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NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

College of Engineering, Architecture & Technology


Laoag City

CEAT-ARCH107 -ALONB -1 LEARNING PACKET


WEEK 01-04
CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT
Course

FINALS
Engr. Bibiano Alonzo
(Instructor)

Learning Objective:

At the end of this lecture , the learners should be able to:

1. Understand the role of time ,cost and quality in project management


2. Know the Quality Assurance and Quality Control for
Project Effectiveness in Construction and
Management
ARTICLE 1 :

The Role of Time, Cost and Quality in Project Management

Nurul Izah Anuar1, Poh Kiat Ng2


1
Centre for Diploma Programmes, Multimedia University, Malacca, Malaysia

2 Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Multimedia University, Malacca, Malaysia

(nurulizah.anuar@mmu.edu.my ,pkng@mmu.edu.my)

Project management has emerged as a field of practice that is being used increasingly by organizations to achieve their
business goals. Since the concept ‘survival of the fittest’ best describes today’s business environment, good project
management performance assessment tools are needed in order to make an organization ‘the best of the best’. Project
completion within time and cost, while maintaining quality is very important for the success of projects. Therefore, the
purpose of this paper is to analyse the key variables of time, cost and quality and determine their roles in project
management performance. A problem was constructed together with different scenarios to analyse the relations of these
variables according to conditions given. With the help of Microsoft Project, the authors were able to narrow down the
findings in all scenarios and summarize the patterns of strategies based on these variables to make an appropriate
decision on planning the project.

Keywords - Project management, project performance, project success

I. INTRODUCTION

Today, numerous organizations still ignore investments in evaluating project management


performance and are just emphasizing on meeting time, cost and specification of projects [1]. Most
past studies that analyze project performance and the characteristics that affect such performance
consist of a simple form, in which they present the brief relationship between project performance
and a few characteristics that affect it [2].

Pheng and Chuan [3] suggest that in project management, a project manager is vital and
indispensable in any project as it is people formulating the processes and systems who deliver the
projects. It is generally agreed that to be considered successful, a project must be fit for purpose
and it must have achieved its delivery targets [4].

II. PROJECT SUCCESS

There is a vast literature covering the factors that influence project success. Thamhain [5] suggests
that project success depends on effective multidisciplinary efforts, involving teams of people and
support organizations interacting in a highly complex, intricate, and sometimes even chaotic way.
Bonner, Ruekert and Walker [6] reiterate that cross-functional teams improve both the speed and
success of new product development (NPD) projects by combining members from multiple
functional specialties to bring greater diversity of viewpoint and richer sources of information for
the many decisions inherent in the development process. Some engineers regard their projects as a
success simply because of the good relation among the stakeholders, even though all of the project
cost, time and quality are performed below the project baselines [7]. In this study, we narrow down
the key variables relating to the success of project performances to be time, cost and quality since
they are the most standard measures used in previous studies [6, 8, 9].

A. Time

In project management, time is an intangible resource that is unique because it is absolutely finite and
time availability of a project is defined as the availability of time needed to do a job assigned [3]. Project
time overrun indicates an extension of project completion time from the planned duration [9].

According to Ling [10], project managers manage three areas relating to project time which involve
maximizing construction speed, maximizing delivery speed and minimizing schedule growth. However,
Bonner, Ruekert and Walker [6] explains that wellintentioned interventions by management might force
a team to change direction and invalidate some activities already completed, thereby lengthening the
project’s completion time, sending it over budget, and damaging team morale.

Usually, the longer it takes to identify project discrepancies, the more serious the potential damage is
and the more complex and costly the corrective measures will be to the project [11]. Parker and
Skitmore [12] posit that projects with short durations may be advantageous for project managers to
lead and manage their individual projects from concept to closeout to minimize the effects on
performance. Conversely, Nidumolu [13] argues that tightly controlled processes which result in strict
adherence to time and cost estimates may sometimes inadequately explore product functionality,
thereby sacrificing the long-term flexibility of the technology for short-term user needs.

B. Cost

From a mathematical point of view, Lin [14] suggests that each activity has a duration and
corresponding cost attributes. Lin further emphasizes that the activity cost increases with the shortening
of the duration and the duration increases if we decrease the activity cost.

