Reliability Engineering and System Safety 204 (2020) 107172

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Reliability Engineering and System Safety

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ress

Quality, requisite imagination and resilience: Managing risk and uncertainty T

in construction
Peter E.D. Lovea, , Jane Matthewsb
⁎

a
School of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, Curtin University, GPO Box U1987, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
b
School of Architecture and Built Environment, Deakin University, Geelong Waterfront Campus, Geelong, VIC 3220, Australia

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Measuring and determining the risks of rework is critical for determining the reliability of construction and
Construction ensuring peoples safety. In this paper we aim to addresses the following question: “How can we anticipate and
Quality mitigate the consequences of rework in construction?” We adopted a sense-making approach to tackle this
Rework question and in doing so acquired knowledge and an understanding of managerial practices and conditions that
Risk
contributed to rework in a leading construction organization. Using non-conformances as a measure of quality
Resilience
Safety
we analyzed 9088 events that required rework in 210 projects to determine its costs and identify those sub­
Uncertainty contract trades where it was most prevalent. To garner an understanding of the conditions that hindered the
organizations ability to ‘anticipate’ the presence and ‘respond’ to the occurrence of rework in its projects, we
conducted a series of interviews and found three issues contributing to this situation: (1) the absence of a
homogenous culture; (2) a misalignment of strategy; and (3) organizational amnesia. We develop a novel fra­
mework to manage the risk and uncertainty of rework based on the concepts of requisite imagination and
resilience. The developed framework can be applied not only to construction, but also form part of an integrated
preventative maintenance policy to manage an asset's quality during its operations.

1. Introduction Opal and Mascot Towers, and Zetland apartments in Sydney.

The Australian construction industry is in the midst of a quality
crisis [52]. Even though several quality problems have received con­
siderable attention from the Australian media due to their adverse
impact on the community, there have been limited attempts to address
the underlying roots of the problem by both the public or the private
sector. The industry is stuck in a quagmire and will remain so unless
fundamental changes are made to how construction organizations view
and manage quality in their projects [38].
Australian cities such as Sydney and Melbourne have been experi­
encing a housing boom as a result of significant growth in their popu­
lations. This boom resulted in the construction of an unprecedented
number of residential apartments between 2013 and 2017. The market
has subsequently weakened, resulting in a glut in supply. As a con­
sequence, prices for apartments have fallen sharply from a peak in
2017, not only due to the glut [45] but also something more sinister;
that is, the risk of structural failure, resulting in collapse with the po­
tential for loss of life. Prevailing evidence indicates the risk of structural
failure is increasing as a consequence of poor-quality construction that
does not comply with Australian Standards. Germane examples are the
The $128 million, 34 story Opal Tower in Sydney's Olympic Park,
comprising 392 apartments, was completed and signed off by private
certifiers in August 2018. By December 2018 cracks began to emerge in
its structure resulting in the buildings 3000 residents being evacuated.
An independent inquiry identified that the installed concrete panels
that had cracked deviated from the original design [6]. Furthermore,
the wrong size reinforcing bars (20 mm instead of 28 mm diameter)
were installed in the areas where cracking occurred. While the inquiry
concluded that the building was structurally sound, significant rectifi­
cation works were required to repair the structure. The fiasco that has
ensued from the Opal Tower has sent the residential sector into crisis
with the construction quality of apartments being placed in the spot­
light [8].
The Opal Tower is not an isolated incident. In June 2019 residents
from the ten story Mascot Tower had to be evacuated as cracks began to
emerge in the brick walls of the building's basement, due to differential
settlement [32]. The corollary has been the evacuation of residents
while the building is made structurally safe, with the cost of rectifica­
tion estimated to be in the millions of dollars. Furthermore, several
buildings close to the Mascot Tower are also experiencing cracking and

