completed, and the boxes at the bottom er but er planning permission was erm ticked as a constraint er I wondered what the basis was behind that, for ticking it? Right. So that was the er the access t plan. Right.
[speaker002:] Okay.
[Norman:] Erm on the er process check list, erm a difference from ourselves which does the affect the price of group three, which we purposefully left out, they have quoted er a price for a soils investigation. Er we left that out because of Dennis' assurance that it was just our costs, but these are, this is certainly something that we would have to er add to our cost. And er also incidentally a cost for the P Q S, because the P Q S would do estimates for the earthworks th that are involved which is outside our normal line of duty. Er [cough] so that's an item included that we didn't have on ours. I wouldn't er b just at a brief gla glance I didn't er agree with the er drawing schedule. It's quite different from ours. We saw ourselves as having to do erm a considerable number of cross-sections for calculating, or enabling the P Q S to calculate earthworks quantities. We had no assurance of the ground between Road and Toytown as flat. So a w we saw cross-sections as being the big item here, whereas er Alistair's team er didn't er didn't see it as such. Erm on the er er project plan D Five P, erm without having our own to compare with, a bit difficult to do, again o the e the fifteen hundred for earthworks investigations included which we haven't included. There's also a very valid item for photos which we hadn't included. Two hundred and fifty pounds er which certainly would be er done. The o only thing that we felt w we could take issue on was on the project resource sheet, erm technical work supervision. There was erm a total of two thousand six hundred units allocated to Brian which we thought
[speaker002:] [cough]
[Norman:] was er a bit steep.
[Mike:] three and a half hours of work.
[speaker002:] Mm.
[Mike:] three and half of his time.
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER]
[Norman:] Erm but if you translate that into er er into days it's quite a substantial amount and er erm again in our plan we'd thought in terms of a complete MOS design er where the input would be probably more on the checking side, than actual on the, actually on the supervision. Cos you can see from our price that anticipating very a rapid er a very rapid completion. So really there's only that item w w we felt that particular one was a bit er a bit steep and er the rest was er a a difference in emphasis, I would suspect, coupled with shortage of time
[Mike:] Was it, was it a workable plan as it stood?
[Norman:] Er yes.
[Mike:] Good..
[Norman:] Yeah. A a subject to er th the I think my main objection to it would be that the lack of reference to cross-sections, which on you without knowledge of the ground could or could not be viable.
[Mike:] . Well you got quite a lot out of being able to evaluate.
[Dennis:] as a project engineer or team member or one of the troops doing the job, if you were presented with that, you could have done what you'd been asked to do?
[Norman:] As far as we can judge in five minutes, yes.
[Mike:] Yes. That's. Gro group two, would you like to tell us about?
[speaker002:] there's a shortage of actual evaluating. Erm the quality project plan needs filling in erm certainly with I c couldn't with that. Erm and again the second sheet, form D One erm the fine details erm and the er the remit er gave a reasonably adequate to work to. Er the C E G responsibility statement form D One erm er erm bypassed that, by writing er a rider on that they assumed concept will be agreed for surveying er feasibility. Er and that the with er nothing more than to get on and do it. I think some of the erm er they've crossed all the P Way ones out and er appear not to have crossed any of the works, bridges, B E S out. Er they tried to write a rider to bypass it completely, but I don't know whether that is sound. I think maybe they should have perhaps covered [cough] certain. Erm the process check list erm again they've identified the people on each erm and within that they've actually nominated people to look at the land ownership which is the, on the ignored with their rider on the previous sheet. Er but again nominate people erm to do the different works. Erm they haven't quantified the number of drawings to be done. Erm again it's a question of time I'm sure they would have been probably reasonably er adequate. Er the project resources sheet erm again th th the erm it's identify erm the quantities do seem about right. Erm there's, they haven't added up one of the boxes, and I believe that in terms of erm its actual cost. Er and that query made on how they are going to actually evaluate the plan. Erm once they've they've gone off this sheet and it's been transferred incorrectly to the project plan and the price of the plan. Er but the plan itself the DOPACS units haven't been actually completed and therefore they could be running at a loss. Erm the actual form D three five erm bar chart was filled in with er milestone dates and nominates people. And again some of them have different values of units. Er within the erm procedural responsibility statement th there's no milestones mentioned er form D three five.
