GM592 Unit 9 Quality and Reporting Plan Example

Three Working Days for the Checks: A Unit 9 Quality and Reporting Plan for a Sawmill's Dry Kiln

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

GM592: Project Planning and the Project Plan

Unit 9 Quality and Reporting Plan

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The sawmill, its staff, its vendors and every figure are composite and illustrative; the standards and technical sources cited are real.

The Cost in Days

The four activities this plan adds move the first saleable charge at Tygart Ridge Hardwoods from working day 187 to working day 190. One of the four sits on the kiln chain, which has float, and costs nothing. The other three sit on the controlling path. The owners have accepted the three days, because each check catches a problem that would cost far more to find after lumber reaches the cabinet maker.

Quality Standards

Each standard traces to a requirement.

Moisture between 6 and 8 percent at unload, from R-11. Measured by oven-dry tests on kiln samples, as the federal operator manual describes: samples are weighed, dried in an oven until their weight stops changing, and weighed again (Simpson, 1991).

A spread of 2 points or less across the ten samples in a charge, also from R-11. Measured on the same samples.

No casehardening stress at unload, from R-12. Measured by the prong test on three samples per charge.

Drying degrade of no more than 2 percent of board footage, from R-13. Measured by grading a marked sample of 500 board feet before and after drying.

Controller sensors within 1 degree Fahrenheit, supporting R-10. Measured against a calibrated reference thermometer at power-up and every three months.

Assurance and Control

Joseph Juran distinguished quality planning and assurance, which build the conditions for good results, from quality control, which checks results against standards and acts on deviations (Juran & Godfrey, 1999). The plan keeps them under separate headings.

Quality assurance covers the work that makes good drying likely: written schedules for each species and thickness approved by the grader, operators trained and signed off, kiln samples cut and placed according to the written sampling procedure, and the balance and oven calibrated each month against reference weights.

Quality control covers the checks of each charge: oven-dry tests on the ten kiln samples, prong tests, the degrade sample and the controller's log. If a charge fails any standard, the grader holds it from shipment, records the cause and decides with the operations manager whether to recondition, regrade or sell it as a lower grade.

Records

Every check produces a record kept for at least three years, because the cabinet maker's supplier agreement allows it to ask for drying records on any shipment. The grader keeps a charge file holding the schedule used, the controller log export, the oven-dry worksheet with each sample's weights, the prong test results and the degrade tally. The maintenance lead keeps the calibration log for the sensors, balance and oven. The operations manager keeps the factory and site acceptance reports with the vendor's signatures. When a shipment leaves the mill, its bill of lading carries the charge number, so any complaint can be traced to the charge file within minutes. Denig, Wengert and Simpson stress that consistent records of schedules and results are what allow kiln operators to improve schedules over time for their own lumber (Denig et al., 2000).

Who Checks What

The plan assigns each check to one person and a backup. The grader owns moisture, casehardening and degrade checks, with one trained operator as backup. The maintenance lead owns sensor and equipment calibration, with the vendor's service technician as backup during the first year. The operations manager owns the acceptance tests and the weekly status, with the owner as backup for approvals. No one checks their own work on a charge they loaded; the operator who loads a charge does not perform its oven-dry tests.

Factory Acceptance Test

Before the kiln ships, the maintenance lead will witness a factory acceptance test at the vendor's plant. The fans will run for two hours at rated speed while the vendor measures airflow across the load space, and the controller will be stepped through a full schedule using simulated sensor inputs. Acceptance requires airflow within the vendor's specification at every measuring point and every controller step executing within one minute of its set time. The test is a condition of the 60 percent payment.

Site Acceptance Test

On site, acceptance requires the trial charge to meet every standard above, and the first saleable charge to repeat the result. If either fails, the vendor adjusts the controller or airflow and the charge is repeated at the vendor's cost for its share of the problem.

A kiln that passes its factory test can still fail on site, because the factory never sees the mill's own lumber, its air-dried moisture levels or its stacking.

Weekly and Monthly Reporting

The weekly status is one page, issued every Monday by the operations manager. It reports the forecast finish of the controlling path, the float remaining on the two near-critical chains, work performed and cash paid against the baseline, contingency used, the top five risks and any decision the owners must make that week.

The monthly owners' review is a one-hour meeting with the owner, the operations manager and the bookkeeper. It reviews the month's work performed against the baseline, the cash table against the line of credit, and the risk register.

Escalation thresholds require the operations manager to call the owner within one working day if the controlling path's forecast slips by more than five days, if float on either near-critical chain falls below five days, if contingency use passes 25 percent, or if any quality check fails. The Project Management Institute treats such thresholds as part of tailoring reporting to the decisions stakeholders actually need to make (Project Management Institute, 2021).

Activities Added to the Network

Factory acceptance witness trip, 2 days, on the kiln chain after fabrication. It uses 2 of the chain's 14 days of float and does not move the finish.

Sensor calibration check, 1 day, after power-up and before boiler firing. On the controlling path.

Oven-dry verification of trial charge samples, 1 day, after the trial charge, because the samples must dry in the oven for about 24 hours. On the controlling path.

Quality review before loading the saleable charge, 1 day, in which the grader and operations manager review the trial charge results. On the controlling path.

Rerunning the network script with these four activities moves the first saleable charge from day 187 to day 190. The kiln chain's float falls from 14 to 12 days.

References

Denig, J., Wengert, E. M., & Simpson, W. T. (2000). Drying hardwood lumber (General Technical Report FPL-GTR-118). U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory.

Juran, J. M., & Godfrey, A. B. (Eds.). (1999). Juran's quality handbook (5th ed.). McGraw-Hill.

Project Management Institute. (2021). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide) (7th ed.).

Simpson, W. T. (Ed.). (1991). Dry kiln operator's manual (Agriculture Handbook 188). U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory.