OVERVIEW QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

Quality is one of the core business priorities in any organization, besides cost, on time delivery, and flexibility (Heizer and Render, 2008).

Operational Terms and Definition

To understand more on the operational terms and definition related to quality are defined as follow accordance with the ISO 9000:2015: Quality Management Systems - Fundamamentals and Vocabulary.

Quality

Quality Management System (QMS)

Quality management system is defined as coordinatged activities with a set of ibterrelated or interacting elements to direct and control an organization with regards to quality (ISO 9000:2005).

Quality Policy

Quality policy is the overall intention and direction of an organization is formally expressed by the top management related to quality (ISO 9000:2005)

Objectives, Importance and Benefits of Quality Management System

The objectives of quality management are to:

1. produce high quality or superior product/services
2. meet customer requirements and acvhieve customer satisfication
3. establish an effective quality management system
4. establish standardized and systematic business operations, procedures and processes.
5. establish well controlled processes that produce high yield, output or throughputs, high productivity, higher sales and returns on investments
6. develop high quality workforce with qood quality works and practices wich incorperates innovations and continual improvements
7. reduced operational cost, wastes, losses, inefficiencies, rejections, failures, customer complaints, customer or product returns, machine or equipment breakdowns and overhead costs.

Establish total quality management ans quality management system comprehensively in important and vital to an organization to:

1. Remain cometitive in market or to have that competitive edge against others and business survivial
2. Retain and expend market share in the business and its sector.
3. Achieve high profitability in business
4. Generate more sales of high quality products and reap higher profits
5. Set directions to meet or exceed customers satisfications, needs, wants and aspirations
6. Establish a standard total quality management system in the organization especially at work place
7. Achieve world class recognition, reputation and image for the organization and the organizational products/services'
8. Establish quality control on all process towards higher productivity, higher yield and more output
9. lower operational costs in business
10. prevent or mitigate possible product liability lawsuits
11. establish and monitor quality costs in running business operations.

The rewards of having superior quality products and services are substaintial and pervasive. By attaining or producing superior quality products/services, an organization obtains many benefits such as:

1. Attained customer satisfication
2. Grreater customer loyalty
3. Market share improvement
4. Business growth and generate more sales
5. Competitive edge in business
6. High quality product/services in demand
7. Higher stock price
8. Reduced service calls and operational costs
9. Greater productivity
10. Improved staff morale
11. Reduced product returns and product liability cases

Dimensions of Quality

From the first judgemental criteria, quality can be further deifined from various quality dimensions of perspectives of each individual on products such as:

1. Performance: Performance refers to a product's primary operating characteristics. This dimension of quality involves measurable attributes; brands can usually be ranked objectively on individual aspects of performance.
   
2. Features: Features are additional characteristics that enhance the appeal of the product or service to the user.
   
3. Reliability: Reliability is the likelihood that a product will not fail within a specific time period. This is a key element for users who need the product to work without fail.
   
4. Conformance: Conformance is the precision with which the product or service meets the specified standards.
   
5. Durability: Durability measures the length of a product’s life. When the product can be repaired, estimating durability is more complicated. The item will be used until it is no longer economical to operate it. This happens when the repair rate and the associated costs increase significantly.
   
6. Serviceability: Serviceability is the speed with which the product can be put into service when it breaks down, as well as the competence and the behavior of the service person.
   
7. Aesthetics: Aesthetics is the subjective dimension indicating the kind of response a user has to a product. It represents the individual’s personal preference.
   
