Management of Civil Infrastructure Systems: QFD-Based Approach

Abstract

Infrastructure owners or management agencies have well established quality control programs with the intent of achieving safe and effective maintenance. However, consumers are becoming more involved in economic, environmental, and social issues related to infrastructure. Therefore, a valid quality program would be more definitive by involving voice of the customer in the maintenance decision-process. In this paper, an innovative approach for achieving quality and customer satisfaction in infrastructure maintenance is proposed by implementing the quality function deployment (QFD) approach. Using bridges as an example, two separate applications of QFD have been proposed: (1) inspection prioritization, and (2) decision-making between replacement and/or rehabilitation scenarios. For both applications, an inspection house of quality is prepared for translating consumer demands (WHATs) into inspection requirements (HOWs) followed by prioritizing the inspection items (HOWs). For the inspection prioritization, hypothetical survey data is utilized. For the decision-making scenarios, a case study is furnished for a bridge located in Victoria, BC, Canada. The main conclusion as illustrated in the study is that QFD can be successfully adopted for improved management of civil infrastructure.