[Mike:] So what, what you're saying
[speaker002:] But
[Mike:] really
[speaker002:] o overall er the plan looks reasonably sound except for the which er reflect in the price. I could work to it.
[Mike:] But what we also said tha that's quite encouraging, John, is that there is an ability to crosscheck the costing that you've achieved with the information previously entered onto these other forms. In which case er given a little bit more time to fill the thing in,
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[Mike:] erm there i it's not just a matter of plucking a figure out of thin air, but you can see the justification for the full fee-bid, and you can er crosscheck the accuracy of the fee-bid as well.
[speaker002:] Yes..
[Mike:] Good. Right. Group er one please. What comments have you got?
[speaker002:] Erm group one commenting on group two. [LAUGHTER] [LAUGHTER] Sheet one was er as we wha what was expected. No problems with that. We were a little unsure ourselves whether were actually doing scheme work or design. Er we always think we do a little scheme work within design. But whatever er it's difficult to on, on that. Erm form D One, the pink one, er there was no reporting timescales, weekly intervals er or whether they were going to report on completion. Erm and that is or could be the only approach to the client once the job starts, so we thought it was fairly important. Erm works, bridges, B E S subjects, as John rightly said, we missed out erm one or two of these and tended to ignore the things that were under works, bridges and B E S. Er and as John said, one or two of them were probably relevant and we didn't make er notes on those. Erm and, and and, and probably those points are erm of interest and some of them er will have to be taken into account. Er there was no constraints erm within the project or within the responsibility statement on saying that somebody else should be responsible for certain things that we felt were outside our, our remit. Erm obviously. The quality plan, erm a lot of ticks, but no names, apart from the detailed design drawings and I, we thought that the quality plan, the idea was to pin somebody down to being responsible for each actual item erm. Yes. What really we thought was the idea of this to pin them down into er in who was doing it and when. Er and we thought that there should have been initials against every item that was ticked. Erm t just to er well there was a l a certain lack of time on this thing, I mean, Dennis had to come round and tell us to start our tick-list else we weren't gonna. Er and if he'd of walked up to John two minutes later he probably wouldn't have made it because we had a right erm but we did feel there had to be some initials. Even if we made somebody's up. [LAUGHTER] Erm [LAUGHTER] getting down to the project re resource sheets er Jack w we felt that even though our bid was fairly low, even a adjusted for a full calculation. Now we, we did feel that erm the difference between our bid an and erm the team two bid, was mainly down to erm correspondence and project en administration. That in fact we were looking at almost two months' work erm for project engineering, when in fact that scheme would have been condensed down into project engineering. Erm then correspondence two hours for two people. Erm client reports again, technical work supervision there was a lot of time a and we just felt that erm for a full year. That's right. The longer it That's, that's, but, but actually if they look at the DOPACS times, for the people doing the work, the surveyors and the designers, they can do their work in two months which is spread out over a year. Now spreading it over a year means that the project administration jumps dramatically, and there's about four, five thousand pounds' worth in there. Er and we felt that was a bit excessive. Erm [sneeze] No fighting gentlemen. [LAUGHTER] Well No but forty hours is about er fifteen.