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: plove@iinet.net.au (P.E.D. Love), jane.matthews@deakin.edu.au (J. Matthews).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ress.2020.107172
Received 1 September 2019; Received in revised form 13 July 2020; Accepted 8 August 2020
Available online 12 August 2020
0951-8320/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
P.E.D. Love and J. Matthews
suffering water ingress. In the case of the Zetland apartments, water and
fire safety defects have resulted in them being uninhabitable [12].
The monetary costs of having to undertake post-construction rework
can be staggering for asset owners and developers [35]. Having to
perform such rework jeopardizes not only their reputation and financial
viability, but also the well-being and safety of the public. Similarly,
underwriters who provide insurance for constructed assets are con­
fronted with the risk of indemnifying non-complaint work. This can
result in insurers and financiers levying higher premiums and lending
rates to cover these risks. Naturally, the unidentified defects that
manifest during construction should be identified and rectified before
the issue of practical completion, but if not, then during the defect's
liability period. Considerable concern surrounds the quality of con­
struction of multi-story apartments throughout Australia, but particu­
larly in Sydney, as a result of the Opal and Mascot Tower failures. The
quality problems that have come to light in these buildings are also
apparent in other types of constructed assets [38]. Ensuring and
maintaining the quality of constructed assets is a pervasive challenge
for organizations across all construction sectors, due to the presence of
competing demands [38].
How much time, energy, and effort go into one demand versus the
other’ influences how they are considered by managers [19]. Com­
peting demands can lead to the creation of tensions over resource al­
location and prioritization in projects. A case in point is the tension
between quality and safety. Contractors tend to place increasing em­
phasis on safety, at the expense of quality, due to statutory and legis­
lative requirements [38]. For this reason, quality ‘plays second fiddle’ to
safety, despite both having a symbiotic relationship.
Against this backdrop, this paper aims to address the following re­
search question: “How can we anticipate and mitigate the consequences
of rework in construction?” Using a construction organization as a point
of reference, we use a sense-making approach to acquire knowledge and
an understanding about the nature and nuances of its managerial
practices and conditions that contributed to rework in its projects. We
use our findings to develop a novel framework that can be deployed to
anticipate rework and maintain a sense of control in projects. We
suggest that by engaging in a strategy of requisite imagination and
resilience, organizations will be better positioned to manage their un­
expected events and rework risks that may arise during construction.
Moreover, the developed framework can be integrated with a pre­
ventative maintenance policy and thus used to mitigate failures and
non-conformances that may arise during an asset's operation.
2. Rework
Several definitions of rework exist, but they deviate from one an­
other largely due to differences in the points of reference used for its
measurement and scope [33,36,50]. This paper explicitly focuses on
rework that occurs during construction. Thus, our operational defini­
tion for rework is “the total direct cost of re-doing work in the field
regardless of the initiating cause,” which excludes change orders (var­
iations) and errors caused by off-site manufacture [50; p. 1078]. We do
not discount the defects that materialize during a building or asset's
operation, quite the contrary. If we can identify errors and rectify them
before hand-over, then we can mitigate the negative consequences that
may arise later in a building or asset's life. That is, the reliability and
system safety of an asset will significantly improve as rework during its
maintenance and operation phases, which may arise due to unidentified
errors that have manifested as defects and/or failures are minimized
[3].
Considering our operational definition, rework, therefore, can di­
rectly impact the productivity and performance of construction orga­
nizations contracted to deliver an asset [13]. Based on a sample of 98
projects, for example, research has shown that rework costs materi­
alizing during construction were on average 0.39% of contract value
[38]. While rework is being undertaken the likelihood of a safety
2
Reliability Engineering and System Safety 204 (2020) 107172
incident also increases [38,54]. Similarly, Wanberg et al. [54] found
statistically significant relationships between the recordable injury rate
and rework, and the first aid rate and defects. The relationship between
rework and injuries arises due to production pressure, and insufficient
resources to pre-plan and supervise works [38,54]. The absence of
leadership at the coalface to encourage subcontractors to “take pride in
their work” while performing rework, is also a significant contributor to
safety incidents [54, p. 1].
2.1. Uncomfortable knowledge
While construction organizations are fully aware of the ubiquity of
rework, it does, however, present itself as uncomfortable knowledge
[38]. Uncomfortable knowledge is “disruptive knowledge” where “in­
formation or understanding that is available to certain parties, but
cannot be acknowledged by others” [48, p. 113]. Four strategies to deal
with uncomfortable knowledge are [48, p. 113]:
1 Denial – “refusal to acknowledge or engage with information”;
2 Dismissal – “acknowledges the existence of the information, and
may involve some minimal engagement up to the point of rebutting
it as erroneous or irrelevant”;
3 diversion – “involves the creation of an activity that distracts at­
tention away from an uncomfortable issue”; and
4 Displacement – “occurs when an organization engages with an issue
but substitutes management of a representation of a problem (such
as a computer model) for management of the represented object or
activity".
Rather than tackling rework head-on by implementing a continuous
improvement strategy, denial and dismissal are typical corollaries of
construction organizations [38]. The concealment of errors that require
rework is common practice, “institutionalized” in construction projects
and “reinforced by people's dislike of bad news and information that
contradicts their beliefs. People in authority often “shoot the mes­
senger” [14, p. 213]. This reaction from senior managers stems from an
unwillingness to acknowledge that there is a problem, with an im­
mediate reaction of “it can't be; therefore, it isn't” [58, p. 383]. Against
this backdrop, project managers often suppress the reporting of non-
conformances to their senior management, as there is a belief that such
information suggests they have limited control and their project is
performing poorly [38].
While rework is typically denied and dismissed, some client and
construction organizations have begun to acknowledge it is a wide­
spread problem throughout their projects and accordingly have started
to re-calibrate their approaches to managing quality [35]. Events trig­
gering this introspection into quality include the ‘Independent Inquiry
into the Construction of Edinburgh Schools’1 [7], the ‘Grenfell Tower
Inquiry’2 in the United Kingdom (UK), and as we mentioned above the
issues arising from the Opal Tower incident. Admitting that rework is a
problem and accepting responsibility for its occurrence is the first step
that construction organizations can take in their journey to contain and
reduce its manifestation in their projects.
1
This inquiry was established after the collapse of a wall at Oxgangs Primary
School in Edinburgh and the subsequent enforced closure of a further 16
Edinburgh schools requiring the immediate relocation of over 8,000 pupils.
2
This independent inquiry is examining the circumstances leading up to and
surrounding the fire at Grenfell Tower, North Kensington, West London on 14th
June 2017. The rapid spread of the fire has been attributed to the building's
exterior cladding, a type in widespread use. The inquiry commenced 14th
September 2017 and is still on-going. An independent review of building reg­
ulations and fire safety was published on 17th May 2018. Details can be found
at; https://www.grenfelltowerinquiry.org.uk/.
P.E.D. Love and J. Matthews
Fig. 1. Causes of rework
Sources: Robinson-Fayek et al. (2003), Aiyetan [2], Ye et al. [64], Kakitahi et al. [29] and Enshassi et al. [11].
2.2. Causation
Detailed reviews of rework causation are presented in Robinson-
Fayak et al. (2003), Love et al. [36], Forcada et al. [13], and Love and
Smith [35]. For the sake of brevity, we identify in Fig. 1 typical rework
causes cited in the literature. An examination of the rework causation
literature, reveals that many studies have focused on identifying spe­
cific singular causation factors using prefixes such as ‘poor’, lack of’ and
‘inappropriate’ to explain how they influence the cost and schedule
performance of projects [27,28,64]. Applying prefixes of this nature to
causes abjures their context and therefore, the ability to develop a rich
understanding of rework causality. Moreover, the identification of
single factors, which in most cases only describe proximal causes (i.e.,
those nearest in time to the event) is counterintuitive, as rework can
only be explained by holistically considering the whole project system
and understanding how variables dynamically interact with one an­
other [30].
Rework regularly materializes as a result of human errors and vio­
lations, which are an effect or symptom of the organizational and
project environment within which people work [39–41]. Errors are not
random acts but are systematically connected to aspects of people's
tools, tasks, and their workplace [10]. Violations, however, are inten­
tional actions or inactions that result in noncompliance with known
rules, policies, procedures, or acceptable norms [49]. The strategic
decisions taken by senior and project managers can provide the un­
derlying conditions for errors and violations to materialize during the
construction process [38]. Projects are unique, and unavoidably each
brings new risks but with advances in technology and the increasing
need to construct large-scale infrastructure projects, they become pro­
gressively more complex and prone to high levels of uncertainty. Such
projects bestow benefits and difficulties, but instead of lamenting, we
need to provide construction organizations with the capability to
handle risk, particularly those associated with rework. As there is a lack
of contextual knowledge surrounding rework causation, it is necessary
to afford construction organizations with the risk literacy needed to
enable them to ‘anticipate what might go wrong’.
Measuring and determining the risks of rework is critical for de­
termining the reliability of construction [31] and ensuring peoples
safety [38]. To our knowledge studies determining the risks of rework
before the commencement construction is limited. Rogge et al. [51], for
3
Reliability Engineering and System Safety 204 (2020) 107172
example, developed the Field Rework (FRI), which rates 14 variables,
on a Likert scale of 1 to 5 to determine the potential for rework to occur
during construction. Examples variables include: (1) a design firm's
qualifications for the specific project; (2) the degree to which the design
schedule is compressed: and (3) commitment to constructability. The
computed FRI score falls into one of three categories: (1) over 46 is
‘concern’ and the likelihood of rework occurring is high; (2) 30–45
‘normal vigilance’ and there is a chance rework may or may not arise;
and (3) <29 there is an ‘excellent prospect of low rework’ and projects
are likely to have a successful outcome. While the FRI is practical, it
relies on a high degree of subjective judgment and neglects the com­
plexities and interdependency between variables that cause rework.