In reality, most large, complex development projects experience substantial cost and schedule
overruns [3]. Usually, projects taking more time cost more money [9]. In a rapidly growing
construction market, the need to estimate the cost of quality in projects becomes a vital task
seeing as the objective of achieving a product with a good quality is not only to meet the customer
requirements, but also to do it at the lowest cost [15]. According to Iyer and Jha [16], more often
than not, timely help from top management in getting the resources or getting critical decision can
have far reaching implications on cost performance, especially when dealing with short duration
projects where each day of delay can have large detrimental effect on cost.

C. Quality

While project management success focuses upon the project processes and the successful
accomplishments of cost and time objectives, product success deals with the quality of the
project’s final product and the quality objectives of the project [3]. Iyer, LaPlaca and Sharma [17]
point out that successful commercialization of quality products requires due attention to the
complete supply chain (both suppliers and distributors).
However, high failure rates suggest that management’s knowledge of the transformation process
whereby ideas are turned into successful quality products is far from perfect, particularly for more
innovative development projects [6]. Although the ability to quickly introduce new products and
adopt new processes has become an important way of competing, the introduction of successful
products has become exceedingly complex and require a wide variety of assets, resources, and
capabilities [18].

III. RESEARCH PROBLEM

To avoid the waste of scarce recourses, it is necessary to boost up project performance seeing
as it is an intangible thing, especially in case of management performance whereby choosing tools
to assess it is a hard job [1]. The complexity and the innovativeness of the project (e.g., line
extensions vs. new-to-the-world products) may influence the magnitude of the technical,
operational and marketing challenges that confront the firm [19]. According to Bonner, Ruekert,
and Walker [6], although traditional formal diagnostic controls play a role in management’s
attempt to keep NPD teams on an appropriate strategic track, too much of it may constrain the
team’s creativity, impede their progress, and injure their ultimate performance.

From the aforementioned findings, many researchers have identified gaps in research areas
affecting engineering project performance such as project complexity, team creativity and
management control. In the subsequent section, a problem is developed and analysed in relation
to these project management variables and research gaps using Microsoft Office Project. In order
to verify the influence of the 3 variables of cost, time and quality, a problem was structured
together with different scenarios so as to analyse the relations of these 3 variables in accordance
to conditions made. Considering Table I, the details of the project are provided. As can be seen, the
warehouse construction job contains 31 elements and total project durations of 245 days.

During the study, the company has allocated an amount of time and money for the project, as follows:

1. Under normal condition, the project will cost RM12,800.00 in completion.


2. Under normal condition, the project will be completed within 245 days.

TABLE I
DETAILS OF ACTIVITIES /DURATION AND ACTIVITIES PREDECESSORS

Activity Description Duration Predecessor(


s)
1 Preliminaries 3 weeks -
2 Earthwork (cut & fill) 4 weeks -
3 External rc. Retaining 11 weeks -
wall
4 Pilling works 2 weeks -
5 R.C. pile cap 2 weeks 4
6 Stump 2 weeks 3,4
7 Ground Beam 2 weeks 5
8 Ground Floor Slab 1 week 6,7
Works
9 RC Column 1 week 7
10 Suspended RC Beam & 2 weeks 7
Slab
11 Steel Structure Work 2 weeks 8, 9
12 Roofing Work 2 weeks 10
13 Wall 4 weeks 11,12
14 Wall Finishing 3 weeks 13
15 Floor Finishing 1 week 13
16 Door & Window 1 week 13
17 Drain Surrounding 3 weeks 12
Building
18 Apron & RC Ramp 2 weeks 17
Work
19 Sanitary & Plumbing 2 weeks 17
20 S&P Finishing Work 2 weeks 19
21 Painting Work 2 weeks 14, 15
22 Electrical & Telephone 8 weeks 12
Installation
23 Fire Fighting 8 weeks 12
Installation
24 Landscaping 1 week 7
25 Weight Bridge Office 8 weeks 7
26 TNB Sub-station 10 weeks 7
27 Refuse Chamber 4 weeks 7
28 External Drainage Work 8 weeks 7
29 Road Work 4 weeks 17
30 Main Entrance Gate 7 weeks 29
31 Site Clearing Work 1 week 30

However, in this problem, 3 scenarios need to be considered. The 3 scenarios are stated as follows:

Scenario 1: The project completion period is fixed, despite the fact of having limited resource
availability.

Scenario 2: The Company would like to reduce the duration of construction period with minimum
cost imposed.

Scenario 3: The Company would like to remain the quality and at the same time reduce the duration
of construction.

