IJIE 2003

Quality and Safety

Management Systems in
Construction: Some Insight
from Contractors
Todd W. Loushine, M.S., P.E.
Peter Hoonakker, Ph.D.
Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Funding provided by CPWR (no. 1020-48)
Overview
 Safety statistics for construction indicate high
fatality and injury rates
 Quality research indicates inefficiencies and
mismanagement are wasting billions of
dollars
 The nature of construction requires the work
processes to deal with uncertainties,
continuous changes, and risk
 We are investigating a new type of
management system, to deal with the
dynamic and uncertain nature of construction
work
 Safety Statistics
 Construction fatalities account for 22% of the U.S. total,
while employing only 7% of workforce. In comparison,
manufacturing employs 15-21% and accounts for only
11% of fatalities (BLS, 2003)
 W.C. premiums cost contractors anywhere from 1.5% to
6.9% of total project costs (Agarwal & Everett, 1997)
 A construction company operating on a 3% profit
margin would need to increase sales by $333,000 to
pay for a $10,000 injury, such as amputation of a finger
(Construction Chart Book, 2002)
 Indirect costs associated with worker medical injuries
were estimated up to 20.3 times greater than direct
costs (Hinze & Applegate, 1991)
Safety Issues in Construction
Safety Issues in Construction
Cost of Quality in Construction
 From a quality/productivity standpoint, labor
typically accounts for 30% of project costs
(Picard, 2000)
 Manpower mismanagement and construction
delays were found to contribute to 40-60% non-
productive time for onsite work (Jereas et al.,
2000)
 Rework costs up to 12% of total project costs and
up to 11% of total project work hours (Love et al.,
1999)
 Dun & Bradstreet data indicate that construction
business fail at a higher rate than all other
businesses (Construction Chart Book, 2002)
The “Nature” of Construction
 Three primary participants (Carty, 1995):
 Owner: wants something “built”
 Designer: develops a “plan”
 Contractor: converts a plan into a product
 Construction is very complex and non-
standardized (Rowlinson & Walker, 1995)
 Exposure to weather, dynamic site conditions,
coordination of multiple parties, etc.
 81% of U.S. contractors have less than 9
employees (Construction Chart book, 2002)
Our Concept: Integrate Quality
& Safety Management
 Apply “traditional safety management”
(OSHA, 1989)
 Management commitment
 Employee involvement
 Hazard identification and control
 Training and education
 Accident investigation
 Program documentation and Review
 To Quality Management principles (Dean &
Bowen, 1994)
 Customer-focus
 Team work
 Continuous Improvement
Our Basic Research Question

Can quality and safety be integrated

into a management system?
Literature Review
 Conducted Fall 2001, updated Fall 2003
 Key search engines: ABI inform, WebSPIRS,
ProQuest, PsychINFO, and Web of
Knowledge
 Key words: quality, TQM, quality
management, safety, safety management,
occupational safety, construction, and
construction industry
 18 construction safety articles
 26 construction quality articles
 2 empirical and 3 theoretical articles on safety
and quality management
Safety Management Articles
 Positive effect on safety performance indicators
 Management commitment (9)
 Audits/observations (8)
 Strong safety culture/climate (8)
 Communication (6)
 Employee involvement (5)
 Continuous improvement (4)
 Safety through Designers (3)
 Partnerships (1)
 Training (alone) was not found to improve safety
 Safety performance comprised of incidence
rates, EMR, survey response, and observations
Quality Management Articles
 Positive effect on quality performance indicators:
 TQM, in general (7)
 Employee empowerment (4)
 Partnering with subs and suppliers (4)
 Customer focus (3)
 Team work (3)
 Management commitment (3)
 Communication (2)
 Continuous improvement (2)
 Quality performance indicated by cost (budget) and
time (schedule) growth, number of defects/errors,
survey response, audit/observations, and customer
satisfaction rating
Quality Management Articles
 “Barriers” to successful implementation
 “nature” of construction
 poor understanding of customer
expectations
 lack of management
commitment/leadership
 lack of worker empowerment
 Self-assessment tools, such as ISO 9000,
MBNQA, and BS 5750 were helpful
 Also found to improve safety performance in
a two studies
Safety and Quality
Management Articles
 Safety and quality criteria used in pre-
qualification for hiring subcontractors
 The complexity of an integrated S&Q
management system requires expertise and
resources
 Based on a survey, quality managers were
more positive than safety managers about
integrating quality and safety
 The Deming approach was applied to safety
management (theoretical)
Objectives for Interviews
 The literature review indicated:
 Characteristics of safety programs
 Safety performance indicators: EMR, IR
 Characteristics of quality programs
 Quality performance indicators: budget and
schedule growth
 Safety and quality integration has been given
minimal attention by researchers
 We wanted to know what contractors were
doing for safety and quality, and what they
thought about integrating quality and safety
Methods
 Interviews (face-to-face and telephone) were
conducted in the Summer and Fall of 2002.
 A list of interview candidates was provided by
the WI ABC, attempted to provide a variety of
work specialty and contractor size
 Out of 12 candidates, nine interviews were
conducted
 Semi-structured interview format was used
 Interviews ran between 30-75 minutes, and
were tape recorded for transcription
 Study Sample
Type of Union Size Years in Annual Insurer EMR Quality
Contractor or Category Business Sales Status Awards
Merit*
ST: Union 20-99 20+ $3M Private 0.78 None
concrete
ST: Merit 10-19 20+ $1.5M Private 1.02 None
mechanical
ST: roofing Merit 20-99 10-20 $3M Private 0.61 None

Both: Merit 1-9 10-20 $150K Private 0.83 None

carpentry
GC Both 100-499 20+ $60M Private 0.43 Many

GC Merit 20-99 20+ $30M Private 0.50 Many

ST: Merit 500+ 20+ $100M Self 0.66 Many

electrical
GC Merit 20-99 20+ $10M Private 0.62 Some

ST: Union 100-499 20+ N.R. Both 1.04 Some

paint/glass
Results - Safety
 5 contractors felt that the EMR was the best
representation of safety performance
 Safety “goals” cited varied, zero accidents(6)
and/or reduction of the EMR(3)
 Education/training of workers(3), more
involvement by GC(3), and management
commitment(2) were cited for safety performance
improvement
 Contractors felt that worker attitude(3) and nature
of construction(5) were barriers
 “I think the biggest barrier (to safety) is the
worker himself. They have an uncanny belief that
it’s not going to happen to them, and they don’t
need to do it (work safely).”
Results - Quality
 Cited measures for quality: how it “looks”, work
hours to complete, productivity or efficiency
rating, meeting schedule deadlines, visual
inspections, number of building defects, repeat
business, customer satisfaction rating, and
cleanliness of jobsite
 Quality improvement methods reported:
education/training(4), teamwork(2),
accountability(2), audits(2), and use of pre-
qualification(1) data for hiring subs
 Reported barriers to quality improvement
included: worker attitude(4), lack of
awareness(3), product/supply problems(2), and
the nature of the construction process(2)
 “Boy, I don’t know how you would collect data on
the quality performance.”
Results – Quality and Safety
 Concerning similarities, 2 acknowledged the
potential benefits (improved productivity, happier
workers, better business)
 6 contractors felt that safety and quality were two
entirely different issues (and required special
attention)
 3 contractors indicated that a strong safety
program would probably improve quality
performance
 “You have people that either have their stuff
together and are doing well, and then those who
are not following safety are not running a good
business either.”
Discussion
 Safety response were similar to the literature
 Use of EMR & IR for safety performance
 Traditional safety characteristics
 However, focus on worker
 Quality responses were not similar to the
literature
 Varying definition of quality, and metrics
 Limited acknowledgement of a formal system
 Similar to safety, focus on worker
 Integration of quality and safety not well
understood, limited application
Summary
 Construction is a complex process, involving
multiple parties (with individual interests) to
transform a mental concept into a physical
structure.
 The non-standard or unpredictable nature of
construction increases the variability within
the process
 An integrated safety and quality management
system could help reduce some variability in
the construction process, however it is not
very well understood at this time
Acknowledgements
 Professors P. Carayon, M.J. Smith, UW-
Madison
 Professor E.A. Kapp, UW-Whitewater
 WI ABC Safety Director Don Moen
 CPWR for support

Thanks for Listening!

For more information or copies of reports,
contact Todd W. Loushine at
twloushine@wisc.edu