[Mike:] Don't don't worry too much about
[speaker002:] Okay. Whatever we just we just felt that we were probably very mean on our project administration. That we didn't want to put too many people on the back of the people actually doing the work. And we felt that team two have gone the other way,tha that the work spread out and actually when you looked at the, at the project plan at the back, erm that in fact a surveyor was out for six hundred and eighty three DOPACS units which is about ten days and that had spread all through May, June and July. Erm there was no start date for him and no finish date for him really er considered what the resource. Yeah. That's right. This takes no account of priorities, other works within the section, whether in fact this doesn't need doing until nin early ninety four. Er and so what John's done, he's suggested that in fact if it comes for March ninety four, that he spread the work out till nineteen ninety four which may be the sensible attitude cos people can make those decisions of the schemes to involved. If you do the work early somebody changes their mind as soon as you've finished. But er it would have to be a client discussion, about when he actually wanted the contract completing. But spreading the work out though actually extended the administration costs and not giving start and finish times that were fairly tight, so the people doing the work allowed them to make their own judgments on when it was going to be done. And that things would tend to drag on to the last minute and then they would start and then it would it go forward. And the work would then be completed to approximately the same timescale that we, that we deadlined on the. Er we thought, we thought that the scheme was, the, the sheet was filled in properly er a apart possibly from the, the er initials as we suggested, putting people down on the quality plan, which was obviously down to timescales. Er we thought we could work to it and we thought we had a different rule for timekeeping er and we didn't check the calculations. [LAUGHTER]
[Mike:] Well it seems to me that there was obviously enough information in that plan for you to be able to understand very very clearly what, what was wanted and what was going to be done. And I think that's really quite important. And th that's quite encouraging
[speaker002:] Mm.
[Mike:] that, that the group you were assessing managed to do that. We've got one, one last group. Have you any comments on that David? Erm Dennis? Before we go on to group four?
[Dennis:] Erm No.
[Mike:] Right. Group four, have you got all your people still here? Or have they
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[Mike:] escaped?
[speaker002:] Yeah. No actually i working out punch-line for the joke. [LAUGHTER] [LAUGHTER] Er cos that's why we're so expensive when you lose a few engineers in transit. Erm
[Mike:] Literally in transit.
[speaker002:] In transit. Yeah. Er commenting on group three's erm plan. Really I think at the end of the day it's very similar to, to ours, although the price difference is a bit different. Erm the remit er the client details and the remit's pretty detailed, I think it spells out what should be done. I think the only comment I would have on there is we spelt out specifically what we thought the project manager should be responsible for in the actual remit stages itself. Although Norman's actually ticked that the project manager was gonna be responsible for certain things I think it's one of these things that need to be brought out. Fairly importantly that we're gonna do this, but you've gotta do this. I think I see one problem with, we've put site investigation and flagged the price I think, whereas if we'd said that we require site investigation work to be undertaken by the project manager, we've really got to decide the level of site investigations, so that in the first instance we've gotta approach the soil mechanics and determine from them what, what we need from them. So the, really the foreman's gotta get that price. It's a matter of then where you put that price, either in our fee or invoice directly to the, to the client. But again obviously that doesn't apply but that's what has gotta be done. Again we got into time constraints, there was one or two things obviously that weren't filled in, but I think that's only been nitpicking I think at the time. Obviously has ticked off erm quite a lot of work that the project manager is gonna be responsible for on here, really. Here on the responsibility reference statement. Er it might very well be that the project manager may think, well my God, am I gonna do more work than the engineers that are working with you. So that the split may well have been that er he was gonna to do a lot more work than perhaps the er civil engineering design group. So perhaps a lot of the times but I would have maybe suggested that, that we could have done and presented that as part of the package. So again perhaps tied in our prices, it might be that we've assumed that we'd do more, perhaps than the other groups. So overall. Number of meetings, although we hadn't ticked the box, we had flagged up exact same number as ten, ten sets of meetings, erm six liaison and four technical. Erm milestones, yeah, pretty similar I think really. They were all durations. As a sort of bridge person I was quite interested to find out how different the works, the, the, the Permanent Way office does the structural things and er obviously all the clients have feared that this resources would be thrown perhaps. Maybe three lads to the drawings and maybe two lads to do the calculations, whereas it would be slightly in the bridge office or the works office because of the present resource availability, it tends to be that you only have a smaller number of people doing, doing those tasks. But again, obviously if the resources are there why not use them. Yeah, I think obviously, Norman has put down that he's gonna produce quite a lot of cross-section, I think that's a valid point I think we had assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that the ground was gonna be relatively level. But er they might have been assumptions that we shouldn't have made. Erm I think looking through the actual resource sheet itself, I think we had more project administration time down, and certainly that we had more technical work supervision and you put more of an emphasis on, of actually looking after the lads. There is only, well there are sixteen hours that er [cough] that Norman's put down for the total technical work supervision on the job, I would have thought that perhaps that might be quite tight, er you know bearing in mind that it's maybe a job that requires a... [tape change]
[Dennis:] to the remit. Erm I, I'd initially put a a great big cross through all of that. I know absolutely nothing about P Way but then as Norman was speaking, I realized that perhaps I could put a few ticks in. And it might be that what we've got to do is t is to change that to perhaps include P Way. I think we need a bit more discussion on this. Erm the key dates have to be here as well as on the D Five, cos this forms part of the appointment contract to the client. We're saying to him, we will supply this service on a, by a particular date. He wishes to know that and we will record our progress against it. Erm clearly state any exclusions erm er the moving, diverting the footpath for example. Clearly state that, we're assuming that you are going to divide er divert the footpath, we're not going to to. I think what you have to remember is that these three sheets er are in fact, well w what we have to remember is that the business manager is an internal client, and that these three sheets are something to him, or to her, to type to form the appointment contract, so therefore let's get it right. Erm and you were saying earlier Mike, that this in effect is an, an internal contract and you have a nice little story about some initials behind someone's desk, which you'd
[Mike:] Mm.