Moreover, using a Likert scale to determine risk is ambiguous and can
inherently include human biases [34].
In addressing the shortcomings of the FRI, Love and Sing [34] de­
veloped a quantitative model to determine the probability of rework
costs (i.e., direct and indirect) at contract award. While Love and Sing
[34] were able to determine the ‘best-fit’ empirical distribution to
predict rework costs before the commencement of construction, the
likelihood of causes was overlooked. Additionally, rework costs become
known risks that correspond to hindsight, which can be explained after
the fact [22]. A prediction of rework will also involve uncertainty and
therefore, foresight. In considering foresight, a less-is-more approach to
making “predictions based on using simple rules [is] better than using a
complex strategy” [22, p. 122]. Faced with uncertainty, construction
organizations should not get too bogged down in detail but use their
unconscious intelligence based on the experiences of their project teams
and smart rules of thumb to mitigate rework [9].
2.3. Mindfulness in organizations
Within construction projects, managers have to control risks daily,
with many being unable to be eliminated. Thus, project managers have
to be aware of and able to manage risk effectively. In the case of re­
work, managers in construction organizations do not always maintain
such a prudent approach toward its risks [38]. Within the High-Relia­
bility Organization (HRO) literature, for example, being alert and put­
ting in place mechanisms to combat risks fall under the umbrella of
‘mindfulness’ in organizations [56].
Organizational mindfulness is a particular state of consciousness
P.E.D. Love and J. Matthews
that is “embedded in and powerfully shaped by multiple aspects of
context both in how it is triggered and how it connects to other pro­
cesses and individual and organizational outcomes” [53, p. 57]. Within
a construction organization, for example, this consciousness would be
shaped by top-down organizational practices and bottom-up by process
of social action and inaction that is played-out in projects. A ‘mindful’
organization, therefore [57]: (1) deals with risks by investing in sub­
stantial resources (i.e., financial and attentional); (2) detects issues
early; (3) possesses a preoccupation with failure; (4) is reluctant to
simplify; (5) is sensitive to the nuances that can result in failure; (6)
commits to resilience; and (7) will readily defer issues to experts.
Akin to an HRO's preoccupation with failure is the concept of
‘chronic unease’ whereby there is discomfort or a “wariness toward
risk” [18, p. 968]. Put simply, chronic unease is the opposite of com­
placency, and is a healthy skepticism about what we see and what we
do about the risks that are inherent in workplaces. In this instance,
“people assume every day is a bad day, and act accordingly” [49, p. 37].
Recognizing people's anxiety toward risk led Fruhen et al. [18] to define
chronic unease as a “state of psychological strain in which an individual
experiences discomfort and concern about the control of risks” (p.974).
Managers working at the coalface of construction need to make and
delegate decisions in an instant after a brief discussion with their col­
leagues, and under high uncertainty. Naturally, how managers deal
with risk will vary depending on their established ‘rules-of-thumb’,
which are a creation from experiences and values. Every manager
within a construction organization will have their own ‘adaptive
toolbox’, which provides a framework for non-optimizing visions of
bounded rationality, emphasizing psychological plausibility,3 domain
specificity4 and ecological rationality5 [21, p. 37].
Fig. 2 presents a conceptual model of chronic unease for safety risks.
We can see that the purported attributes of chronic ease are [18]: (1)
pessimism; (2) propensity to worry; (3) vigilance; (4) requisite imagi­
nation; (5) flexible thinking. The model identifies several important
attributes for considering safety risks. The model assumes managers are
initially subjected to unease when their perceptions of risk are drawn
from their ‘adaptive toolbox' and based on their prevailing work en­
vironment. The likelihood of the risks occurring is, therefore de­
termined by a manager's propensity to worry and their pessimism and
ability to foresee adverse consequences.
The experience of unease may result in managers engaging in re­
flexive practice by examining issues from varying perspectives through
a process of flexible thinking. Fruhen et al.’s [18] model (Fig. 2) is
created within a safety mind-set and aligns with the concept of an HRO
environment where there is a persistent tension surrounding its pre­
occupation with failure. This preoccupation is not so much about the
detection and mitigation of small discrepancies but instead is concerned
with emotional control and richer awareness of discriminatory details
surrounding the context of errors that occur [15]. In this instance,
Fraher et al. [15] translate what has been seen and assessed as an in­
dividual construct into one that is collective.
As we mentioned above, a significant proportion of safety incidents
occur during construction when rework is being performed. Despite the
fact that rework influences safety performance there exists limited
knowledge and understanding about the antecedents that ensue such as
an adverse outcome in projects [33,37–41]. If we can understand the
3
To understand how actual humans, make decisions as opposed to being
equipped with practically unlimited time, knowledge, memory and other in­
finite resources [21, p. 38].
4 mences once an error has occurred and seeks to alleviate its negative
A collection of specialized rather than generic heuristics as would be the
case in subjective expected utility. These heuristics are composed of cognitive
and emotional building blocks that can be part of more than one heuristic and
allow the compositions new ones [21, p. 38].
5
“The rationality of domain-specific heuristics is not optimization, omnis­
cience or consistency” with the success or failure of them being their degree of
adaptation to the structure of physical and social environments [21, p. 38].
4
Reliability Engineering and System Safety 204 (2020) 107172
conditions that lead to rework and mitigate their negative con­
sequences, then safety performance will not only improve during con­
struction [33,38] but also during operations and maintenance. A degree
of ambiguity resides between the attributes of pessimism, propensity
worry, and vigilance as they are somewhat interdependent, and can be
enabled with the activation of requisite imagination. Flexible thinking
is an innate feature of requisite imagination and as a process of re­
flexion is not only used to ‘look at what goes wrong’ but can also ex­
amine ‘what went right’ during construction. When rework is required,
we should begin by understanding ‘why’ and ‘how’ the task(s) and
process(es) were incorrectly performed the first time. Here parallels can
be drawn with Safety II, which essentially considers that ‘things go
wrong’ and ‘things go right’ for the same primary reasons [26,47]. The
upshot in this instance is to understand the everyday functioning of a
construction organization and its projects, which then forms a pre­
requisite to realize quality as well as safety performance.
Risk has both a cost and a value. For this reason, constructions or­
ganizations during their contract negotiations need to make explicit the
risks that may be encountered and their importance. To make risks
explicit will, therefore, require construction organizations to under­
stand them and provide a rationale for their pricing within a tender
submission. The risk associated with sanctioning scope changes lies
with the client. If this, however, results in rework, the cost of the
change may be high. Even though a contractor will be paid a premium
for this additional work, the significant risk of a safety incident oc­
curring is an issue that has been overlooked in practice [37]. We are not
concerned with scope changes in this paper, but the risks that adversely
impact on a construction organization's performance once operations
commence on-site. In creating a mindfulness for rework, a construction
organization should understand what and why ‘things go wrong and
right’ to afford the ability to learn from what works and fails in their
projects [25]. Establishing this mindfulness “critically depends on the
capacity to enhance improvisation, coordination, flexibility, and en­
durance – qualities we typically associate with resilience” [4, p. 11].
2.3.1. Requisite imagination
Previous works have indicated that requisite imagination provides
the basis for construction organizations to learn from success and
failure [38]. A central feature of requisite imagination is anticipation,
which Wildavsky [62] refers to as “a mode of control by a central mind;
efforts are made to predict and prevent potential dangers before da­
mage is done” (p.77). The concept of requisite imagination was put
forward by Westrum [59], who refers to it as the ability to imagine
critical aspects of the future we are planning. Explicitly, it involves
‘anticipating what might go wrong’ and how to test for problems when
a design is developed, but can also be extrapolated to visualize issues
that may manifest during construction and operations and main­
tenance. Requisite imagination often indicates the direction from which
trouble is likely to arrive [60,61]. It provides a means for construction
organizations to deal with those issues that can affect project outcomes
in future contexts. Though this is dependent on having in place an error
management culture that supports ‘learning through’ (i.e., how to
handle error) instead of ‘learning from’ a rework event by having in
place error-correction mechanisms [37].
Error management and HRO are very similar, but a point of de­
parture relates to how errors are viewed and managed. In the case of an
HRO, there is an intense focus on failure. Consequently, there are
limited opportunities to learn from trial and error as failures are rare
events during operations [65]. Contrastingly, error management com­
consequences or impact through design and training [17]. It involves
coping with errors to avoid negative consequences. In doing so, they are
attended to as quickly as possible to control any adverse impact that
may arise. This process is aligned with Wildavsky's [62] notion of re­
silience, which he defines as “the capacity to cope with unanticipated
dangers after they have become manifest, learning to bounce back”
P.E.D. Love and J. Matthews
Fig. 2. A conceptual model of chronic unease
Adapted from Fruhen et al. [[18]: p.975].
(p.77). Being resilient provides organizations with the ability to absorb
and proactively respond to a “discrete environmental jolt” [63, p. 740].
In response, to the manifestation of errors, knowledge relating to the
causes is identified and shared to reduce their future incidence. More­
over, error management optimizes the positive consequences of errors
to engender long-term learning, performance, and innovations [16].
Along with errors, we also need to consider the process of violation
management. This commences after a violation has occurred and fol­
lows the identical procedures of error management. Acknowledging
that errors and violations can interact with one another, we use the
term error management to encompass both actions and inactions. How
a violation is dealt with is dependent on the way people “construct the
intentions that lie behind it” [5, p. 38]. Non-malevolent violations, for
example, will invariably be dealt with differently by an organization
than those that take “on the form of recidivism” [5, p. 42]. By posses­
sing an ability to imagine and “visualize possible worst-case scenarios,
managers can achieve a tangible representation of risks” and better
accommodate uncertainty [18, p. 972]. The failure to use requisite
imagination opens the door to the threat of unanticipated outcomes,
and as a result, Fruhen et al. [18] suggest this is “likely to affect the
