The infusion of the total quality management (TQM) practices into the
construction company's quality management system (QMS) can result in
significant improvement in the quality process and thereby achieve superior
outcomes.
Construction industry professionals are aware of the importance of having a
robust quality management program with an effective and efficient process,
overseen by knowledgeable and trained partners, and supported by involved
staff, as well as senior management, as a key requirement to delivering
superior quality and adding value to the project delivery process.
It is a known fact that many organizations in the construction industry
struggle to some degree in achieving acceptable levels of quality in their
project delivery endeavors. Many construction firms either have no formal
quality management processes or their processes are deficient in one way or
another. Many also do not train their project staff in quality management
processes or procedures. It is common to expect the superintendent to be
responsible for the overall project delivery process, oversee production,
coordinate subcontractor efforts, resolve issues, solve problems, maintain the
schedule, control cost, and manage performance, as well as ensure the
achievement of the expected level of project quality.
A robust quality management system entails having an organizational
structure in place; including senior management's oversight and
involvement; engaging and involving subcontractors, suppliers, and vendors;
defining and supervising production responsibilities; and delineating
procedures, processes, and practices. It is important to have planned and
available resources for implementing and managing the quality system. This
requires a defined and clear framework to ensure that every time a process is
performed or a procedure is followed, the same information, means, methods,
skills, and controls are used and are practiced in a consistent and repetitive
manner. See "Construction
Quality Management" (October 2015).
Quality Defined
Achieving the quality expectation of the project may be seen as meeting the
aesthetic and functional requirements of the design, as well as the owner's
operational and maintenance requirements and the contractor's compelling
value proposition. For the contractor to achieve this, the quality requirements
must be adequate, clear, measurable, and universally understood. This also
requires that the work is executed in such a manner that the quality as
specified is achieved and that the completed project conforms with the design
requirements and meets the owner's expectations. Quality may be described
as follows.
- Meeting the requirement of the project owner
- Facility design—Meeting operational and functional
needs. Meet life-cycle cost expectations in operations and
maintenance.
- Project delivery—Be completed on time, within
budget, and at the expected level of quality.
- Meeting the requirement of the project designers
- Design programming—Owner-provided comprehensive
description of needs and wants. Works with the designer during design
development to ensure operational and maintenance needs are
addressed.
- Construction—The construction manager and/or general
contractor ensures work is installed per design documents and works with
the designer to ensure constructability of the design intent.
- Meeting the requirement of construction
- Owner—Ensures contractor has the necessary
information for pricing and/or bidding. Participates in ensuring
questions or issues regarding design or construction are resolved and
provides authorization and processes change orders in a timely
manner.
- Designer—Processes information expeditiously.
Reviews billing fairly and quickly. Engages in addressing questions and
concerns expeditiously.
- Contractor—Assigns capable and experienced staff to
oversee the project and hires competent subcontractors with a capable
workforce to prosecute the work.
- Protects—Ensures the public and the environment are
safe from harm.
- Meeting the requirement of the regulatory agencies
- Design—Meets applicable laws, rules, codes, and
regulations.
- Is a "good neighbor."
Every organization and its management participating in the project delivery
process has their own perception about quality. This perception is primarily
based on their role in the supply chain, namely the owner, designer, and
constructor teams. They may have a differing definition as well as anticipation
of the level of expected quality. This makes it difficult to quantify and
measure quality, which highlights the need for clarity and measurability, with
a common understanding of project expectations.
Typical Project Delivery Challenges
The primary commercial project delivery process is still the
design-bid-build method, where owners try to get the lowest price for their
projects, which makes competitive bidding the primary procurement method. If
the business environment is very competitive, general contractors or
construction managers (these two terms will be used interchangeably throughout)
are going to have to try to aggressively control their costs to be the
successful bidder. Since all of the competing general contracting bidders have
to procure materials and labor in the project's geographic area, they will
be dealing with the same sources. (However, contractors utilizing unionized
labor may be at a disadvantage when bidding against nonunion competitors.)
Therefore, in all likelihood, every contractor will be faced with the same or
similar expenses for the direct costs associated with the project. The
competitive advantage will be in securing competitive subcontractor bids and in
indirect costs.
The general contractor has significant control in the project's indirect
costs. One of the key elements of the indirect costs is the field-staffing
salaries. The contractor has a couple of obvious options in this regard. It can
try to "under staff" the project and "hope" that the staff
will work harder and/or longer to get the job done, or it can hire (or assign)
less-experienced staff whose salaries are lower to oversee project operations.
In both cases, the contractor will reduce some cost but will be taking on a
higher level of risk with the probability that the project will end up
potentially having a greater number or more complicated problems as work is put
in place.
Typically, general contractors hire subcontractors to perform most or even
all of the production work of the project. The general contractor will break
the job up into specific bid packages for which it solicits a lump sum bid from
a number of different subcontractors to ensure they get the "best"
price for that scope of work. Like the owner, a responsible general contractor
may have a list of prequalified subcontractors from whom it solicits bids and
selects the lowest bidder to perform the work. The signing of a contract with
that subcontractor is subject to the general contractor ensuring that all of
the subcontractor pricing falls within their envisioned value for their bid to
the owner. If the lowest subcontractor's bid is not at or below this value,
the subcontractor is brought in and is subjected to negotiation to lower their
quotes. If the subcontractor "needs" the work, they will cut their
quoted price and then try to reduce their cost by some means, and thereby
increase their inherent risk.
In a way, the owner set up the competitive environment that creates the
situation where every organization wanting to secure the work may be forced
into the situation where they decide to take on a little more risk in the
anticipation that they will be able to manage it effectively. In my years of
involvement in construction management, I have seen many cases where both the
general contractor and subcontractor senior management resorted to this type of
cost-reduction activity to ensure they were successful in procuring the job.
They hoped the added risk would not result in discrepancies, problems, or
losses. In some cases, this sort of risk-taking is successful—costs are cut
with no, or minimal, resulting negative outcomes. This then serves to reinforce
such at-risk behavior, which is then used in similar competitive situations
later on.
Since the primary tool to manage the project is the schedule, this becomes
the principal focus of the project superintendent. If the project is
understaffed or the staff is less experienced, the superintendent is going to
be faced with additional issues, a greater number of problems, and more
challenges, all of which will take up more of his or her time. As a result, the
quality of the project is going to get less attention, and the risk of
discrepancies in this area will invariably increase. Defects in quality will
become evident at much later times and, as a result, will become significantly
costlier and time-consuming to correct. This can disrupt the progress of the
work and adversely impact the project schedule.
To avoid this situation, the general contractor must have a robust
quality-management process in place. See "A
Discourse on Construction Quality" (January 2018). They also need to
have a knowledgeable, experienced, and trained field management staff to
oversee the process and ensure that the required level of quality of the
project is achieved. The general contractor's senior management must also
be involved and exercise oversight to ensure that everything proceeds as
planned and problems are immediately addressed and resolved. Since much or most
of the work is going to be performed by subcontractors, the general contractor
must ensure that every subcontractor has an acceptable quality-assurance
program and that the staff assigned to the project is capable of achieving the
acceptable level of quality required by the project.
The subcontractor must attend preconstruction meetings where the project
quality requirements and the general contractor's quality processes are
discussed. At the conclusion of such meetings, the subcontractor's
personnel must have a clear understanding of the quality requirements and the
process they are expected to follow. See "Construction
Quality and Partner Relationships" (November 2018). This, along with a
diligent oversight by the contractor's staff, will ensure that quality is
seamlessly addressed and rework minimized.
All of these process and practice functions are set up to ensure project
quality, but they can be weakened due to a plethora of reasons. These create
situations that require project staff to take time to address and resolve these
additional time-consuming situations. So, when they reach their total time
capacity, they have to reduce their attention to other lesser urgent matters,
which may very well be quality-related functions. This highlights the need to
conduct the work correctly the first time out. This not only reduces rework,
but more importantly reduces the need for continuous checking, inspecting, and
recording of the quality process. Such a goal can be achieved by the
integration of the TQM concepts
onto the organization's QMS.
TQM Principles
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.
Elements of TQM
- Customer focus and value creation
- Leadership involvement
- Employee engagement
- Integrated system and aligned operations
- Process-centered management
- Systematic waste and defect prevention
- Data-based decision-making
- Partner/supplier relationship
- Effective communication
- Education and training
- Continuous improvement
- Recognition
By integrating TQM elements into the organization's quality assurance
and quality control (QA/QC) processes, the organization ensures that the final
completed work will not only meet the owner's expectations but, in all
likelihood, will exceed it. It also ensures that the work process is efficient,
the workforce is effective, and as a result, the organization is
successful.
Total Quality Management (TQM)—A management approach to
long-term success through customer satisfaction.
Source: American Society for Quality
To successfully implement TQM in an organization, senior leadership has to
articulate a compelling vision, be fully committed to its implementation, and
provide the resources, support, and guidance to ensure its successful
integration into QA/QC processes, practices, and procedures. Senior leadership
also has to take an active role in regularly overseeing the progress of the
execution of the work as well as the results achieved to date, to ensure that
the program was achieving the expected outcomes.
TQM focusses on process effectiveness, continuous improvement, partner
(subcontractor and supplier) involvement and teamwork, project owner
satisfaction, performance and cost-effectiveness, error and defect-free work
product, and a reasonable profit margin. Therefore, the integration of TQM
methodologies into the project's quality management process should create a
robust process that will ensure work is put in place correctly every
time.
An important thing that TQM will achieve is to control; it will also
diminish uncertainty and variability in the quality of the work. If the
variability in performance causes the quality of the work to move outside of
the acceptable envelope, then corrective action will be triggered to move
performance back into the acceptability range. There are two potential sources
of variability that may impact the level of quality of the work put in
place.
- System-driven variability that may cause discrepancies
- People-driven variability that may cause discrepancies
Typically, organizations focus on people as the primary source of any
discrepancy in the performance of work. This is evident in common human
resource management practices: training, performance appraisals, compensation,
inspections, audits, sanctions, or rewards. The underlying assumption is that
individuals are the determining factor in the variation of the quality and
quantity of the work. While people do have some impact in this regard, TQM sees
this somewhat differently.
Proponents of TQM appreciate that people do contribute to variability in
performance but point out the overriding influence that work systems have on
people. These systems impact the quality of the work performed. TQM also
proposes that there is an interplay between elements of systems and subsystems
and their effect on individuals working within those systems. TQM is often
characterized as an integrating, aligning, systematic, and organization-wide
strategy focused on improving a product and/or service while efficiently using
resources. This leads to lower costs and value for the customer.
Adoption of TQM principles in the QA/QC processes and practices of an
organization will require the support and leadership of senior management and
lead to better products or services at a lower cost. The TQM focus is on
utilizing data and information to devise plans, make decisions, improve
processes, streamline execution, reduce waste, and save time. This leads to
reduced expenses that can be passed along to customers in the form of lower
costs.
Companies that successfully implement TQM are able to reduce variability,
manage uncertainty, and ensure greater reliability. This provides the
consistency and certainty that customers value. It also creates customer
loyalty. A TQM system may be represented by the following graphic.
Conclusion
Organizations can maintain and deliver the quality of product and/or
services only if all levels of management, personnel, partner companies, and
the rest of the supply chain are involved and focused on providing superior
quality. Customers will deem the quality of the product or service superior
only if it meets their expectation (go above and beyond normal procedures,
delivery dates, lead times, and other standards to maintain quality) every
time. More importantly, this performance needs to exceed that of competitors,
leading to customer satisfaction, the perception of receiving value for the
money expended, customer loyalty, and future work. Companies committed to
quality and customer satisfaction have the dual responsibility of seeking
partners and suppliers who are like-minded. These companies, quite simply,
deliver on their promises.