[Dennis:] perhaps like to repeat.
[Mike:] Is it repeatable in front of a, a microphone?
[Dennis:] Well [LAUGHTER] sorry. [LAUGHTER] [LAUGHTER] []. Later.
[Mike:] Yeah. Effectively what we've got here is the mechanism whereby the client requirements are sent to the people who are actually going to do the job on the drawing board. It's an internal type of contract. If there are any problems then we should be able to say to ourselves, well let's go and have look at the project quality plan, what's that tell us? And if we've got the project quality plan right there shouldn't be any problems or queries and it did remind me of this Australian er project manager, who I've mentioned to one or two other people over lunch, who used to sit in a great, a great office, running multimillion pounds' project and when people came in to complain to him, he used to refer them to the plaque on the wall which said R T F C. Read the fucking contract. Effectively, what we've got here is a similar internal message. And so it's very important to get this completed really well tt because then there shouldn't be too many queries later on. So that will do, Dennis.
[Dennis:] . Erm just a couple of points here,th this form is one of positive identification, that there is no need to do anything with the boxes that you're not going to touch. Erm in other words someone is responsible for drawings therefore you would, you'd put the initials in there. Erm we're not gonna get involved with mine-workings, for example, nothing appears there. Positive identification. Erm I think for some reasons Trudy we so a rogue in there, bridge assessment records, I applies to P Way. Erm
[speaker002:] Erm It may do. It may do. I mean steps and things like that.
[Dennis:] It might do? Ah sorry. Well I stand corrected.
[speaker002:] project.
[Dennis:] I told you I know nothing about er P Way. Erm category of checking, one of those b the idea would be to ring either the double nought or the nought. Erm self-checking, as we mentioned before, self-checking i is permiss permissible. Er if you've got a competent p person that you trust preparing the estimate, they can check it themselves. It doesn't have to be checked by someone else, it doesn't have to be an independent check, unless the regulations demand it. Which I don't think in estimating they do. Er certainly the works office, there's no reason why you shouldn't draw, do a drawing and check the drawing yourselves. It's quite permissible provided you trust the person and that person the necessary skills. Weekly reports and things we've, we've mentioned before. Erm the purpose of the two columns, and I think we've missed this out, is, is that we should be identifying how many w w whether we're using er going to produce drawings by hand or by CAD. Erm and I could thi think of no other er quality measures necessary to meet the er quality objectives apart from bringing your sandwiches. I suggest you might bring a sandwich along Paul. The point I want to get across here is that this a P Way form, it is your form, not my form, not the Q A form, it's the P Way form for you to use and to change to the way that you want it to change. Erm I don't, and similarly with that form, forget the details, that again is a P Way form for you, it's your form, you change it. I'm not interested.
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER]
[Dennis:] This one again, that is a P Way form, erm the only person who's interested in that is Trevor and his organization, so if you want that changing, agree it with Trevor. And that really is all I need to say unless you've got any questions?...
[Mike:] I think er Granville can field er any questions when he does his spot after coffee then, Dennis.
[Dennis:] I thought he might go, he might do it now and we go for coffee.
