The Significance of Quality Management in the Construction Industry
Here in this portion, the quality concepts related to project management will be discussed. The industry in particular that will be referred to is the construction industry. As it is the construction project failures are in the news time and again and thus this industry was chosen. Quality is a factor that matters much in the constructions sector and thus requires proper analysis.
Total Quality Management (TQM) provides a description of an approach of management that could bring long-term success by utilizing customer satisfaction (Abazid, TRNC, and Gökçeku? 2019). In a TQM effort, almost every member of an organization has to actively participate in bringing in improvisation of processes, services, various products of the firms, or even the culture at the workplace. 8 major elements of TQM are as given below (Yong 2018):
- Customer-focused- The consumers are the ultimate ones to decide on the quality of the product or the service being rendered.
- Total employee involvement- Without the involvement of all of the team members in a project environment, it cannot be expected that the desired result will be obtained.
- Process-centered- In a project environment, all of the tasks or the subtasks need to be process-oriented that is proper steps should be followed to complete the project. This as well will help in tracking the task and subtasks in the various phases of the project life cycle.
- Integrated system- TQM lays stress on the horizontal processes connecting the various functions within a project environment rather than going for vertically structured departments.
- Strategic and systematic approach- To achieve the end of the desired results of a project, there should be adherence to proper strategies and a defined systematic approach.
- Continual improvement- The project environment of the times is dynamic and hence continual process improvement is what is followed in TQM.
- Fact-based decision making- In a project environment, there is a need for the continual data collection on how the project is advancing and then taking decisions accordingly.
- Communications- In complex project environments something much needed is effective communication and this is what TQM focuses on.
In the construction sector, TQM can be applied as a specific way of approaching the outset, visualization, and accomplishment of aims to ensure both qualities as well as productivity. This also helps incorporate innovation in the construction sector. The construction sector has lately been adopting new technologies and TQM is something that is helping out this sector in the integration of modern technologies with old ones.
The quality processes in project management are divided into three major processes that included Quality Planning, Quality Assurance, and lastly Quality Control. This that is Quality Management is taken to be the prime element of Project Management. The concept is conducting a project via the four distinct phases of concept, development, execution, and finish with least or no deviations from the specifications of the project (Baker 2018). The philosophy of quality suggests that every project participant should be involved in the project ensuring that project aims and objectives are met. Quality Assurance provides the project team, clients, and shareholders with the various standards of performance and feedback that is obtained on the performance of the project. Lastly, Quality Control refers to the technical processes that are made use of in the examination, analysis as well as reporting of the progress of the project.
PMBOK quality processes have great significance in the context of construction as quality control and safety have turned out to be grave concerns for the project managers of this sector (Verzuh and American Psychological Association 2021). Defects or failures in the constructed facilities certainly result in large costs and delays. Here even with certain minor defects in place, re-construction becomes the only way out attracting extra budget and delay. Thus, quality control processes are needed in every phase of project management in the context of construction projects. Something that is of much importance in the construction sector is designed and here the role of quality control is crucial (Alwaly and Alawi 2020). The design quality is a determinant of the project getting completed as per the initial plan and thus PMBOK quality processes have to be adhered to. As per the three distinct phases of the PMBOK Quality Process, every stakeholder should be included in the design phase, then everyone should in consensus decide on the applicable standards, and lastly keep scope for examination of the project proceedings. Quality requirements should be made clear as well as verifiable before going on to start any construction project (Quality Management 2022). This will ensure that all of the parties involved in the project are aware of the requirements.
Total Quality Management (TQM)
ISO 9000 is a set of international standards for quality management and quality assurance. These standards were developed to help out various companies effectively document the distinct components of a quality system (ISO 9000 in Construction Industry – The Constructor 2022). By adhering to these quality management standards, businesses can bring an increase in efficiency and customer satisfaction as well. The main aim of the quality management system is to embed a defined quality management system within a firm.
There are many ISO standards but for the construction sector, two are used in an exclusive manner—ISO 9001 and ISO 9002. In the construction sector or projects of this sector, ISO 9001 certification is provided to those companies that carry out design activities as the major business operation (ISO 9000 in Construction Industry – The Constructor 2022). It means the companies deal in the design, development, production, installation, and final servicing. On contrary to this, the construction companies that are not involved in design activities are provided certification of ISO 9002.