extent to which a manager experiences unease” (p.972). The antici­
pated outcomes of not identifying a defect during construction, as we
indicate above, maybe safety incidents, accidents and even a major
catastrophe as a result of structural failure [1].
In considering the risk and uncertainty associated with performing
rework during construction we suggest that requisite imagination can
help “avert the unwanted outcomes that seem to hide beneath the
surface” [1, p. 105]. At this juncture, we need to acknowledge, that it is
impossible to foresee all the possibilities that will result in rework.
Traditional causality and probability analysis approaches are less able
to cope with the unexpected disturbances that result in errors and
violations at the coalface of construction ([43]: p.110). If we are unable
to foresee the rework disturbances that “we have to cope with” then
determining the resources to be put in place to mitigate their negative
consequences will be a challenge that managers will have to address in
addition to the other competing demands in projects ([43]: p.110).
According to Wildavsky [62], having in place strategies of anticipation
(i.e., predicting hazards) and resilience (i.e., have in place resources to
cope and to respond) are essential to manage risk and uncertainty.
Construction organizations should encourage their managers and
5
Reliability Engineering and System Safety 204 (2020) 107172
employees to have a “restless mind” and to be encouraged to ask
questions [1, p. 217]. In aiding this process of inquisition, the en­
gagement of a maestro by construction organizations who can instigate,
lead and maintain a questioning attitude in projects will not only en­
gender employees to acquire a ‘voice’ but also supports the process of
learning [1,37,61]. Before a construction project commences, the
maestro would adopt a line of inquiry where matters such as ‘what si­
tuations have not been foreseen?’ ‘what has been forgotten?’, ‘what
could go wrong’ and ‘what went right’ in other projects of a similar ilk
are addressed and communicated to create a collective mindfulness
within the organization.
3. Research approach
We need to acquire knowledge and understanding of the nature and
nuances of managerial practices and conditions that contribute to re­
work to address our research question. A considerable degree of am­
biguity surrounds rework risks, as there is a limited understanding of
the conditions that result in its occurrence. This ambiguity is ex­
acerbated by the complexity and uncertainty that inherently resides
within the construction process, which is also heightened by process
variability [36]. We can attribute process variability to common (i.e.,
probabilistically predictable) and special (i.e., unexpected and un­
predictable) causes. Construction organizations need to address their
unwanted process variability if they are to make headway in containing
and reducing their rework and improving safety.
To anticipate risks and enable construction organizations to cope
with the uncertainty of rework, we have assumed a sense-making ap­
proach that draws on the experiences of an international construction
organization. Sense-making provides us with the basis to understand
and create a picture of the connections between practices, people, and
events. This understanding provides us with the ability to anticipate
risk trajectories and act effectively to maintain control over the deci­
sion-making and conditions that result in the need for rework.
We adopt Weick et al.’s [55] view of sense-making, who consider it
a process where “people organize to make sense of equivocal inputs and
enact that sense back into the world to make it more orderly” (p.410).
Thus, actors may “extract cues and make plausible sense retro­
spectively, while enacting more or less into ongoing circumstances”
[55, p. 409]. Sense-making is a retrospective activity. It enables us to
P.E.D. Love and J. Matthews
act upon our understanding of the present based on what has transpired
in the past. Without having a grasp of this particular context, we cannot
learn from the rework issues that impede a construction organization's
ability to deliver projects to their specified quality. By embracing a
sense-making approach in our empirical research, we aim to turn
“circumstances into a situation that is comprehended explicitly in
words and that serves as a springboard into action [55, p. 409]. The
outcome provides construction organizations with the means to
proactively anticipate risk and plan for, and respond to, unexpected
events.
3.1. Data sources
Only a limited number of studies have been able to gain access to
rework data from real-life projects due to issues of commercial con­
fidentiality [37]. Furthermore, most construction organizations have
been disinclined to accept that rework is a problem. When rework does
happen, it is viewed as being a zemblanity (i.e., an unpleasant, un­
surprise) [38]. A construction organization that had suffered significant
financial losses in several of its projects due to rework expressed a keen
interest to participate in this research. We are unable to provide specific
details about the construction organization as there was a requirement
for anonymity.
Permission was given to access the organization's internal admin­
istrative system. We retrieved data from project and financial reviews,
the Health Safety Environment and Quality (HSEQ) system, and the
lessons learned database. For six-months, informal discussions took
place on a fortnightly basis with the general manager for HSEQ stan­
dards and controls, the compliance and governance manager, and a
business analyst. These discussions helped the researchers understand
the nuances of the data and clarify ambiguities.
To add context and make sense of the documentary sources we
conducted a series of semi-structured interviews (n = 27) with HSEQ
managers (n = 9) and those in project-based roles (e.g., project man­
agers, project engineers, and commercial managers). Each interview
ranged from 30 to 90 min and was digitally recorded, transcribed
verbatim and distributed to interviewees to check and confirm their
accuracy. Specific role types and projects referred to during the inter­
views are suppressed for confidentiality. The underlying aim of the
semi-structured interviews was to garner an understanding of rework
causation and the issues surrounding the practice of quality in the
projects the interviewees had been involved in delivering.
3.2. Data analysis
All the data that was collected was inputted into NVivo Version 11 to
organize, analyze, and obtain insights from the documentation and
semi-structured interviews. A flexible coding process was followed,
initially using standard terms that were derived from the literature
(axial) and the interviews. Additional words were added as the research
progressed (emergent). The initial codes captured broad themes such as
non-conformances, violations, quality auditing (reporting) as well as
those associated with rework costs. The descriptive first-cycle of coding
enabled portions of the data contained within the non-conformance
reports (NCRs) obtained from the projects and transcripts to be sum­
marized [44]. The second-cycle coding provided the basis for similar
rework conditions to be derived from the documentation and interviews
[44].
4. Results
4.1. First-cycle analysis: the context of rework
Our initial analysis of the rework materializing from the construc­
tion organization's projects commenced with determining the magni­
tude and identifying those subcontract trades where rework was most
6
Reliability Engineering and System Safety 204 (2020) 107172
prevalent. A total of 569 construction projects and 19,314 non-con­
formances were made available for analysis. Of the total number of
non-conformances issued 9098 required rework, which occurred in
only 210 projects. The mean rework cost as a percentage of the contract
value was approximately 0.18%. A cursory examination of the re­
maining 359 projects reveals an absence of rework. Surprisingly, 20
projects were flagged as being in distress as there was $718 million of
unapproved revenue owing. Closer examination of these particular
projects financial review reports revealed a significant difference be­
tween the original forecasted and actual margins. For example, a Jetty
for offloading hydrocarbons with a contract value of $990 million
forecasted a 10% margin, but at 50% completion this had significantly
dropped to 5%, and on final completion 2%. In the case of an elevated
highway project with a contract value of $544 million, an initial margin
of 9% was forecast, but a staggering financial loss of $50 million oc­
curred. If we consider the forfeited margin, then the financial impact on
the organization was in the region of $100 million.
Discussions with the compliance and governance manager revealed
financial losses in projects were attributable to rework, though there
was a tendency to eschew its measurement. There was a reluctance to
discuss its details however, due to the embarrassment it had caused to
the organization, but also the adverse impact on its share price. We
were, nevertheless, able to examine several of the project's financial
performance reports and, when juxtaposed with remarks made by in­
terviewees, able to form a picture as to why and how rework adversely
impacted the project, which we present in the second stage of our
analysis.
Rework was not a key performance metric of the organization's
senior management. The perception that non-conformances were a sign
of poor performance resonated throughout the organization and its
projects. The response of some project managers was to conceal non-
conformances by assuming a “hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no
evil” outlook. The outcome being NCRs went undocumented and un­
reported. Instead, project managers, in many instances, improvised on-
the-spot to address non-conformances informally and thus incon­
spicuously circumvented formal channels.
In this case organization, rework was only able to be determined
through the issue of a non-conformance, even though it may also have
occurred as a result of design changes or errors. We were aware of the
likelihood of this challenge before embarking on our study, as previous
works had highlighted that construction organizations have seldom
used rework as a performance measure. In line with other studies, we,
therefore, determined the financial impact of rework on organizational
and project performance by considering prevailing practices and using
non-conformances as a measure [13,37]. In Fig. 3, we present a sum­
mary of our analysis for the 9098 non-conformances requiring rework.
In providing additional weight to our summary, we provide the
rework costs for a sample of ten projects in Table 1. Also, we present
examples of non-conformances requiring rework in Table 2 for struc­
tural steel and concrete works, which were the main problematic
trades. Cognizant that size, type, and procurement method may influ­
ence decision-making and a project's conditions we performed a one-
way analysis of the variance (ANOVA) to determine if there were sta­
tistical differences between these factors and rework costs [13,27]. For
the 210 projects, the one-way ANOVA revealed no significant differ­
ences (p < 0.5). To arrive at a ballpark figure of a 15% loss of profit per
annum throughout the study, we extrapolated the findings from the 210
projects to the remaining sample where data was unavailable.
From the first-cycle of analysis, we reveal that project character­
istics (e.g., size and type) are not risk factors that influence rework.
From rework incidences that emerged, we can infer with a degree of
certainty that it is likely to arise in projects when materials such as
structural steel and concrete are prevalent. We can see that the costs of
having to rectify non-conformances are a genuine risk that organiza­
tions need to accommodate and foresee before construction if they are
to remain profitable. The identification of rework risks helps
P.E.D. Love and J. Matthews Reliability Engineering and System Safety 204 (2020) 107172