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER] Oh! [LAUGHTER] [LAUGHTER] Oh dear.
[Mike:] Okay, let's have a break er if you can come back reasonably quickly er we can make up a few seconds.
[speaker002:] ... [tape stops and starts] do it quietly.
[Granville:] Right. You've In case anybody doesn't know me, I think I've had dealings with most people here, but my name's Granville. And I'm a project engineer within the works design group. Hopefully this morning you've now been introduced to the concept of quality planning, as it's intended within the civil engineering design group. I trust the exercise you've just a carried out has at least given you an insight into the format and use of this document. But what are the advantages? As a project engineer, I've been using a similar document for about the last six months. Its format has changed over that time, quite a bit, because like any quality system, it's subject to constant review. And as Mike referred to this morning, there are ways and means, if there's items in here that need amending and improving, there are ways and means that you can do it. But throughout all that time the principles contained within the document have always cha remained the same. If we go back a few years, I don't know how many people remember before we had DOPACS, I remember when projects used to come into the group from on high, they used to filter through the organization, until they landed on somebody's desk who was actually supposed to carry out the work. At best he maybe had a letter from the client, that letter had gained copious notes as it filtered its way through the hierarchy, some helpful, some intelligible, unintelligible should I, should I say, and some contradictory. You may have then had a verbal exchange with your next in line, but bar that you were expected to get on with the work. And then we had that introduction of DOPACS, and all that changed. And I ask the question, or did it? True, projects can now come into the organization at any level. True, we have written remits. But by their very nature they are only a few lines on a piece of paper at the moment. The final recipient has still got to get on with the work based on this small amount of information, only now with DOPACS he has a time limit. And that time limit, or DOPACS units, in the past has always been a wee bit nebulous. It's been based on jobs we've done for clients in the past, based on pla past experience. We've never in the past looked in detail at the total work content to work out these time units, after all in the past, we've known what the client wants, we've been giving him it for years. But now, as you're probably all aware, this has changed. The railway is now business and client orientated, the work content that we go into, is decided by their requirements and not what we would like to give them. You've now all seen a project quality plan, but I'd just like to go through a few of the headings just to advise you where I think the benefits lie. We start off with the front cover sheet. This categorizes the stage of the work, feasibility, scheme, design. Which immediately identifies the scope of the work required. It also sets down the project team, encompasses all the functions involved within that scheme, thus ensuring that early contact is made between all individuals. The lead project engineer is named, who is then responsible for the day to day running of the project. But the project coordinator retains an overview at review meetings. Inside the front cover are the project details, which is a form D One we've all seen and used before. It sets out the agreed remit, including any constraints. This remit is agreed with the client, by the project coordinator, who can be anyone within the organization but would normally be an experienced engineer. The project quality plan is then compiled between the project coordinator and the lead project engineer, based on this agreed remit. Also included under this heading are all the client details which enable an appointment contract to be prepared and forwarded. Now come some of the sections which you may not be so familiar with. We have the responsibility statement. This identifies exactly those areas of the project that the C E D G will be responsible for, within the terms of the appointment contract. Once agreed with the client it ensures that all relevant responsibilities are covered by either the C E D G, the project manager or the client. A copy of this statement is forwarded to the client and therefore no ambiguity exists. In the works one the main bulk of the project quality plan is the process check list. I note in the P Way it's only a page but the principles are still the same. This has proved the most useful as far I've been concerned and the works I've done in the works office. Cos it comprises a checklist encompassing the major requirements necessary to complete and the project and it helps to identify the processes involved, and the stage to which are to be taken, for the s for the successful completion of the project. Thus ensuring all items of work are taken into account, and none are overlooked or forgotten. It indicates the persons who are to carry out those aspects of the work, thereby defining person responsibilities. It also identifies the management procedures that should be followed to correctly complete the project in line with office requirements. The final item of the process checklist includes the necessary reports required to keep our clients informed of the progress, both physical and financial, of the scheme we're undertaking. So, therefore, right from the outset the project en the lead project engineer knows which ro reports are required, how many and when they are to be provided. Next we have the project resource sheet. This has been in use in the works office for some time, it was, it used to be called an aide-memoire. This summarizes the main processes and resources required to carry out that, this particular item of work. Having defined the processes in detail under the