OPTIMAL PROCEDURES FOR QUALITY ASSURANCE SPECIFICATIONS

This manual is a comprehensive guide that a highway agency can use when developing new, or modifying existing, acceptance plans and quality assurance specifications. It provides necessary instruction and illustrative examples to lead the agency through the entire process of acceptance plan development, including: setting up the initial data collection/experimentation to determine typical parameters of current construction; establishing the desired level of quality to be specified; designing the actual acceptance plan itself, including selecting quality characteristics, statistical quality measure, buyer's and seller's risks, lot size, number of samples (sample size), specification and/or acceptance limits, and payment-adjustment provisions; monitoring how the acceptance plan is performing; and making necessary adjustments.