Fig. 3. The magnitude of rework.

organizations select actions to predict how they will affect their en­
vironment. We are unable to account for all the (in)actions as projects
reside in the space of uncertainty. To be able to adjust to outcomes of
(in)action that is uncertain, we need to resolve them by increasing in­
formation processing, which can be enacted by design and social in­
teractions [42]. Not every aspect of a project's environment is pre­
dictable, and thus a degree of residual uncertainty will always be
present, particularly around error-making.
As rework is a function of human in(actions) and a by-product of the
project environment, understanding the context of its (re)occurrence
provides the basis for being able to anticipate, adapt and respond
quickly to mitigate the negative consequences of errors that require
rework. Thus, constructions organizations need to, be prepared and
plan for the unexpected. We need to be mindful that an error is what
hindsight sees, and until then it is an action just like any other. Knowing
the conditions that may result in errors and violations will aid con­
struction organizations in their preparations for managing risk and
uncertainty in their projects.
4.2. Second-cycle analysis: recurring conditions
In this second-cycle we aim to acquire an understanding of the
conditions that contribute to rework, rather than provide a detailed
examination of its causal chain. We therefore draw on the experiences
and views of employees within the construction organization. An array
of influences typically combines to trigger a rework event. Stringing
together the causes of rework does not always correspond with the
counterfactual thoughts about how it may have turned out differently
[10]. Taking information out of context, by selecting and combining it
in hindsight, may be misleading as the original context and meaning
become redundant and a new sense is adopted [10]. The conditions that
contribute to rework in projects can stymie an organization's ability to
anticipate its presence and respond to its occurrence are categorized as:
(1) the absence of a homogenous culture; (2) the misalignment of
strategy; and (3) organizational amnesia.
4.2.1. The absence of a homogenous culture
To recap, the construction organization did not consider to the
management of quality as a priority. NCRs were deemed to be a cause of
trouble materializing as a result of bad judgments, wrong decisions, and
inaccurate assessments. In essence, staff on-site were blamed for the
NCRs requiring rework. A recurring theme resonating throughout the
interviews was the disparity in organizational culture that was played
out on projects. Opinions about the organization's culture, tended to
vary from displaying aspects of being pathological (i.e., power-oriented
whereby blame is apportioned) to bureaucratic (i.e., rule orientated
where justice is sought) and then in some instances being generative
(i.e., performance-orientated, which aims to discover and understand
why and how problems materialize). The institutionalization of a
homogenous culture did not exist within the organization as different
projects created their own. Project managers play a pivotal role in
creating an environment of shared values and beliefs, which governs
the behavior of their site-based team and subcontractors. It was re­
ported that some project managers mimicked the desires of senior