checklist, it now becomes much easier to allocate the necessary resources, time units, DOPACS units or whatever you like to call them, to successfully complete the project. The project resource sheet enables these units to be identified for each individual's activity within the project, thus ensuring a realistic fee-bid. The final page is the project plan, the D Five, of which I'm sure we're all familiar. The project resource sheet is so designed that once you've allocated the resources, it is now relatively easy to transfer those res resources over to the project plan. All that is contained within the project quality plan enables the project plan to be completed correctly and accurately. We all know it's extremely important that that project plan is as accurate as possible. Because once costed it represents the estimated fee for the group's involvement in a project, either in the form of an appointment contract for the client to sign. or as a fee-bid. It defines the project timescales and priority to enable individual workloads within the group to be planned through DOPACS, and it also important n needed-by dates, the milestones, within the project, which again through DOPACS enables checks on the physical and financial progress to be carried out at any time. To summarize. I believe that project quality plans are essential within our group to ensure we provide our clients with a cost-effective quality service. It also allows a consistency of standards and policy from all the functions within the group to our clients. By the use of project quality plans, we're ensuring that the following important criteria are fully considered and answered. The first criteria is, what? A clear and precise remit is obtained and documented. When? Needed-by dates, both within and on completion of projects, are again clearly identified. How? The depth and scope of work content is defined, allowing resource requirements to be accurately predicted. Who? Individual responsibilities at all levels are defined within this plan. And most important of all, how much? Ensures a realistic fee-bid based on all of the above.
[speaker002:] [cough]
[Granville:] And if we can get all of those five right it helps all of us within the group to hopefully get it right first time. And if we get it right first time, we'll have a satisfied client who will hopefully return to us for more work. And that is the situation we're in, that's the name of the game, is to satisfy our clients and that is all project quality planning. Er I know Mike now goes off at slightly different subjects, so I would suggest if there are any questions, not only on what I've just said, but really what you've done this morning, the exercise, either myself, Dennis, or Mike, or Trevor could answer any questions?... Stunned silence.
[Dennis:] Silence.
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER]
[Dennis:] Straight between the eyes.
[speaker002:] I think the problem with a clear remit I can't really come to terms with that, precisely, competitive. How do you know your competitors clear remit? Or do we tend to build things in because we've already done that type of job and we know the job and things in subconsciously where? is to discuss wi with the client what it is that he what he said, what. He'll just say, well yes, yes.
[Dennis:] I would hope that in a competitive sense
[speaker002:] recognize the implications.
[Dennis:] I would hope that in a competitive situation i it is happening now un under a non-competitive situation, er the clients are giving us written remits erm and I think we'll be going further down the path.
[speaker002:] of the client to lead you on to perhaps you could introduce more elements into your actual remit diverted an and
[Dennis:] I accept. Yes.
[Trevor:] Th the remit though that, that we're actually putting down on the appointment contract, is actually the result of the negotiations between the project coordinator and the client. I in the past th Granville mentioned these letters that used to work their way down from on high which might have just been a,a bit of a twinkle in somebody's eye with no money at all to spend on physical work but even so it was given the same status within the R C E's organization of five or ten years ago a a as an investment item was, it was almost authorized. A and we tended to not bother going back to the client, but giving what we thought he needed, that was the culture of the regional civil engineer,
[speaker002:] Mm.
[Trevor:] if Brian didn't think we needed it then it didn't even get a lookout let alone er er resources allocated to it. Nowadays it's different, when a client comes to us and says, I need something here. If he doesn't know what he needs, that's great because we can help him a a and he's not gonna go somewhere else where he isn't going to get that help. But at the end of the discussions between the project coordinator and the client, when you have actually helped him and led along, you could have this, or you could have that, or perhaps we could just take it to this stage, cost some options out and give you a recommendation. Whichever you go, write down your interpretation of what you think you have agreed with the client and sign it and send it to him. If he signs it that indicates that he has accepted what you've jointly agreed, and then you've got something, a milestone, something to go back and measure yourselves against and to justify what you've done against erm the fees that, that you're invoicing the client for, if the client at s at some stage decides perhaps that's not really what he wanted after all. Er in a competitive situation, the Rickmansworth tender w w w was a,a an example of that, we actually had a contract document which is about as thick and complicated as one of the contract documents that we would put out for civil engineering physical work to er er a contractor. And we actually had to comply with certain clauses a a and provide method statements and
[speaker002:] It's got a hundred and fifty sheets in it. So it was written as a document.
