The QA reviews on the District Bridge Sections will be performed by the Bridge Division’s QA Team, on a regular schedule, not to exceed two years between reviews. They will consist of two general parts – an office review and a field review. The QA review of the District’s QC efforts will focus on the deliverables from the completed work authorizations since the last QA review. The QA Team will randomly preselect bridges from the District’s QC documentation for the subject work authorization(s).

The office review will be made up of a discussion of the District Bridge Section concerning the organization of the section, as well as how the section conducts its operations. This will be followed by a QA review of the District’s QC efforts using the District’s QC documentation, existing bridge folders, and the documentation in the Bridge Inspection Management System. The general discussion will include topics such as the District’s Bridge Section personnel, the required qualifications, the organization, record keeping, inspection management, routine inspection work authorizations, quality control approach, and any other TxDOT BIP topics the District bridge personnel would like to discuss. The results of these discussions will yield qualitative data that will include general observations and descriptions of performance measures. This qualitative data can be used to help document the results of the QA review, be used to describe corrective actions, if warranted, to be taken in response to the findings, and identify best practices to share with other Districts.

The QA office review will also look at whether the required percentages of QC review were performed and documented for Electronic Documentation Review, Inspection Team Field Review, and Re-Inspections. The date(s) of the District’s QC review will be compared to the submission dates to verify if the QC review was done in a timely manner.

For the Electronic Documentation Review, the QA Team will use a QA checklist that is similar to the “TxDOT QC Review - Bridge Folder Review” form to check for items that should be included in the bridge file. The documents will be reviewed to ensure that the forms are current, have been updated with inspection findings, and that recommended actions are implemented or followed-up upon and documented, if applicable. For examples of additional documentation that may be in the bridge file, see Chapter 8.

If any of the selected bridges have been load rated, the QA Team will conduct a review of the District’s QC efforts by verifying that the Level I and Level II load rating reviews (described in Section 3, in the “QC Bridge Inspection Electronic Documentation Review” paragraph of this chapter) were performed. If the District’s review resulted in anything that looked incorrect or suspect, a Level III review should have been initiated, by contacting the Bridge Division’s Load Rating Engineer, to verify the load rating documentation. If a Level III review was warranted, the Bridge Division’s Load Rating Engineer bears the responsibility for verifying or recalculating the load rating. This however does not relieve the District’s responsibility of making sure that the process is carried through its entirety, assuring the correct load posting signs, per recommendations or approved calculations, are erected by established deadlines. Photographs of the final signs are to be uploaded into the Bridge Inspection Management System as soon as possible after installation.

The Bridge Inspection Management System will be spot checked to confirm the coding of various inventory items and that required items have been uploaded into the Bridge Inspection Management System. Any coding errors or missing documentation will be recorded and noted as a deficiency. Another piece of quantitative data that will be determined is the percent of critical findings that have been addressed or followed up on since the last QA review.

The field review will involve a QA Re-Inspection of bridges for which District personnel have performed a QC Re-Inspection. These are listed on the “TxDOT Bridge Inspection QC Review, Bridge Re-Inspection Log.” The results of the routine, district QC, and QA inspection results will be compared. The QA Re-Inspection will be a collaboration between the QA Team and District bridge personnel, and consists of bridge components, condition states, condition ratings, and any follow-up action recommendations. Any condition rating that differs by more than plus or minus one condition rating will be considered out-oftolerance. If the difference in condition rating is determined to have occurred from damage or repair since the last inspection, this will be noted and no error will be reported.

If applicable, the Elements and their condition states will be reviewed for concurrence.

Any follow-up action recommendations will be reviewed to see if the District has acted or plans to act on the recommendations. If any of these actions were reported with critical inspection or scour critical findings and they have yet to be acted upon, this will be quantified, included in the report findings, and will be considered an important corrective action.

The information obtained from the QA office and field reviews will be objective, quantitative data that can be summarized and used for comparison. Information from discussions can lead to qualitative as well as quantitative findings.

The results of the QA review will be presented in a report sent to the Program Manager and District detailing the quantitative and qualitative findings so that corrective actions, should they be warranted, can be taken or best-practice techniques implemented to improve the quality of the overall BIP.