Table 1
Rework costs for a ‘sample’ of ten projects§.
Project Type Contract Value No. of non- Contractor Cost Sub/c Cost Design Cost Reported non- Additional Additional Property Total Rework
conformances conformance Contract Sub/c Costs Damage Rework Index
Cost Costs Costs

Pipeline 332,00,000 17 6000 23,000 – 29,000 – – 2250 31,250 0.09†

Dam 9700,000 3 1600 – – 1600 – – 500 2100 0.02†
Prison 9950,000 9 3000 80,000 – 83,000 – – 1000 84,000 0.84
Water 2430,000 1 27,100 – – 27,100 17,280 19,210 – 63,590 2.62
Road 56,400,000 3 4000 – – 4000 – 30,000 – 34,000 0.06†
Road 5420,000 63 6035 14,670 1000 21,705 – – 1000 22,705 0.42
Hospital 1800,000 1 – – – 0 – – 850 850 0.05†
Stadium 14,700,000 4 375 1500 – 1875 – – – 1875 0.01†
Defense 10,500,000 2 – 8000 – 8000 5000 320,000 52,000 38,5000 3.67
Rail 27,000,000 – 7900 17,800 – 25,700 – – – 25,700 0.10†
Total 171,100,000 103 56,010 14,4970 1000 20,1980 2,2280 36,9210 57,600 651,070 0.79‡

§
The figures presented in this table do not include post completion rectification costs.
‡
Mean percentage of contract value.
†
The mean rework index was 0.18%, those in bold are below this value. A similar study undertaken by Love et al. [37] revealed a mean rework index of 0.39%.

7
P.E.D. Love and J. Matthews Reliability Engineering and System Safety 204 (2020) 107172

management to underplay quality issues and instead focused on en­

3500,000

250,000

100,000
122,000
237,500

875,500

161,200
Cost ($)
suring only positive safety outcomes. After all, safety was unequivocally

12,000
a priority performance measure. For example, the following comment
welds not brushed in, underside of bracing not coated adequately, paint thickness, nicks in coatings now rusting. This non-conformance is for all the from an interviewee referring to a $230 million prison project deli­

Concrete pour on column 1 lacked compaction on both the east and west columns. Cracks up to 3 mm on the construction joint and air voids on the
Rework primarily related to coatings thickness and coverage on the conveyor galleries, damage/coatings to pipework e.g. pin holing, delamination,

workmanship (e.g. welds not brushed in, underside of bracing not coated adequately, paint thickness, nicks in coatings now rusting). Other defects

Concrete floor undulations resulting in floor leveling post inspection of the typical floors (Levels 1 to 19) select areas on various floors were seen to
vering using a Public-Private Partnership, reinforces this case in point

The pre-mixed concrete supplied by Boral on behalf of Bechtel is forming multiple cracks as the concreters are finishing the brooming operations.
Structural Steel was sourced via [xxxx] Workshop from numerous fabricators. The main problem relates to coating thickness and coverage, and
as they stated:
relate to grid mesh clips missing, bolts missing, grid mesh cut in-situ. A spreadsheet of defects has been prepared and will be attached to non-
“We knew we should report it [rework], I guess for continual im­
provement, but we really only report [safety] incidents. If we reported
it [rework], nothing would get done about it, so there are some cultural
issues on this project”.
Then when questioned as to why they felt nothing would be done,
the interviewee stated:
“I think, I mean, from experience, if you raise that [rework] and you
try and fix it up, you get a lot of resistance, you don't get support from
the management side, so the thinking is, why bother?”
When the HSEQ personnel visited sites, some project managers
seemed to prevaricate when asked pointed questions about non-con­
formances. Contrastingly, in other projects, non-conformances re­
have excessive surface undulations. This was further highlighted during carpet installation work.

quiring rework were openly reported and referred to “as a point of

reference to learn from.” For example, regarding the sharing of
knowledge and communicating issues around rework, the following
comment was made:
Welding on Dolphin boom lift bridge sections does not comply with AS1554.1 SP

“Generally, within this project, we do it pretty well. Getting others

within the company and those who work for us, to share it [i.e., issues
about rework] is an issue. I think they've got to understand that it's not
a blame game or anything like that, they need to understand this.
Cracks are forming before the curing process is able to commence.