In this project, the 3 scenarios will be analyzed and modelled using Microsoft Office Project. In
addition to that, a manual analysis is also carried out in order to confirm the findings. From the
findings of the analysis, a discussion and conclusion can be drawn with relevance to the variables of
project management as explained in the preceding introduction.

IV. METHODOLOGY

This section identifies the software and tools being used for this project to analyse the 3 scenarios
and the methods and terminologies used to generate the outcome of the analysis. In this project,
Microsoft Office Project shall be used to formulate a Gantt Chart Schedule and also analyze the
project’s critical path with respect to the scenarios that are given in the preceding introduction. The
application creates critical path schedules, although critical chain and event chain methodology
third-party add-ons are available. Schedules can be resource levelled, and chains are visualized in a
Gantt chart. Additionally, Microsoft Office Project can recognize different classes of users. These
different classes of users can have differing access levels to projects, views, and other data. Custom
objects such as calendars, views, tables, filters and fields are stored in an enterprise global which is
shared by all users. If the project is required to have an earlier finish date, the dates of the critical
path tasks must be brought over. This is also known as crashing a project, i.e. to decrease a project's
overall duration without changing task relationships. Crashing a project typically requires assigning
additional resources to tasks.
V. RESULTS

This section explains the results generated from Microsoft Project in accordance with the 3 analyses
that were considered. The start date for all 3 cases is assumed to be 5 January 2010.

A. Scenario 1: Project Time is Fixed with Limited Resources

The project duration is required to be fixed, and with limited resources, Saturdays and Sundays are not
considered as working days. The overall timeline will be 175 days and the finish date is 6 September
2010.

B. Scenario 2: Project Time Reduced with Minimum Cost Imposed

The project duration is required to be reduced, and with minimum cost imposed, Saturdays and
Sundays are defined as general working times. The duration retains the value of 175 days but the finish
date is brought forward to 28 June 2010.

C. Scenario 3: Maintaining Quality while Reducing Project Duration

The project duration is required to be reduced, while quality is maintained. Using the PERT Analysis,
the optimistic, expected, and pessimistic durations as well as duration weights are defined for each task.
The duration weights for the optimistic, expected, and pessimistic cases are assumed to be 1, 4 and 1,
respectively (the weight values must sum to 6)T

It is assumed that the expected duration is the specified number of days as in Table I, optimistic
duration is 7 days earlier (for tasks whose durations are already 7 days, their optimistic durations are
assumed to stick to 7 days) and pessimistic duration is 7 days later. The durations generated in
accordance with these cases are shown in Table II.

VI. DISCUSSIONS

This section discusses the results as per generated in the previous section and justifications as to why
certain outcomes and assumptions were selected for the project.

A. Scenario 1: Project Time is Fixed with Limited Resources

This scenario requires the project schedule to be fixed and not manipulated in any way, with the
knowledge that the resources provided were limited. For this study, it is assumed that with limited
resources available, the cost/budget of this project is controlled very tightly. Usually, projects taking
more time cost more money [9]. Therefore, it would be a wiser decision to stick to the current schedule
developed and not change any essence concerning the duration of the project.

TABLE II TYPE OF DURATIONS GENERATED

Type of duration Days


Optimistic 133
Expected 175
Pessimistic 238

After using Microsoft Project to analyse this scenario, the findings prove that if we were to not
consider Saturdays and Sundays as working days, our project overall timeline will be 175 days. As
compared to the scheduled target of project completion which is 245 days, the duration of all
activities and predecessors as structured in Table I currently not just satisfies the timeline but also
performs beyond its expectations by being reduced by a period of 70 days.

For this scenario, since the project time is required to be fixed, and resources are limited, there
should not be any changes to the activities and durations in Table I. The results for this scenario are
merely depicting the activities and durations as established in Table I in Microsoft Project.

B. Scenario 2: Project Time Reduced with Minimum Cost Imposed

For this particular scenario, since the breakdown of the activity costs was not provided, it can be
assumed a minimum cost imposed for this project is similar to not sustaining the current costs
allocated for the project. Therefore, the only entity that can be manipulated here is the project time.

Lin [14] suggests that each activity has a duration and corresponding cost attributes. Lin further
emphasizes that the activity cost increases with shortening of the duration and the duration
increases if we decrease the activity cost. Based on Lin’s theory, in order to fix project costs for
minimum costs imposed, the duration of each activity in this scenario should not be altered.
Therefore, a simple answer for this would be to allow the project schedule to remain as it is seeing
as 175 days of completion already satisfies the target of 245 days of completion.

