Essay On Quality Management System In Construction Industry - Case Study

Quality management refers to as the act to oversee every activity and task that is required for maintaining a specific level of excellence. The quality management system in the construction industry or project is required for ensuring that the work would be completed within the constraints of the best quality, a minimum possible cost and the mentioned period (Oakland and Marosszeky 2017). The following report provides a brief discussion on a contracting organization that was failed to deliver a quality product of excavator to a construction site. Hence, they did not receive customers’ satisfaction in the product.  

A popular and significant contracting organization in Australia was working under a contractual obligation for delivering excavator to a construction site under a strict deadline. The construction site was for a residential building and an excavator plays a vital role to complete the structure of the work (Oke, Aigbavboa and Dlamini 2017). These excavators can lift heavy materials easily and without any kind of issue. Hence, this particular product is extremely important and it should be of higher quality for getting maximum efficiency in the construction work.

Although the contracting organization was able to provide the product on time; they have faced a financial loss, which could be vulnerable for the organizational processes. Moreover, the client was also not satisfied with the quality of their excavators (Sacks et al. 2017). As per the client, the excavators would not provide shear strength to the construction and hence it is required to initiate as well as lead a distinct process improvement project for developing a better quality driven scheme, so that the quality attributes of the product are increased and the product is delivered within time and budget.

The client of the product had mentioned to focus on different dimensions of quality, so that there would be an overall improvement in the processes for the organization. Since the client was not satisfied with the quality of the product, it is required to understand the client’s perspective (Do and Lam 2019). The client is concerned about the quality of the residential building to be constructed in the construction site and any kind of quality issue would be responsible for making the project an unsuccessful one. There are four distinct dimensions of quality for the product that are needed to be maintained.

1. i) The first and the foremost dimension is performance and since after testing the quality of the excavator has been concluded as of poor quality. The client has considered the primary operating features of the product by involving measurable elements that make it quite easier to measure the distinct performance (Rumane 2017). A few performance requirements are associated to the preferences of the client; however, the organization was not being able to fulfil the criteria.
2. ii) The second dimension is feature of the product, in which the client was able to identify the issue of lack of quality factors accordingly. The features were not sufficient as per the client’s perspective to complete the construction of the building.

iii) Reliability is the next distinctive quality dimension that was required to be focused accordingly. Since the excavators would be required for making the base of the building; high reliability is required for the product (Sheng et al. 2020).

1. iv) Moreover, the quality dimension of durability was also termed as significant for the respective product of excavators and it is expected that the product would be performing appropriately, under every circumstance. Durability is also needed in this particular product for reducing the repair costs easily. As a result, the organization would be able to deal with the financial losses successfully.

Part 1

Quality management involves the determination of a quality policy, creation and deployment of quality planning as well as assurance and even quality control and quality improvement (Harris et al. 2021). It mainly focused on product or service quality and even the methods for accomplishing the results successfully. The product of the contracting organization would be requiring the involvement of a process for identifying the causes to deliver poor quality and over budget product. The key performance indicators of quality aspect in the product are needed to be highlighted.

1. i) One of the major and the most distinct KPI is efficiency measurements. The excavators should have been tested by the contracting organization, before sending them to the client, so that such situations would have avoided.
2. ii) The client has also considered the aspect of conformance for identifying the causes for poor quality of the respective product (Marsden 2019). Quality of conformance refers to as the core capability of a product, service or process for fulfilling the design specifications. These specifications are the interpretation of the most distinctive customers’ requirements. The client even considered durability and reliability of the product and since the Australian firm was already facing issues related to quality management; it became distinctive for the client to consider the same quality product accordingly.

iii) Moreover, the product was of over budget and it was being identified as the initial cost of the product making was exceeded by the organizational management in this process (Rinke et al. 2017). The cost estimation plan was required to be considered by the organizational management in the initial phase of product making, so that any kind of negative aspect is avoided. The category of cost of conformance was impacted and it did not meet all requirements of the work.

A proper and significant system is required in the contracting organization for capturing client requirements and also eliminating every specific cause for delivering a poor quality product. This particular system should be comprised of every principle of quality management, such as people engagement, customers’ focus, leadership, procedural approach, major improvement, appropriate approach for decision making and finally relationship management (Likita et al. 2018). There are a few performance measures that should be considered in the system for ensuring that better results and efficiency would be obtained.

Three vital aspects are needed to be considered for analysing the level of quality in construction and these include time, cost and quality. These three attributes are termed as the most distinctive requirements for a project (Keenan and Rostami 2021). The system would be responsible for identifying the factor that whether these aspects are fulfilled or not. Time is the available time for delivering the project; cost represents the total amount of resources available and the third attribute of quality can represent the fit to purpose that the work should accomplish the goals and objectives for gaining success.