There are some 20 requirements that need to be satisfied to get the certification that is a management responsibility, review of contracts, control of documents, purchaser supplied product, process control, inspection, measurement, and equipment testing, control of non-conforming products, handling and packaging, internal quality system auditing, servicing, quality system, control of design, purchasing, identification of product and traceability, inspection and testing, inspection status and test, corrective action, quality records, training, and statistical techniques.
6 Sigma refers to the business methodology that is for quality improvement. This is made use of to detect the defects in a present process and thereafter eliminates the same in a systematic manner. This applies to every industry and focuses on some major factors such as meeting customer requirements, bringing in improvisation in customer retention and improving and sustaining business products and services (Swami and Kadiwal 2020). The ones adhering to the 6 Sigma method adhere to an approach that is DMAIC. DMAC stands for define, measure, analyze, improve and control.
In the construction industry, 6 Sigma results in the application of a new form of management technique. This being a quantitative approach helps limit the defects in any process in the construction sector. In the dynamic project environment of the construction sector, there is always this scope of changes or modifications to be done to the initial plan. With 6 Sigma, much information can be collected about the changes that are required and decisions made on how to implement the following changes as well (Swami and Kadiwal 2020). With there being various factors in the construction sector that affect quality, methods such as 6 Sigma are much useful as these provide scale to measure the extent to which quality has to be improved.
Here in this section, the various risk concepts have been discussed including risk mitigation strategies, quantitative risk management, qualitative risk management, and PMBOK risk management processes. The risk models that are PERT and Monte Carlo Simulation have also been discussed. All of the risk concepts are crucial to any project environment but here only the construction industry will be focused.
PMBOK Quality Processes
The four main strategies of risk mitigation are risk avoidance, acceptance, transference, and lastly limitation. At each of the project life cycle phases, risks have to be added and hence there should be strategies in place. The strategies developed should be as per the requisites of the project site. Construction projects involve many stakeholders and thus also have a high chance to succumb to different risks. The above-mentioned strategies are of much help when it is to the question of mitigating risks. Suppose the risk of accident at a construction site can be addressed by ensuring that all measures of safety are in place, before starting with the project. Some international health and safety standards can be referred to for better results. Again, risks that have a low possibility of occurring but certainly would have a high impact need to be transferred in terms of purchasing insurance, outsourcing, or forming a partnership.
Quantitative Risk Management refers to the process of converting the risk impact on any specific project into numerical terms. This information in terms of numbers is again made use of frequently to determine the cost and the time contingencies of a project. In the construction sector, authors have come up with many quantitative risk management approaches such as the purpose of quantifying risks concerning project delay Judgemental Risk Analysis Process (JRAP) and Monte Carlo Simulation are made use of (Gupta and Thakkar 2018). Analysis of risks quantitatively in the planning phase of the project will help the project manager realize how these can impact the project and then proper decisions can be taken to avoid or eliminate such risks. A numerical value will be of much help and easy to understand the risk impact and probability and thus will enhance managerial decision-making to a great extent.
Qualitative Risk Management is yet another way of categorizing risks and is also one of the prime elements in the tool kits of risk professionals. It helps project managers or risk professionals to be quick with the identification and prioritization of risks. This type of risk assessment can be performed easily and with much fewer resources as compared to quantitative risk assessment (Qualitative Risk Assessment 2022). The parameters to evaluate the risk or measure remain the same but instead of numeric value, impact and likelihood are mentioned in terms of high, low, very low, very high, and other relevant options.
In the construction sector, qualitative risk management is one of the commonly used risk assessment techniques. This is easy to use and can be explained well to all of the stakeholders. Here the risks get assessed based on varied perspectives of the stakeholders and thus can be said to come up with better results and mitigation strategies. Risk probability of occurrence and impact are assessed against a pre-defined scale (Qualitative Risk Assessment 2022). The main purpose is risk prioritization, improvement in understanding of risk, identification of the main risk exposure areas, and so on. Much of the decisions in the initiation and planning phase of the construction projects can be based on the risk identified through qualitative risk management.