However, the overall duration can still be decreased by including additional days of work for this
scenario. This action does not require the change of the specific activity durations, but merely
considering additional days in a week as working days, such as Saturdays and

Sundays. For this study, it was identified that if Saturdays and Sundays were included for this
particular project, the overall project’s duration was shown to be still the same, which is 175 days.
However, by doing this, the timeline of the project can be shortened or brought forward by
approximately 2.5 months.

Projects with short durations may be advantageous for project managers to lead and manage their
individual projects from concept to closeout to minimize the effects on performance [12]. For a
shorter duration of 175 days with weekends considered, this project should be able to even
minimize its costs. Nevertheless, budget overruns are still a risk due to the amount of overtime
needed to be paid to employees on Saturdays and Sundays. Also, resource procurements on the
weekends may impose challenges for the projects’ completion time and cause the extra work on the
weekends to be an immaterial effort.

C. Scenario 3: Maintaining Quality while Reducing Project Duration

For scenario 3, once again, seeing as there are no breakdown of costs involved in this problem, the
focus in analyzing this scenario will be on the project’s timeline. Since cost may not be a controlled
variable in this scenario, efforts to focus on quality and reducing project duration can be made.

Using Microsoft Project’s function, a decision making analysis was able to be made based on optimistic,
expected and pessimistic durations. This application allows the capability to breakdown the durations in
Table I into the best case, more likely and worst case scenarios.
From the durations generated in Table II, the findings portray that the optimistic duration saves the
project timeline by about 112 days with reference to 245 days (targeted duration) and the pessimistic
duration saves the project timeline by 7 days. Analysing this situation, it would not be logical to concur
with the pessimistic duration as the timeline is 7 days away and too close to the targeted duration of
completion which is 245 days. Thus, the pessimistic duration is not a suitable timeline to be considered
since it does not reduce the current overall duration significantly.

Further analysis of the durations show that only 2 types of duration, which is the optimistic and
expected duration are able to meet and exceed target expectations. It would clearly make sense to
consider the optimistic duration as the ideal schedule for the project. However, the optimistic duration
poses a risk since this involves activities to be expedited, leading to crash activities that can possibly
jeopardize the quality of the project work and cause rework to occur which can exhaust the usage of
available resources. In this context, duration is reduced, but it may be at the price of quality and cost,
depending on how well the management handles it.

Thus, a more suitable decision would be to stick to the structured schedule provided once again since it
poses no risks of crashing activities. In other words, the expected duration would be a better choice of
scheduling for this particular project. Furthermore, the timeline of the project is still significantly
reduced with respect to the targeted duration by 70 days. This satisfies the scenario as there would be
lesser risks imposed in jeopardizing quality of works and project time is still significantly reduced.

VII. CONCLUSION

Based on the 3 scenarios, we can summarize the patterns of strategies based on the project
performance variables of time, cost and quality.

The first scenario which focuses on fixing project time with limited resources clearly relates to
the cost and time performance emphasis in the project. By stating that there are limited resources
available, we can assume that cost was controlled very tightly even though the time of the project was
not required to be reduced. This scenario is consistent with the findings of Olson, Walker, Ruekert and
Bonner [19] which states that efficiency measures are concerned with the amount of resources required
to complete a project, making money among the most constrained and important resources necessary
for developing new products.

The second scenario which desires the project timeline to be reduced with the project costs
minimized as well also involves the variables of time performance and cost performance. Although
the costs of the activities here are unknown, but based on the study of Iyer and Jha [16], which
states that when dealing with short duration projects, each day of delay can have large detrimental
effect on cost, we are able to assume that by reducing the project timeline alone, the project costs
can be reduced as well. Microsoft Project was able to further reduce the project timeline by
including Saturdays and Sundays in the form of overtime in this scenario. Using this capability, it was
found that although the duration of the project which takes 175 days remained unchanged, but the
completion date was shifted from early September to late June. However, this method cannot
promise that there will be no budget overruns or lack of resources, as additional wages and
contingency resources are needed to be prepared for work on weekends. Thus, it was more
appropriate to consider the current schedule of 175 days which still meets the completion target of
245 days. The third scenario explains that the quality of the work must be sustained with the
reduction of the project timeline. By using the 3 types of durations available in Microsoft Project, a
decision to go for the expected duration which was 175 days, was able to be made. A shorter
duration from the optimistic duration was not considered due to the risks of having quality issues
upon crashing the activities in the process of reducing the overall duration. This is also consistent
with the findings of Nidumolu [13] which argues that tightly controlled processes which result in
strict adherence to time and cost estimates may sometimes inadequately explore product
functionality, thereby sacrificing the long-term flexibility of the technology for short-term user
needs. In conclusion, the most appropriate answer for all 3 scenarios with accordance to the
analysis made was actually to not change anything. The expected duration according to Table I
proved that the overall duration of the activities were still able to satisfy the project’s targeted
timeline of 245 days. With the help of Microsoft Project, we were able to narrow down the findings
in all 3 scenarios to make an appropriate decision on planning the project duration.