The involvement of this specific system would also ensure that the client’s requirements are noted in the first phase and any kind of discrepancy would be notified to the producer for avoiding the negative impacts successfully (Panuwatwanich and Nguyen 2017). Corrective actions are required to be undertaken by the respective organizational management, until and unless the expected quality is accomplished. The system of the contracting organization would also be responsible for following all seven principles of quality management for identifying the probable causes of poor quality product and the business would be able to focus on the procedural approach in an effective manner (Cho 2017). Hence, the product quality can be enhanced and every negative aspect can be avoided.

Brief Overview of the Organization, Product and Client Requirement

There are two cost categories that are related to the quality of the product in the contracting organization and these two categories are the cost of conformance and the cost of non-conformance. The cost of conformance is for delivering the respective products that can fulfil every requirement and the cost for non-conformance is to take up the core responsibility for failures as well as not meeting quality related expectations (Demirkesen and Ozorhon 2017). The contracting organization was supposed to provide the product of excavator to the construction site for digging purposes and even for various lifting or carrying tasks.

The cost of poor quality of the excavator was for internal failure costs and external failure costs. The internal failure costs are certain costs incurred to correct an identified defect, even before the client would be receiving the product. The external failure costs are those costs, which are associated to every error not detected and corrected, before the subsequent delivery to the client. These external failure costs mainly involve complaints and lost sales and hence the organizational management has faced financial issues for their product. As a result, they should ensure that product is following a quality and cost relationship (Rogov, Serebryakova and Makarova 2019). For the purpose of facilitating managerial planning, it is required to measure and report quality costs and also check for new attributes and significance in the product to be delivered.

There are a few distinct recommendations that should be considered by the contracting organization for fulfilling every obligation of the future and even meeting client satisfaction accordingly and these recommendations are provided in the following paragraphs:

1. i) The first and the foremost recommendation for the organization is to consider TQM or total quality management for the product. It is a managerial approach to the long term success through maximum customers’ satisfaction. The most distinct elements of this total quality management are needed to be analysed accordingly for being customer focused (Nguyen et al. 2018). The customer determines the level of quality and it would foster quality improvement by providing training to the employees as well as integrating quality into the designing procedure or even updating the software and systems.

Every employee participates in working towards the common goal and total employee commitment could be obtained with proper empowerment of the work processes. Hence, the high performance work systems would integrate continuous improvement efforts with every distinct business operation (Reinaldo et al. 2020). All self-managed work teams are the most basic forms of empowerment and the organizational management would be able to focus on an integrated system that would comprise of several functional aspects.

Hence, budget management and timeline management of the project would be easier for the organizational management and there would be a better chance of dealing with every vital quality aspect. TQM in the contracting organization can be successfully implemented by assessing current culture, quality management system and customers’ satisfaction (Kluchnikova and Pobegaylov 2017). The top management can identify every core principle and value to be utilized with effective communication.

1. ii) The second distinct and noteworthy recommendation for the organization for quality management is providing training to the employees or staff. Proper training is needed to be provided to every employee in the contracting organization for ensuring that the negative impacts are avoided. Since the organization would be providing excavators to the construction site; the staff handling the machinery should be well informed and they should have proper ideas and strategies to deal with the complex situations successfully (Androwis et al. 2018). As a result, quality would be included in the company culture and maximum efficiency would be gained. Providing accurate training to the employees can be considered by involving a third party or a professional in the organization and focusing on the weaknesses of the staff that are required to be eradicated on time.

Client’s Perspective on the Different Dimensions of Quality for the Product

2.3.2 Development of a Quality Culture for ensuring Effectiveness of Implementing the Recommendations

Quality culture is a working behaviour that eventually encompasses each staff in a business. It is the significant method of working, in which the staff are striving for the best at each level. The organization, which fosters development of a quality culture mainly experiences several aspects like less employee satisfaction and less employee turnover as well as regulatory inspections. The value systems of the executive level decision makers are eventually reflected in the organizational culture (Li, Xu and Zhang 2017). The contracting organization can develop the quality culture successfully by establishing a system, which promotes quality culture.

The business processes should be easier to understand and applicable in different departments. Moreover, a strong governance would be needed for establishing a quality culture and a specific flat hierarchy is helpful for empowering the staff as well as driving quality initiatives. Quality leadership is also needed to be considered in the organization for developing the quality culture and implementing the recommendation of total quality management attribute. A dedicated leadership could be instrumental in creating quality culture.

As soon as an organizational leader is engaged, supportive and dedicated to the staff for creating a sustainable quality culture. The organizational management would be able to ensure that the barriers are broken within departments and the system of production or service is improved continuously (Cho 2017). Hence, different policies and procedures are put into place for improving the overall approach and focusing on methods for delivering the aimed quality as well as matching every distinct standard.

Conclusion

Therefore, from the above discussion, a conclusion can be drawn that quality management and standards are vital for the products to be used in a construction site for ensuring that maximum efficiency and effectiveness would be obtained. The product is able to perform the intended functionality with high quality related aspects. Quality leadership is also needed in the organization for ensuring that such issues are avoided and the business can be put into a competitive position for gaining effectiveness in the business processes and operations. This report has provided a detailed discussion on the quality management aspects in the contracting organization for the product of excavator.

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