Sometimes it's not their own fault, things just fail. But the way failure is
Non-conforming placement of concrete at column puddles B1-GF

expressed, I think it is through culture. The culture in this project

[tunnel] is pretty open”.
In sum, the construction organization was inept and unresponsive to
rework even though it was affecting their bottom-line. Pockets of ex­
Description (Extract Verbatim from project NCRs)

concrete surface was noticed post form removal.

cellence were present in projects where project managers leadership

extolled the virtues of communicating and sharing knowledge of rework
Incorrect set-out of cladding support purlins

enabling learning to take place; the evidence was apparent in projects

where low rework indexes were present (Table 1). However, the pre­
defects of this type for this project.

vailing culture did not support the organization's mission, vision, and
values, which in a nutshell focused on providing a commitment to
conformance upon receipt.

safety, encouraging innovation, and transforming the industry through

leadership. The misalignment between the mission statement and or­
ganizational and project culture provided the initial conditions for self-
serving behaviors and practices to develop. For example, senior man­
agement needed to be alerted to any non-conformance that exceeded
$100,000. So as not to attract attention to the issue at hand, one par­
ticular project manager divided an non-conformance where rework was
required into a series of smaller ones (i.e., activities) rendering the
$100,000 threshold to be inapplicable.
While external environmental considerations are, to the construc­
Placement, vibration, compaction

tion organization, essential issues that need to be accounted for when

Examples of rework costs for concrete and structural NCRs.

delivering projects, internal forces also play a pivotal role in influencing

Unapproved concrete mix

their outcomes. Such forces are often unexpected behavioral responses

to the misalignment between culture and strategy.
Work method error
Defective quality

Incorrect set-out
Rework Source

Welding defect

Finish quality

4.2.2. Misalignment of strategy

An organization's culture needs to be consciously maintained to
issues

prevent it from morphing into something unintended. While the con­

struction organization's mission was to transform the industry through
leadership, the evidence indicates a different reality, as rework was
Office building
Coal Terminal
Project Type

ignored despite its negative impact on the organization's profitability.

The goal of the organization was to make a profit and ensure people's
Road

Road
Jetty

safety by focusing on how to stop things going wrong. In doing so, the
Rail
Rail

organization had heavily invested in aligning and controlling its pro­

jects and people by determining what was safe, and then apportioning
Structural Steel

culpability when an incident or unsafe act materialized. This standpoint

Subcontract

Concrete

on safety formed the underlying basis of the organization's culture and

Table 2

is contrary to contemporary thinking and practice, which seeks to un­

derstand why and how things go right [25]. Irrespective of this view,

8
P.E.D. Love and J. Matthews
the organization's established culture resulted in significant investment
in safety at the expense of quality. A trade-off between safety and
quality was enacted and reinforced by senior management. In a nut­
shell, the overarching strategy was to maximize margins and ensure
positive safety outcomes. Placing quality in the shadows on safety did
not sit well with an interviewee who stated:
“There is a culture of not acknowledging rework. It's expected but
not acknowledged. I guess across the organization we've got awards
that take place yearly where projects and even individuals are identi­
fied for the right behaviors. But, we need to be clear around what
constitutes the right behavior, because in some cases, I think we might
be rewarding the wrong behavior. So, somebody who finishes a job, a
task, a project early gets an award. What culture did we encourage?
And then we go back to shortcuts and that sort of thing……?”
Referring to a project that received an award but also experienced
significant rework, an interviewee stated:
“I mean there are some projects out there…if you look at [XXX] for
instance, and that's one [a project] that go an award, but it had a ten-
million-dollar non-conformance, which required a lot of structural, on
the top level of the building, it required a lot of structural rework. That's
people working at height to rework. That's a safety type implication
associated with that, and it wasn't a huge project with a lot of margin,
so the ten million bit into the margin, yet they got an award for safety.”
We observed that there were repeated requests contained with the
monthly project and financial reviews for additional supervisors and
engineers to assist with quality control and inspections. Understaffing
was an issue, particularly during a project's mobilization, and so re­
sources were directed toward safety rather quality, even though fore­
casted margins at contract award were healthy. Though, as we identify
above, margins were gradually depleted as rework began to emerge.
4.2.3. Organizational amnesia
While processes were developed to manage quality, the limited re­
sources (e.g., engineers and supervisors) available to help control and
manage quality in projects rendered them to be ineffectual for cap­
turing the knowledge needed for ‘learning through’. The failure to
capture knowledge led to the organization repeatedly committing a
series of organizational errors. For example, we observed from the
NCRs that items had been incorrectly installed due to set-out issues
across a wide range of projects and sometimes repeatedly on the same
one. In this instance, the ‘supervisors’ may have omitted to carry out an
inspection or check an item before its installation due to time con­
straints. An interviewee referring to a project they were involved in
stated:
“The last project that I was involved in was heavily under-re­
sourced, and we didn't have enough supervisors, and it's interesting just
watching things drop off, such as compliance.”
Our discussions with the compliance and governance manager and a
business analyst, as well as the interviews, suggested that senior man­
agers had limited awareness of rework; the lessons-learned undertaken
at the end of projects were not used to address rework and the man­
agerial decisions and practices that resulted in its occurrence. The
failure of the construction organization to benefit from project histories
resulted in memories being eroded. Organizational amnesia prevailed
as there was an inability to learn and create the adaptations to their
managerial culture and practice necessary to address the rework that
plagued project performance.
5. Discussion
Our analysis explicitly reveals that rework is a problematic issue in
construction. The construction organization examined in this paper had
no involvement with the Opal and Mascot Towers and Zetland apart­
ments. We can see from the events that have unfolded from the afore­
mentioned buildings that poor quality was overlooked during con­
struction and manifested later as latent defects and engineering failures.
9
Reliability Engineering and System Safety 204 (2020) 107172
The reliability of the building’ structure was thus jeopardized and as a
result of people's lives were unnecessarily put at risk and severely dis­
rupted. If quality is overlooked during process of construction, then an
absence of critical data needed to determine the probability of rework
during construction may occur and the likelihood of defects and failures
arising during operations and maintenance can increase. We can see
from our findings that quality was a secondary concern for the con­
struction organization, while the bottom-line and safety were its pri­
mary strategic drivers. We should not forget at this point that the in­
troduction of legislation has forced the requirement for ensuring
positive safety outcomes in construction.
In the case of quality and to assist the process of compliance, the
National Construction Code has been introduced (incorporating the
Building Code of Australia and the Plumbing Code of Australia), which
is performance-based and contains all the requirements for the con­
struction of buildings. It is based on self-regulation and supported by
state and territory governments, as there was a perception that it would
stimulate innovation and reduce construction costs. The process of
deregulation in the construction industry was supported by the
Productivity Commission [46] as it suggested that considerable savings
could be made by moving towards a flexible regulatory environment.
The responsibility and cost of rectifying serious latent defects (e.g.,
combustible cladding, structural problems, defective electrical wiring)
is an issue that been overlooked, but is receiving attention as a result of
the Opal and Mascot Tower incidents. While legislation may go some
way to addressing the quality problem, we believe that construction
organizations need to re-calibrate their mindsets and prepare them­
selves to manage better the risk and uncertainty associated with errors
and violations that can result in NCRs and rework having to be per­
formed during construction and an asset's use.
5.1. Managing the risk and uncertainty of rework
If construction organizations are to cope with and manage the risk
and uncertainty of rework, then the strategies of requisite imagination
and resilience need to be both embraced. To aid the adoption of these
strategies and inspired by Hallegate et al.’s [24] incentivization infra­
structure model (p.18), we have developed a framework to manage the
risk and uncertainty of non-conformances during the process of con­
struction, where rework may be required (Fig. 4). Our requisite ima­
gination and resilience framework for managing the risk and un­
certainty of rework comprises four phases, which are labeled A→D in
Fig. 4.
We suggest that construction organizations engender a culture of
error management and in doing so can prepare themselves to cope with
errors and thus avoid their negative consequences. We can see from the
results that the likelihood and costs of rework are more prevalent in
certain subcontracts than others (e.g., structural steel and concrete). We
can obtain such information through a process of benchmarking by
establishing leading and lagging indicators that support the ability to
predict and respond to errors. We view this process of collecting, in­
tegrating, and disseminating information as a mechanism to assist with
transforming patterns of organizational and project behavior to reduce
risk associated with rework. In this instance, information constitutes the
energy that drives the organization and produces order [20]. This new
order can address the objectual ignorance (i.e., unacquaintance with
errors) that have tended to permeate the mindfulness of construction
organizations resulting in a ‘no worries, she'll be right’ doxastic attitude
prevailing, which has led to poor quality becoming unheeded.
How a construction organization designs its information flows and
exchanges within and between its projects serves as the primary factor
for determining its ability to anticipate risk and develop a sustainable
competitive advantage. Building a well-designed information structure
that is supported by a culture grounded in error management can en­
able a construction organization to engender learning in projects
[33,37,60]. However, the availability of knowledge alone does not
P.E.D. Love and J. Matthews
Fig. 4. A framework to manage the risk and uncertainty of rework.
ensure learning, as the capacity to absorb it must also be present.
As the organization learns it can adapt its performance to the newly
available information (e.g., labor supply and price of materials) ob­
tained from its external environment. Its projects therefore can adjust
and respond in unison by actively communicating knowledge (e.g.,
errors) with one another. The external environment can influence
projects in various ways and result in markedly different rates of re­
sponse, learning, and performance. As a consequence, an organization
needs to be able to respond to the dynamic and changing nature of risk
and prepare themselves for unexpected rework events by creating a
mindset of self-awareness by continuously monitoring itself.
The process of continual monitoring enables organizations to craft a
collective ability to store and retrieve knowledge and information [60].
Having the dexterity to accumulate information regarding past deci­
sions (e.g., post-mortems, project briefing and oral debriefing) provides
an organization with the ability to understand how amnesia in projects
can impact performance (e.g., time, cost, quality, safety and environ­
ment), augment their failure to learn and the ability to exploit knowl­
edge. Moreover, such information can be integrated with a preventative
maintenance policy to mitigate defects and identify substandard pro­
ducts [23].
To assist constructions organization with implementing a strategy of
requisite imagination as well as facilitate the transfer of knowledge, a
‘maestro’ is utilized before the commencement of construction to de­
termine rework risks and potential unexpected events. As well as aiding
the process of inquisition, a maestro would also be the knowledge
broker. The role would ideally be filled from within the organization
and have access to multiple sources of knowledge across the organi­
zation's project portfolio. The goal of implementing our requisite ima­
gination and resilience framework is to provide organizations with a
frame of reference for managing and coping with the risk and un­
certainty of rework. The framework also provides organizations with
the capacity to enhance their absorptive capacity by recognizing the
value of information, which can be used to understand and recognize
the risk and uncertainties of rework in their projects.
6. Conclusion
Quality is not given the priority it rightly deserves by construction
organizations, even though it shares a symbiotic relationship with
10
Reliability Engineering and System Safety 204 (2020) 107172
safety. With increasing regulatory requirements to ensure positive
safety outcomes, quality has taken a backseat within many construction
organizations with NCRs, particularly those requiring rework, being
demonized and considered to be a product of poor project performance.
As a result, non-conforming products and materials can manifest as
latent defects and structural failures, which can jeopardize the integrity
of assets and people's safety. The implementation of a robust quality
management system that is adequately resourced during the construc­
tion process should capture non-conformances before the hand-over of
an asset for occupation and its use. A quality management system can
amplify an organization's absorptive capacity and its ability to learn.
Casting aside quality, therefore, stymies learning and ultimately orga­
nizational and project performance.
Despite rework being ignored by construction organizations, the
Mascot and Opal Towers have been watershed events that have alerted
the need for the construction industry to recalibrate its approach to
quality. In this paper, we fundamentally aimed to understand how we
could anticipate (i.e., risks) and mitigate the negative consequences of
unexpected (i.e., uncertainty) rework during construction. By engaging
in a line of inquiry-based on sense-making, we examined the doc­
umentary sources of 569 projects provided by an international con­
struction organization to determine the costs and magnitude of rework
which can be used to anticipate the likelihood of risks in future projects.
In sum, we found that 210 projects had experienced non-conformances
requiring rework which accounted for a mean cost of 0.18% of their
contract value. The costs of rework resulted in a 15% loss in annual
profit for the construction organization over a seven-year period. We
also identified that rework was most likely to occur most often when
concreting and structural steel works were being performed.
We then sought to determine the conditions that contribute to re­
work. We, therefore, unearthed three conditions that hindered the or­
ganization's ability to ‘anticipate’ the presence and ‘respond’ to the
occurrence of rework in its projects: (1) the absence of a homogenous
culture; (2) the misalignment of strategy; and (3) organizational am­
nesia. The unexpected behavioral responses to culture, and strategy,
and inability to capture knowledge to ‘learn through’ are issues that are
unable to be foreseen and exacerbated by the presence of a relaxed
doxastic attitude toward quality. In response to the findings and to
accommodate the risk and uncertainty of rework in projects, we de­
veloped a novel framework to manage the risk and uncertainty of
P.E.D. Love and J. Matthews
rework based on requisite imagination and resilience. Our framework is
grounded in error management culture and thus enhances an organi­
zation's absorptive capacity by recognizing the value of information
acquired, which is derived from by actively implementing a process of
continuous improvement.
Thus, the framework can be used as a frame of reference to manage
risk during the construction of a wide-range of complex systems such as
oil and gas facilities, transport assets and networks, and industrial
plants.
Author statement
The first author (PL) was responsible for conceptualizing the re­
search, designing the research methodology and administrating the
projects. The first and second author (JM) jointly analyzed the data and
crafted the original draft. Revisions to the manuscript were jointly
undertaken by PL and JM.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ­
ence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the Editors and six anonymous
reviewers who provided invaluable feedback on our paper. We would to
thank the construction organization who participated in this study and
Dr Pauline Teo for assisting with the data collection. Furthermore, we
would like to acknowledge the support and encouragement provided by
Mr John Morrison (Frontline Coach) throughout the course of our
study. Finally, we would also like to acknowledge the financial support
of the Australian Research Council [DP130103018]; without it, we
would not have been able to undertake this research.
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