Why Quality Control Makes Such a Difference in Construction?

While quality is always important, there are not many industries in which it is as relevant as in the construction industry. Here, some mistakes are life-threatening, while others are incredibly expensive. One thing that they all have in common, nonetheless, is the fact that they can be avoided quite easily with the help of a good quality control effort. With all of this in mind and without further ado, here’s why quality control matters so much in construction and what you can do in order to improve it on your own projects.

What Is Construction Quality Control?

Clients often have an image in their minds that they can’t fully describe. Contractors sometimes make a mistake and misinterpret what the client wants. When the end result doesn’t match the criteria of the client, whose fault is it? This is a question that is not as simple to determine and it’s why construction quality control exists in the first place.

While no one can peek into another person’s mind, guidelines described in the contract are put in writing and relatively simple to interpret. Quality is defined by the client but also by local regulatory agencies and environmental guidelines.

The construction quality control happens in two forms:

• QA: Quality assurance sets the quality expectations, as well as the way in which quality will be achieved. It is a methodology that allows your team to evaluate and identify crucial construction standards.

• QC: Quality control is the plan through which a certain quality standard will be achieved. It is a management system that ensures that the final product meets the guidelines set by the client.

For both of these things to work, it’s vital that the quality control in construction management is done right.

Why Is Construction Quality Control Important?

There are several reasons why construction quality control is so important. First, building something right the first time saves you a lot of money and effort. It also boosts the safety on site (fewer work hours means less chance for someone to get injured).

Poor quality in construction also puts the lives of others at risk. The integrity of a structure makes a difference between life and death (or at least injury/property damage). This is something that is beneficial for everyone. For the client, there’s health/life and property at the stake. For the contractor, there’s the matter of fines, penalties, and legal liability.

Cost-control

Quality control and cost control often go hand-in-hand. Building things right the first time is always the least expensive of options, seeing as how demolition and rebuilding (or just altering the existing structure) may be incredibly expensive. According to some surveys, rework on projects, on average, may increase the total construction cost by as much as 10.89%.

Defects will also create non-ideal conditions, which will either cause expensive injuries or expensive property damage. Moreover, the majority of households are built for efficiency, including energy efficiency. Building a suboptimal home means building a home that takes more money to heat or cool down.

Low quality of work usually means inadequate use of employee time, as well as an inadequate use of materials. The first means more working hours (which are an additional cost). The latter implies a scenario in which you’re wasting more materials than necessary. Each of these scenarios puts you at a deficit.

The biggest difference can be made in the process of pre-construction. Communication in this stage ensures that some of the costliest mistakes and oversights are avoided.

Clearly Defined Procedures

The next crucial step lies in identifying all the quality-control procedures and ensuring that they’re properly defined. Here, you need to:

• Create a definition of what "complete" means.

• Have a schedule of regular inspections.

• Make a checklist that your quality control team needs to abide by.

• Review and revise every deficiency.

The list of methods used in the pre-construction, construction, and post-construction phases is also quite lengthy.

For instance, in pre-construction, you have:

• Checking qualifications of partners

• Review constructability of the project

During the construction phase, there are:

• Regular meetings

• Regular communication

• Mock ups

• Compliance inspections

• Testing

• Zero-defect policy enforcement

Post-construction, the tools available are:

• Commissioning

• Validation

• Close-out

The dedication of the team in charge will determine just how vehement you are with enforcing it all.

Material Specifications

In construction, there are certain materials that are made on-site, which is why there are no prefabrication standards that you can rely on. For instance, when it comes to working with concrete, the strength and integrity of the mixture, the composition, etc. can change everything.

One such example is the concrete pavements which need to be able to withstand a certain pressure but you also don’t want to overspend by making them. For this to work, you need to compare the load ratio with the pay factor in order to find the solution that works for this particular project.

Finding the Right Quality Control Manager

Another thing you need to bear in mind is the importance of getting the right person to take care of your quality control. In order to start out, you need a reliable quality control manager. While this is someone who is going to perform all this supervision, it’s also the person who’s going to be in direct contact with the client. So, communication skills are vital here, seeing as how this is the person whose responsibility it is to check if everything's adding up.

The traits that one needs to have in order to be a good quality control manager are organizational and leadership skills, great attention to detail, as well as knowledge about quality control procedures/legal standards. Finding all of this in a single person is far from easy.

Aside from this, they also need to be responsible and tech-savvy. Modern construction quality control is impossible to imagine without the right tool. In order to be valid, reports need to be made on a regular basis. For reasons of safety and liability, everything needs to be documented and kept in a well-monitored database.

In terms of education, a bachelor’s degree in science or business-based field and previous experience in construction are the best prerequisites.

In ConclusionIn the end, you don’t have to understand the entirety of the process in order to use it effectively. Still, you need to grasp the basics and hire the right person for the job. The more you know, the easier this task gets and the more consistent the results become. Still, this is often a significant investment. For this reason, it’s crucial that you fully understand its significance. This will help you justify this investment and convince you that you’re, indeed, getting your money’s worth out of it.

My name is Stacey Shannon and I am a freelance writer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I am really passionate about writing and I consider myself a creative person, and a cat lover.