Deh Cho Bridge, Quality Management Services

Location

Fort Providence, NWT

Expertise

Bridges

Infrastructure

Quality Management

The Deh Cho Bridge is a new 1.1 km steel truss and cable stayed bridge across the Mackenzie River near Fort Providence, Northwest Territories (NWT) providing a year-round transportation link from Yellowknife to other parts of the NWT and to the rest of Canada. It replaced the location’s existing ferry operations and ice crossing.

Associated Engineering, with its consulting partners, provided quality management services to monitor the activities of the contractor, subcontractors, suppliers, and consultants, to review the quality and completeness of their documents and records, and to assess the effectiveness of actions taken to resolve quality issues, including the identification, tracking, correction, and verification of nonconformities.

Because of the project’s remote location, its extreme weather conditions, and the short yearly seasonal construction periods, it was essential to minimize quality issues that would require repair in the field or replacement of components (which often necessitated long delivery times) by encouraging adaptation of construction methodologies, shop prefabrication processes, and improvements in the transportation and receipt of materials, resources, and personnel. A rigorous quality assurance, quality audit, and quality monitoring program was undertaken of the on and off-site fabrication activities and of the contractor’s field assembly and installation works. These efforts contributed greatly towards ensuring faster construction speed and savings.

Completed and officially opened to great local and territorial celebration on November 30, 2012, the bridge has been a valuable asset to the NWT providing an efficient, year-round, cost effective transportation link for trucking, businesses, industries, and residents.