8. Perceived Quality: Perceived Quality is the quality attributed to a good or service based on indirect measures.

Total Quality Management Principle

Total Quality Management (TQM) strategies focus on long-term success by enlisting every member of an organization at all levels to produce a product or service that creates value for the customer, leading to loyalty as well as satisfaction. Organizational and operational strategies are driven by long-term goals supported by short-term ones with a focus on integrating systems as well as aligning processes, procedures, and practices necessary to produce high-quality outputs with an eye on continual improvement. The eight core princples of TQM are:

1. Customer focus and value creation
2. Leadership involvement
3. Employees engagement
4. Education and training
5. Process and system approach
6. Use a statical and quality control tools
7. Total quality organizational culture
8. Continuous improvement

Impact of Quality Management System (QMS) in Construction Industry

The QMS is widely used by the organizations for achieving operational and market benefits, it is an optimized standard to upgrade and promote the companies and projects performance. The studies on the impact of QMS reported that these objectives are not always achieved. However, the successful implementation of the ISO 9001 (QMS) standard depends on how the standard is perceived by the companies. As a results, the previous studies on the impact of QMS revealed that the majority of the scholars found the positive effect of QMS on projects (Manders, 2015). For example, a survey by UNIDO (2012) in the Philippines and few countries in Asia, showed that the most of the respondents believed QMS can make excellent (57%) and good (22%) influence on the organizations, and the only 3% stated the negative impacts of QMS on the firms. Likewise, over 54% had internally motivated reasons (including internal improvement and corporate or top management objective), whilst 39% had externally motivated reasons (customers, markets or governments pressure) to implement QMS in their organizations. Without doubt, QMS provides the consistency and satisfaction in terms of methods, materials, equipment, etc. in the firms, which can cause they meet the requirements of their customers, and achieve organizational targets in the projects, as illustrated in figure below.

Schematic QMS on organizational targets of projects (iron triangle)

The mechanism of QMS is simple and efficient to improve project performance, it is included ISO 9001 requirements, and its framework (Process approach and PDCA methodology), which is based on quality managementprinciples (ISO 9000) throughout ISO 9004 guidance to achieve successfully the aims of the organizations, and ISO 19011 audits for ensuring to enforce ISO 9001 requirements accurately. QMS is the part of every project management processes from the moment the project initiates to the final steps in the project closure phase. These processes can improve the performance of project continuously by PDCA methodology. Many studies and literature have been identified and determined the benefits of QMS that can affect positively on the organizational performance and market in different industries. For example, a survey was performed by Thilakarathne and Chithrangani (2014) for identifying the benefits of implementing QMS in the ISO 9001-certified firms in Sri Lanka, the results of their research indicated that the customer satisfaction, reduces production time, increases quality awareness, improves product/service quality, improves employee productivity, and improves employee relations, were respectively, as most important perceived benefits of the QMS implementation within different companies in Sri Lanka. Based on the findings of several empirical studies, the most aim of QMS standards is to promote the customer's satisfaction, and many studies have been shown that it seems QMS is successful for achieving this aim by improving and stimulating the processes of ISO 9001-certified construction projects. In Malaysian construction companies, the majority of the respondents believed that the functionality and clients' satisfaction are respectively the most influences of QMS implementation into construction projects (Ali, and Rahmat, 2010). In addition, Mane and Patil (2015) found the 90% of the respondents asserted customer satisfaction and 80% client satisfaction are the most important aspect for maintaining QMS for construction projects in India.

Factors Affecting Construction Quality Management System There are three main factors affecting the construction quality management system. The factors are as follows 1. Lack of Management Commitment Result of the survey indicated that 37.3% of the organizations surveyed encountered problems with this requirement of the standard. Reasons that can account for the lack of commitment are

(i) Lack of awareness of the benefits of quality management system, 

(ii) Implementation of a quality system because of market pressures.

2. Inconclusive Interpretation of Standard Requirements The ISO standards are a generic standard that has its origin from the engineering field. As generic standards, some of the terms used in the standard could be misconstrued as being vague, ambiguous and imprecise. Confusion also arises as there is a lack of the definition of these terms in the standards (Chew and Chai, 1996). 3. Training Policies Looking into the general training policy, the ISO 9001 registered companies have more concern on the training of their employees than the non-registered ones. They not only pay for the course fees, but also allow them to receive training during working hours. For nonregistered companies, the company may reimburse the course fees but employees have to attend training sessions outside of working hours. Moreover, regular training programmes on technical and computer knowledge were commonly provided in many companies. The most popular training programme organized by ISO 9001 registered companies was Quality Knowledge (Lee et.al, 1992).