Assessment of Quality Management in Major Projects in the Mining Industry in Botswana

Abstract

While project performance is generally evaluated in terms of schedule, cost and quality performance, guidelines for project quality management are lacking, (Steyn and Nicholas, 2008). The Botswana mining industry is faced with problems of engineering projects which don’t meet the expected outcomes and most of the problems emanate around quality management and quality defects. This research project involved the assessment of quality management in major engineering projects in the Botswana mining industry by evaluating the level of adoption and implementation of quality management systems in major engineering projects, identifying the major causes of project failure, and evaluating the effectiveness of quality management system as employed in major capital projects. The research was focused mainly on Debswana Diamond Mining company as the major mining house in the country, with an objective to assess the maturity level of the company’s quality management system (QMS) and identify opportunities for improvement. A mixed method approach was used which involved archival research and survey research, the results of which were triangulated to corroborate the findings and remove bias. Archival research was conducted using the company document repository to review project retrospect reports, (Lessons learnt reports) and identify problems experienced during the implementation of different projects. These were correlated with common causes of project failures as identified in the critical literature review and cross referenced against survey results to further confirm them. The results indicated that the maturity level of the Quality Management system is at level 4 (quantitatively managed), where processes are measured and controlled. Gaps were identified that if rectified would move the maturity to level 5 (optimizing), where the focus would now be on process improvement. The gaps are mainly around operationalisation, lower-level employees training on quality management, optimisation of shared resources especially subject matter experts like project engineers, key stakeholder management, involvement and participation from end users and operational teams. The study came up with the top five (5) major causes of project failure being: 1. Shared resources and subject matter experts get overstretched between different projects and end up neglecting quality assurance. 2. Poor stakeholder management. 3. Lack of stakeholder involvement and participation in the project. 4. Inexperienced project team. 5. Unclear statements of expected quality outcomes.