Quality Management in Construction Projects: Essential Components and Principles

What is quality management?

Quality management does not aim to assure good quality, but rather to ensure that an organization or product is consistent. It has four main components:

• quality planning
• quality control
• quality assurance (garantía)
• quality improvement

Its principles include meeting customer requirements, leadership and involvement of people, understanding and managing all interrelated processes as a system, continual improvement, and making decisions based on data analysis and information.

Quality Management in Construction Projects

Quality refers to products or services, while quality management refers to processes. According to the ISO 9000 standards, all projects should have their own audited quality management systems. Every project has to have its own Project Quality Management System. The project manager’s task is to decide on the project organization and the PQMS. Quality aims have to be defined and understood by all participants. The system of responsibilities has to be defined for all of the processes. Subcontractors have to know and accept quality aims and quality plans related to their processes.

Essential Requirements of Construction Materials

According to Council Directive 89/106/EEC, the essential requirements of construction materials include mechanical resistance and stability, safety in case of fire, hygiene, health and the environment, safety in use, protection against noise, and energy economy and heat retention. These requirements are given by European technical approval, attestation of conformity with technical specifications, and approval of testing laboratories, inspection bodies, and certification bodies.

The Deming Cycle

The Deming cycle, PDCA- plan, do, check, act cycle, is used for quality control purposes.

Main Points of ISO9001

The main points of ISO9001 include the quality policy, decision-making based on recorded data, regular auditing and evaluation of the quality system, records showing how and where raw materials and products were processed, determination of customer requirements, systems for communicating with customers, planning stages of development for new products, regular reviews of performance, and documented procedures for internal audits.

Construction vs. Industrial Processes

A construction project is unique, has relatively high costs, cannot be moved, takes place outside, has complicated built-in defects, involves many processes and professions, and has changing priorities during the project. Customer needs in construction projects include functional, economical, technical, and aesthetic requirements, as well as social claims and legal prescriptions.