REFERENCES

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equation model," Expert Systems with Applications, vol. 36, no. 7, pp. 10461-10470, 2009.
[3] L. S. Pheng and Q. T. Chuan, "Environmental factors and work performance of project managers in the construction industry,"
International Journal of Project Management, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 24–37, 2006.
[4] A. W. Brown, J. D. Adams, and A. A. Amjad, "The relationship between human capital and time performance in project management: A
path analysis," International Journal of Project Management, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 77-89, 2007.
[5] H. J. Thamhain, "Linkages of project environment to performance: Lessons for team leadership," International Journal of Project
Management, vol. 22, no. 7, pp. 533-544, 2004.
[6] J. M. Bonner, R. W. Ruekert, and O. C. Walker, "Upper management control of new product development projects and project
performance," Journal of Product Innovation Management, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 233-245, 2002.
[7] X. Wang and J. Huang, "The relationships between key stakeholders' project performance and project success: Perceptions of Chinese
construction supervising engineers," International Journal of Project Management, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 253-260, 2006.
[8] D. I. Cleland and L. R. Ireland, Project Management: Strategic Design and Implementation , 5th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill
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[9] Kamrul Ahsan and I. Gunawan, "Analysis of cost and schedule performance of international development projects," International Journal
of Project Management, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 68–78, 2009.
[10] F. Y. Y. Ling, "How project managers can better control the performance of design-build projects," International Journal of Project
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[11] R. Navon, "Automated project performance control of construction projects," Automation in Construction, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 467-476,
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[12] S. K. Parker and M. Skitmore, "Project management turnover: Causes and effects on project performance," International Journal of Project
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[13] S. R. Nidumolu, "Standardization, requirements, uncertainty and software project performance," Information & Management, vol. 31, no.
3, pp. 135-150, 1996.
[14] Y.-K. Lin, "Project management for arbitrary random durations and cost attributes by applying network approaches," Computers &
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[15] H. M. E. Abdelsalam and M. M. Gad, "Cost of quality in Dubai: An analytical case study of residential construction projects," International
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Management, vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 283-295, 2005.
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ARTICLE 2 :

Quality Assurance and Quality Control for


Project Effectiveness in Construction and
Management
Mr. Sahil Sanjeev Salvi1, Ms. Samiksha Shridhar Kerkar
1
Assistant Professor, School of Construction Engineering and Infrastructure Management, Symbiosis Skills
and Open University, Pune, India
2
Lecturer, Department of Civil Engineering, Sou.Venutai Chavan Polytechnic,
Pune, India