[Trevor:] So if we're going into to this
[speaker002:] And what did the competitor have?
[Trevor:] If we go into this fixed fee competitive scenario, then we will insist that we are actually comparing apples with apples and not apples with pears,whe when the client looks at our fee and he looks at an external consultant's or another railway internal consultant's fee
[speaker002:] Yeah. I think that's the way we see it going and that's the way we hope it's going
[Trevor:] Yes.
[speaker002:] but just at the moment in P Way we feel that it isn't possibly going that way
[Trevor:] No.
[speaker002:] and yet a a a a and with
[Trevor:] And it
[speaker002:] one or two competitive tenders that have. That's all we're worried about.
[Trevor:] A a
[speaker002:] are writing the remit and then the remits aren't going out to the other competitors.
[Trevor:] Well if that's the case Bob, it's really the fault lies with our client not with us. Our client should be presenting us with a sheaf of paper with pink ribbon round it, saying, we would like a tender on that, fixed fee, by two weeks on Tuesday, or whatever. A a and by the way, you are in competition with a number of other organizations, both internal and external. They should be doing that work, if they're asking us to design a remit, price it and then they're using that remit to get prices from other people, er I would suggest that, that we perhaps ought to have words with our clients on that basis a and say we're quite happy to tender in competition but erm i you ought to give it a little bit of thought before you actually put the thing.
[Mike:] . Erm I think it might be helpful if I make a comment on this business of er tenders from the other side of the fence actually, Bob. When I worked er for in the mid eighties, we had been through a period where we'd always taken the cheapest tender. Er for North Sea platform design and construction activities. We very quickly realized that the cheapest tender wasn't always the cheapest in the medium or long term,t to, but we weren't very quick to realize how to put [LAUGHTER] that right []. Because we had a tender board operation which said you take the cheapest tender. Eventually through reasonably correct bid evaluation, we began to learn how to cost out inferior bids, when we had a very very low bid in we could see that certain things had been skimped, certain things might even have been missed out completely, and we then began to cost the effect of that on the organization. But it did take some time. Now, I suspect that your industry, shall I put that in inverted commas, Bob? Has got to go through this learning curve to some degree. But I do see the project quality plan being extremely valuable because you will be feeding back the front part of the quality plan to the client and explaining the extras that you're going to do, or the constraints within which you're working. Now you cannot force the client to take that into account and read and understand it, but I do believe that it will be possible for you, in writing to the client, to explain the advantages and the extras which you are incorporating within your er proposed scheme which you feel are absolutely fundamental to the correct working of the project. In other words, they're not, they're not extras er in, in the absolute sense, they are necessary for that particular scheme, but they may be things which less erm experienced consultants might omit. And so there's a tremendous onus upon your good selves, to highlight the experience if you like and expertise you have of spotting problems, and explaining how you will get around then within the given fee-bid. I, I think that's, that's the most sort of optimistic comment I can make Bob, but it is a potentially fraught issue.
[speaker002:] I think, I think, yes. I think, I think all we're worried about is the transition period between Yeah. the, the in-house, friendly at atmosphere we've had up to now, er non-competitive, across to what we're gonna see in the future, in the future, which is competitive with a professional client giving a professional remit to a number of tenderers, which will be us. But in the meantime there is a very loose remit situation. And that's all we're worried about, this transition period, that we might lose clients within that.
[Mike:] Put it like this, Bob, I don't think the project quality plan is going to hinder you.
[speaker002:] Oh no.
[Mike:] If anything, I would believe very strongly, that a more systematic approach to this, a checklist for checking specific items off, will in fact help you,
[speaker002:] Yes.
