American engineers conduct quality assurance training in Afghanistan

  • Published
  • By Capt. Angela Webb
  • Khost Provincial Reconstruction Team Public Affairs
KHOST PROVINCE, Afghanistan (AFNS) --  Khost Provincial Reconstruction Team engineers conducted quality assurance training for more than 30 Afghan contractors, foremen and engineers at the Civil-Military Operations Center in downtown Khost, Afghanistan recently.

The engineers conduct monthly training to address issues found during project site audits throughout the 12 districts and one municipality of Khost. This training, the third session held by the PRT, concentrated on brick masonry, material storage and project administration. Previous topics included concrete preparation and processing, and plaster and mortar finishing techniques.

"We are addressing recurring quality issues in our training sessions," said U.S. Navy Lt. Stephen Gustafson, Khost PRT lead engineer. "Our overall goal is to mentor the Afghans in construction best practices and techniques and facilitate their implementation in the field, so that when (the coalition forces) leave, Afghan capacity has grown to the point that the Afghans are mentoring Afghans."

The PRT engineers share the latest construction and engineering procedures with their Afghan partners during the training sessions. 

"Mentoring the Afghans in construction best practices helps to ensure a lasting, quality product," Lieutenant Gustafson said. "We work closely with the Provincial Development Committee in assessing each project from conception through project turnover."

Since the training sessions began, significant improvements have been noted by the PRT, Khost leadership, PDC and Khost citizens.

"We noticed improvements in technique and are spending less time on fundamentals," Lieutenant Gustafson said. "We're now spending more time defining and sharpening skills instead of concentrating on the basics."

At the latest session, five Khost sector directors attended the training and spoke about the roles of the government, contractors and the PRT for any project, and about specific responsibilities after a project is completed.

"It is important to bring everyone together to address some concerns and issues on project construction," said Hamid Shah, an engineer and Khost province director of economy. "We each have a role to make sure the design is done correctly and it meets the specifications of the contract."

The partnership between all development parties is improving, but there is still a lot of work to be done, the lieutenant said.

"There were concerns with a lack of project oversight from all parties involved, so we are working with the PDC to visit the project sites frequently and for longer periods of time," he said. "The time we spend with our Afghan contractors is very important in order to provide the proper tools, so they can eventually monitor their own quality and progress."

Nearly 40 projects are on-going throughout the province and new projects are added periodically to address the latest urgent development needs. Next month's training will concentrate on project management skills to include the development of quality control plans, safety plans, and work activity plans in order to improve efficiency and productivity for construction projects throughout the province.