to guard their investments and reduce the price


Abstract: The development industry has been scuffling of construction. The quality assurance and
with quality issues for several years, and therefore the
cost to our economy is dramatic. The price could
internal control has broad meaning as per as
potentially be reduced significantly if the industry were various sectors are concerned. Normally to
to embrace the concept of quality assurance that has grasp this idea of quality, we formulate four
been used with great success by many other sectors of
the economy. Building owners also have to be compelled questions as follows,
to be educated on what's quality assurance so they'll
begin using their voice to encourage adaptation of this 1. What’s mean by Quality?
approach to guard their investments and reduce the 2. How it's achieved?
price of construction. Internal control (QC) and Quality 3. What's Quality Assurance?
Assurance (QA) represent increasingly important
concerns for project managers. Defects or failures in 4. What's Quality Control?
constructed facilities may result in very large costs. Even
with minor defects, re-construction is also required and When we are talking about quality about anything,
facility operations impaired. Increased costs and delays
are the result. Quality Assurance and internal control is either its service or any product; one word should
an important a part of any construction process to boost are available mind as response i.e YES or NO.
the standard and uniformity of the project. The There shouldn't be any response to differentiate
requirement for QA and QC in construction projects has
increased considerably in recent times because of quality viz; fair quality, moderate quality, quite
significant changes, advancements in technology and poor or quite good quality. Ultimately the
high expectation of the users. The QA and QC maintain presence of quality is very important. So normally
uniformity in construction process and ensure more
economical utilization of materials leading to significant we are able to define the standard in several ways
reduction in cost to the users. The extra cost involved in as follows,
QA and QC is directly proportional to the advantages. A
technique has been developed for QA and QC in housing
industry. The methodology accomplishes the required
- Quality is conformance to requirements or
quality in construction process. Ultimately the presence
of quality is vital. So generally we are able to define the specifications.
standard in several ways as follows, Quality is - Quality is fitness to be used.
conformance to requirements or specifications. Quality is - Quality is that the degree to which a collection of
fitness to be used. Quality is that the degree to which a
collection of inherent characteristics fulfills inherent characteristics fulfils requirements.
requirements.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
Keywords: Quality Assurance, Quality Control A. QUALITY ASSURANCE IN
CONSTRUCTION
I. INTRODUCTION Within the construction industry it is recognized
The construction industry has been scuffling that an increasing amount of time is being spent in
with quality issues for several years, and the preparation or examination of contractual
therefore the cost to our economy is dramatic. claims. A key to this is the increased sophistication
The price could potentially be reduced of clients in applying the requirements of the
significantly if the industry were to embrace the standard forms of building contract. These
concept of quality assurance that has been used contracts clearly place the burden of proof on the
with great success by many other sectors of the contractor. The task of providing this proof, often
economy. The development industry is in the form of documentary evidence, is
exclusive, and so, the applying of quality frequently complicated by a lack of pertinent
assurance requires an approach that meets the records. Therefore to make things worse
requirements of the industry. Building owners economic loss is often accompanied by loss of
also got to be educated on what's quality good will Examination of project records shows
assurance in order that they'll begin using their that questions have not been asked when they
voice to encourage adaptation of this approach
should have been, problems are not seen until CONTROL
after they have occurred. It is typically not the The Quality Control process includes quality
case that the individuals involved lack expertise or planning, training, providing clear decisions and
initiative. It is more often the case that they are directions, constant supervision, immediate
pressed for time by other concerns resulting in review of completed activities for accuracy and
them giving these issues scant attention. completeness, and documenting all decisions,
assumptions and recommendations.
A further difficulty arises where an individual's
lack of experience limits their personal horizon In the construction plan development process, it is
and dims their perspective of the problems ahead. the clear responsibility of the designer to ensure
Crises caused by poor quality have often all project elements are economical, accurate,
overtaken contracts that appeared to be properly prepared, coordinated, checked, and
proceeding successfully, with the resulting delay completed. In order for the project to consistently
and cost, undoing the supposed benefits that had meet the needs and expectations of our citizens,
been accrued. quality must be as important as the schedule and
budget.