ISO Standards
The risk management process that is defined by PMBOK Guide is as given in the picture below:
Picture 1: Risk Management Process (A practical risk management approach 2022)
This process is more aligned with qualitative risk management and has the required feedback loop suggesting that the risk management process is iterative. Risk management planning needs to be done in the initial stage of the project so that the approach to be taken for managing risk can be understood in the early stages of the project (A practical risk management approach 2022). Risk identification comes thereafter which involves the identification of sources of risks. This has to be done in the planning phase of any construction project. The other three steps are to be done in the later stages to control the risk factors in the project.
PERT is the network planning method that is used for planning, controlling, and scheduling projects. PERT views the correct performance time for the activity as the random variable. The procedure of conventional PERT ignores the sub-critical path that leads to the biased estimation of the expected earliest occurrence time for all the network events of a project. For solving such a problem that is a merge event bias issue, one promising approach can be a simulation (Putra, Rembulan, and Tannady 2021). One of the alternative techniques to manage the project risks related to the schedule of the project is to develop the probabilistic framework of the schedule of the project, where the duration of the activities is not described by any different values. However, the duration of the activities is described by the distribution of the probability.
In construction projects, there are many tasks and subtasks to handle thus using a PERT chart the schedule of the project can be represented pictorially (Putra, Rembulan, and Tannady 2021). This will make the visualization of the schedule easy and ensure that risks do not occur due to any of the tasks or sub-tasks being skipped or delayed.
Monte Carlo simulation is the method, which generates random values for the inputs, which are processed through the mathematical model for generating more than one scenario. The type of the distribution can be normal, uniform, exponential, and so on. The types of the distribution can be specified by users only and this will be based on the case or situation, which will be modeled. For example, when the project manager will manage the project, the project will involve multiple sub-projects and tasks or activities (Tong et al. 2018). Based on the previous experience and knowledge gained from previous projects, the project manager will be able to determine the best scenario, worst case, and expected case scenario by estimating all the activities.
In the construction industry, the Monte Carlo simulation is a set of repeated random scheduling simulations. By performing many such simulations, relying on the inputs of Expected Value (EV), Best Case (BC), and Worst-Case (WC), the statistical possibility of various schedule and cost outcomes can be figured (Tong et al. 2018). This is much essential in construction projects as in these project times and cost overrun are common.
References
A practical risk management approach. [online] Available at: <https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/practical-risk-management-approach-8248> [Accessed 3 April 2022].
Qualitative Risk Assessment. [online] Available at: <https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/qualitative-risk-assessment-cheaper-faster-3188> [Accessed 3 April 2022].
Quality Management. [online] Available at: <https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/quality-management-9107> [Accessed 3 April 2022].
Abazid, M., TRNC, M. and Gökçeku?, H., 2019. Application of total quality management in Saudi Arabia construction project. Jour of Adv Research in Dynamical & Control Systems, 11(3).
Alwaly, K.A. and Alawi, N.A., 2020. Factors affecting the application of project management knowledge guide (PMBOK® GUIDE) in construction projects in Yemen. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 9(3), pp.81-91.
Baker, B., 2018. Project quality management practice & theory. American Journal of Management, 18(3), pp.10-17.
Gupta, V.K. and Thakkar, J.J., 2018. A quantitative risk assessment methodology for a construction project. S?dhan?, 43(7), pp.1-16.
Putra, R.M., Rembulan, G.D. and Tannady, H., 2021, June. Construction project evaluation using CPM-Crashing, CPM-PERT and CCPM for minimize project delays. In Journal of Physics: Conference Series (Vol. 1933, No. 1, p. 012096). IOP Publishing.
Swami, P. and Kadiwal, B., 2020. Implementation of six sigma methodology in construction industry for quality process improvement. International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology, 7(4), pp.4285-4290.
The Constructor. 2022. ISO 9000 in Construction Industry – The Constructor. [online] Available at: <https://theconstructor.org/construction/iso-9000-construction-industry/20591/> [Accessed 3 April 2022].
Tong, R., Cheng, M., Zhang, L., Liu, M., Yang, X., Li, X. and Yin, W., 2018. The construction dust-induced occupational health risk using Monte-Carlo simulation. Journal of cleaner production, 184, pp.598-608.
Verzuh, E. and American Psychological Association, 2021. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge: PMBOK Guide.
Yong, C.Y., 2018. The Influence of Total Quality Management on Project Performance: The Case of Construction Organizations in Malaysia (Doctoral dissertation, Curtin University).
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