[Mike:] through this transition period, but there isn't a slick answer to your immediate problem.
[speaker002:] Yes. Th th the more, the better remit we write, if you like, in reply in our contract and the more erm
[Mike:] Explanation?
[speaker002:] explanation and conditions we put on it, to say what we are and aren't going to do, the better. Erm it's just this transition period.
[Trevor:] Th th there is one point on the same vein as that Bob,th the second sheet on the D One, where there's a suggestion that we tick off additional bits that we're gonna put into our contract, we are going to arrange possessions,we we're gonna do this that and the other. We've gotta be careful that in er using that sheet, we don't do it in such a way as to bully and turn off the customer by saying, by the way, you'd better make sure you've done this, this, this, this and this, cos I'm not doing it. You know,i i it is a very fine line between er how we talk to our customers, which is why I, I, I can't stress enough the need for the project coordinators to talk face to face with the customer first of all, and perhaps gently lead him down some of the items in this list that the project coordinator thinks the client might not have remembered. Er a a and then say, well we can take that on board for you if you like but it might be more efficient for you to do the possessions because the civil engineer Leeds, actually is part of your organization a a and it might be more appropriate for you to get those possessions in, for you to decide whether or not you want one big bang o o o of a week's possession or, or you want to do it i in four hour no-trains periods for the next three years. That type of putting back into a business context, is something which er we need to help the business come to terms with while they are growing in this new scheme of procuring work in a more formal and structured way.
[Mike:] I would actually like to emphasize that the qu quality plan is originally intended to help the people who are going to have to do the job at the coal face. However, I believe that there are advantages in improved communications with the client. If you er use the front part of the plan correctly and complete it well. [whispering] Okay []. Any more questions? Granville you got off very lightly there. Okay? Right. Let's er let's move onto the downhill part of the er proceedings today.
[speaker002:] [cough] Mm.
[Mike:] You heard Dennis say, a number of times today, that a project quality plan format has been designed for the Permanent Way group, and that it's your format and you change it. Granville emphasized just a few minutes ago, anything to do with the quality system is not a Moses job. It's not tablets of stone which have been brought down from Mount Sinai forever to remain unalterable. It's a living system, it's designed to help you, if it's not supporting and helping you then it must be changed. I now want to talk about two or three of the mechanisms and techniques we hope to be able to use in implementing changes when things aren't necessarily to your liking. I will add a cautionary comment however, and say that you won't necessarily be able to change absolutely everything, at any time of the day or night, because there are some base requirements we have to address and we have to meet. Those base requirements are enshrined within I S O Nine Thousand and One, and if that says, thou shalt do X and Y and Z, then we have to do X and Y and Z. So there may be occasions when you feel that it would be nice to make er a change to er a system or procedure, and in actual fact it becomes really not possible because we would then be going against the dictates and requirements in I S O Nine Thousand and One. Having said those very harsh words however, there aren't very many hard and fast requirements in I S O Nine Thousand and One. It's called a quality system standard but in actual fact it's a code of practice. Its language is that of a code of practice. It says, for example, you need documented work instructions except where it's not necessary. So it's your choice as to how much or how little you write down. But what it's actually doing is prompting management to think. Shall we have a documented work instruction for this activity or not? But nevertheless it does contain one or two quite hard requirements which we have to meet if we're going to obtain and retain the certificate. So whilst you might think it's a nice idea to make a change to some procedure or work instruction or whatever you want to call it, there may be the odd occasion on which it's not actually possible to bring in a change because we're faced with still er meeting the requirements in the base er I S O Nine Thousand document. Now, how can we go about er introducing any changes to the system? Well we have some quality system procedures which were referred to earlier this morning and they are called nonconformance control, corrective action and internal audit. Now what are these erm strange words all about? I think that's perhaps something I ought to explain first and foremost. Nonconformance control. The I S O Nine Thousand document uses the term, nonconforming product, but the word product er is a very broad word, it's actually defined in I S O Nine Thousand as meaning product or service, and it can be anybody's product or service. It can be a product or service you've bought in, not necessarily a product or service that you are actually producing or generating yourselves. So what is this business? Nonconforming product control?...