The prime facilitator of the Vanir TQS effort is the Quality Improvement Council (QIC). The QIC serves as a proponent, planner, organizer, coach, and cheerleader for TQS. Simply put, its function is to plan for and facilitate the implementation of TQS within the Vanir companies. There are major components; training, information collection, analysis, and dissemination, and continued refinement.

Training
Over the years, Vanir developed a comprehensive training program for its employees. It begins with a one or two day New Employee Orientation, held shortly after a new employee is hired. The orientation introduces and educates new employees about the structure of the company, corporate policies and procedures, functions and capabilities of various departments within the company, and an introduction to the Vanir TQS Program. Vanir's philosophy is to provide quality

Formalized training continues for technical and management staff during the first part of each year with Spring Training. Spring Training is a two-day session covering a wide range of topics designed to enhance Vanir employees' skills in construction management. In the fall of each year, another formal training session is held for administrative staff, called the Administrative Conference. A one-day event, held in California, provides focused training for administrative issues. The final formal training session is the PM/CM Conference, also held annually in the latter part of each year. This is also a two-day session where some of Vanir's clients attend the first day's activities, which include a keynote speaker and various panel discussions on current topics in the construction management industry. Day two consists of Vanir employee-only workshop-type sessions that deal with more specific CM-related topics. Feedback is collected from all training sessions, and evaluated by the Training Task Force such that there is continuous quality improvement in the overall training program.

Information Collection
Vanir utilizes a series of tools that effectively solicits ideas, suggestions, and feedback from employees and enhances two-way communication within the company to continually improve the quality of our services. The following section describes these techniques in more detail;

• Employee Suggestion Program - this started out as a hand-written program for employee suggestions and has been refined such that it is now an automated process implemented through the corporate intranet. The evolution of this program is itself an example of the continuous quality improvement process.
• Employee Surveys - are held generally every two years to provide employees an opportunity to evaluate and rate Vanir's performance in a wide variety of areas.
• Roundtables - are also held generally every two years and consist of face-to-face meetings of small groups, facilitated by a local Regional Manager and a QIC representative, to discuss things that people feel Vanir does well, not so well, and ways to improve.

Information Analysis
The information collected by the above-mentioned methods is carefully reviewed and analyzed by the QIC. Suggestions that are accepted are assigned to a Process Owner for further investigation and implementation. The QIC also analyzes results from employee surveys and Roundtables to look for trends and to identify specific action items that may improve the quality of Vanir's services to both internal and external clients.

Information Dissemination
In order to maintain a continuous flow of information throughout the company, the QIC provides feedback to all employees on the status of current actions being taken on certain suggestions, results of employee surveys and reports on consolidated summaries of Roundtable meetings. The communication is implemented using e-mail, Operations and Staff Meetings, and through the Vanirgram.

Continued Refinement
Conclusions and recommendations generated from this process and implemented through the QIC. Actions may be taken directly by a senior level manager, as a Process Owner, or a Quality Team may be formed to investigate an issue in more detail. A Quality Team generally consists of a small group of employees who have a specific charter and a 3 to 6 month time frame to complete their work and to submit a report to the QIC. Upon review of the team report, the QIC will determine appropriate action.