Design personnel shall follow established design


B. QUALITY CONTROL IN
CONSTRUCTION policies, procedures, standards and guidelines in
Quality can be defined as the degree to which the preparation and review of all design products.
product is likely to meet the desired specification Design consultants are agents for the project with
& limits given by the construction agency. This the primary responsibility for preparation of
control ensures that the work done must be of construction plans. Consultants must ensure
required quality and durability. This can be quality and adhere to established design policies.
achieved by conducting inspection from the
source of supply of material up to the finished III. OBJECTIVES
production. Major items of control before and The objectives of the study are as follows:
during construction are verifications of soil
• To identify the prerequisites for QA and QC
characteristics, drawings and designs, structural
and develop the concepts and procedures,
safety, durability, checking the quality of
• To understand the concept of QA and QC
materials, specifications, testing of materials and
specifications and apply to building
inspection of equipment.
construction.
The field of quality control is multi-directional like • To understand the general process of
testing of materials to be incorporated, field and performance related specifications and testing
laboratory tests on mixed materials, proper procedures for construction materials.
knowledge of methods/techniques to executive • To develop checklist for onsite inspection for
staff/contractor Precautions to be taken and appraising the QA and QC data periodically.
periodicity of various tests Firstly, materials to be • To provide ‘Project Quality Plan’ is to define
incorporated in works should be confirming to activities / tasks that focus on achieving
specifications required. The important step customer's quality expectations.
towards improving the quality of work is to ensure These activities / tasks are defined on the basis of
that all materials and fittings incorporated in the the quality standards set by the organization
work are up to the standards laid down in the delivering the product.
contract and (Bureau of Indian Standards) BIS PROJECT QUALITY CONTROL
specifications mentioned therein. As far as REQUIREMENTS
possible materials approved by BIS should be The methods and processes defined in this manual
incorporated in works. If BIS standards do not will serve as the Project Quality Control Plan
exist for a particular material, the same should be (PQCP) for each project. Every set of construction
purchased from some standard manufacturer and plans prepared by or for project are required to
got tested from approved test laboratories. follow this process.
C. REQUIREMENTS FOR QUALITY
The Project Quality Control Plan details the in simple word means “DO WHAT YOU SAY AND
proposed methods or processes of providing WHAT YOU
quality control for all work products. This plan will DO.”
be kept current with the work requirements. The
plan shall include, but is not limited to, the
following areas:
V. QUALITY ASSURANCE AND QUALITY CONTROL
• Organization
• Quality Control Reviews
Proposed method of
A. IMPLEMENTATION IN
documentation of comments, coordination CONSTRUCTION SECTOR - QUALITY
responses and quality assurance records. ASSURANCE
The Surveillance function will generally include:
Quality Assurance Certification Plans prepared by
a) Monitoring laboratory and
consultants for project must, at a minimum, follow
field testing of construction
the procedures set forth in the manual.
material and completed works. Reviewing
Consultants may prepare their own Project Quality
contractor’s compliance with
Control Plan to be submitted to the PM for
specifications, requirement for
approval.
construction methods and personals.
IV. ROLE OF ISO-9000 IN CONSTRUCTION b) Monitoring or performing pre-operational
ISO (International Organization for tests or both.
Standardization) 9000 facilitates the c) Preparing and maintaining
implementation of standards, activities, systems, quality assurance manuals.
responsibilities etc. The advantage of ISO-9000 The administrative functions will include:
are, it improves quality image of the company. It
gives marketing advantage. It improves efficiency, a) Initiating, analyzing and approving design
reduces wastage. It ensures customer satisfaction. clarification or changes in contract
documents.
What is ISO-9000? ISO-9000 is a series of b) Documenting all project related tests,
international standards for quality management inspection and visits by official visitors.
and quality assurance system. ISO-9000 is a series c) Maintain photographs of construction
which are continuously updated. ISO-9000 Quality progress and other relevant construction
Management and Quality Assurance Standards- events.
Selection and Uses.This standard provides a d) Maintain record of job oriented
guideline for selecting the appropriate standard communication like telephonic
from ISO 9001 and 9002 as follows, conversation memorandum and letters
etc.
ISO-9001- Model for quality assurance in
IMPLEMENTATION IN CONSTRUCTION
design/development, production, installation and
SECTOR - QUALITY CONTROL
servicing. ISO-9002- Model for quality assurance in Quality control can be maintained by the
production and installation. utilization of sound engineering practice,
The difference between ISO-9001 and 9002 is professional attitudes, good construction practices
essentially of design. If the organization designs and quality. In the context of engineering
buildings as per customer’s requirements, then structures. It may be understood as a function of
the organization can go in for ISO 9001. making men, materials, machines and methods
operate at the standards calculated to ensure that
ISO-9000 quality system standard describes what the end result of the construction conforms to the
the requirement of quality oriented system is. It prescribed specifications as well as meets the
does not set out special requirements. owner/users requirement.
Whether a company employs 10 or 10000 people, Quality control is a management activity applied
the principle of ISO-9000 can be applied. ISO-9000 to the construction processes to set purposes.
Purpose in this case being achievement of the previous chapters. The key points are listed
prescribed standard of performance and cost. To below,
achieve optimum quality at minimum cost, we
Better quality of work can be achieved by proper
have to consider all the factors that help to build
QC process at a minor cost when compared with
quality into a product or service.
the total cost of the project.
In the construction industry where majority of
QA can be achieved at the site by exact
works are executed by the contractor the
compliance to the construction specification
responsibility of quality control is in the hands of
standards. This can be achieved with a properly
the contractor and he is responsible to the
organized well equipped field laboratory at the
designer and the owner for this.
site and centrally located at office.
The main problems facing the development of
Quality Assurance is not an optional extra but,
construction projects and structures are the
Philosophy that management must be committed
technological advancement of their fabrication,
to.
the improvement of their quality, reliability and
factory finishing- These problems can be solved by A Quality Assurance System to have any credibility
developing and applying efficient and continuous must comply with ISO 9000 and ISO 14000.
quality control at each stage of production and by
testing products and structures using the latest The construction specification in similar project to
instruments and machines. In the present day be executed in future should be modified based
competitive market of construction industry if a on lessons learnt during quality control exercised
contractor has to survive, he should be able to on previous projects.
meet the quality requirement of the owner/user Quality of work largely depends upon the quality
and satisfy his needs as well as meet the of materials to be used and workmanship. The
conformance standards. The various process relevant specification in respect of materials/
involved to be able to meet the above workmanship given in various IS codes be strictly
requirement should be cost effective. adhered to for accomplishment of QA/QC. QC
should be exercised at different levels such as
VI. CONCLUSION
The process of implementing Quality Assurance preconstruction, during construction and post-
and Quality Control System is clearly understood construction. As far as possible use of materials
that quality doesn't happen by chance, it has to be for structural members fabricated under
managed at every stage of the product. A quality controlled condition and strict supervision should
system is a mechanism by which a company can be encouraged. Finally remember our Quality
organize and manage its resources to achieve, Assurance and Quality Control System is a live
sustain and improve quality economically. Quality thing that must encourage a two-way flow of
Systems are analogous to financial control information, as it must change to improve.
systems, information technology systems and
REFERENCES
personnel management systems. It is after all the
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system that a dangerous point is reached. The Standards In Construction” Journal Of Management In
Engineering / November/December 1999
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become a neatly packaged inviolate document. Building Work”, 3rdEdition.
[3] Arauz, R., & Suzuki, H. (2004). ISO 9000 performance in
This is the very thing that must be avoided and Japanese industries. Total Quality Management &
positive action must be taken to prevent it. A well Business Excellence, 15(1), 3-33.
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Management Consultancy in Construction Project’, Journal
focused upon making upon the procedures more of Mechanical and Civil Engineering, vol.10.
effective in terms of both Total Quality and [5] Brown, A., Van der Wiele, T., & Loughton, K. (1998).
Smaller enterprises experiences with ISO 9000.
company's aims. International Journal of Quality and Reliability
Management, 15(3), 273-85.
To conclude therefore it may be therefore it may
be helpful to abstract the key point brought out in
[6] Carlsson, M., & Carlsson, D. (1996). Experience of implementing ISO 9000 in Swedish industry. International Journal of Quality and
Reliability Management, 13(7), 36-47.
[7] Chow-Chua, C., Goh, M., & Wan, T. B. (2003). Does ISO 9000
certification improve business performance? International
Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, 20(8), 936-53.
[8] Dr. J. Bhattacharjee, “QUALITY CONTROL AND QUALITY
ASSURANCE IN BUILDING CONSTRUCTION”, IRJMST Vol
9 Issue 4 [Year 2018].
[9] Fuentes, C. M., Benavent, F. B., Moreno, M. A. E., Cruz,T. G.,
& Del Val, M. P. (2000). Analysis of theimplementation of ISO
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[12] MOHAMED A.EL-MIKAWI (2002), Sustainable Development
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[14] R. Lakshami, “Quality Control and Quality Assurance In
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2015.

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
College of Engineering, Architecture & Technology
Laoag City
POST -EVALUATION
WEEK 01- 04

Name:_____________________________
Section:____________________________
Instruction:

Answer the ff.


Select one of the article on the given learning packet and do a critical review and assessment .
1. Include a summary as well as your own analysis and evaluation of the article.
2. Know the article thoroughly.
3. Do not include personal opinions.
4. Be sure to distinguish your thoughts from the author’s words.
5. Focus on the positive aspects and what the author(s) of the study learned.
6. Note limitations of the study at the end of the essay:
 Do the data and conclusions contradict each other?
 Is there sufficient data to support the author’s generalizations?
 What questions remain unanswered?
 How could future studies be improved?

(Format)
TITLE OF THE ARTCLE
AUTHORS

SUMMARY
The introductory paragraph summarizes the background information and purpose of the
research
(specific questions the study researched).
 What is the purpose of the study? What questions were asked?
 How did the study address these questions?
 What assumptions did the author make?
 What were the major findings?
 What surprised you or struck you as interesting?
 What questions are still unanswered?

METHODS

 Explain the methods that were used to investigate the research questions (use past
tense).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

 Mention the major results of the study (use past tense).

CONCLUSION / RECOMMENDATION

 State what the author of the study learned.

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