IJIE 2003Quality and Safety Management Systems in Construction: Some Insight from ContractorsTodd W. Loushine, M.S., P.E. Peter Hoonakker, Ph.D.Center for Quality and Productivity ImprovementUniversity of Wisconsin-MadisonFunding provided by CPWR (no. 1020-48)

OverviewSafety statistics for construction indicate high fatality and injury ratesQuality research indicates inefficiencies and mismanagement are wasting billions of dollarsThe nature of construction requires the work processes to deal with uncertainties, continuous changes, and riskWe are investigating a new type of management system, to deal with the dynamic and uncertain nature of construction work

Cost of Quality in ConstructionFrom 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 ConstructionThree primary participants (Carty, 1995):Owner: wants something builtDesigner: develops a planContractor: converts a plan into a productConstruction 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 ManagementApply traditional safety management (OSHA, 1989)Management commitmentEmployee involvementHazard identification and controlTraining and educationAccident investigationProgram documentation and ReviewTo Quality Management principles (Dean & Bowen, 1994)Customer-focusTeam workContinuous Improvement

Literature ReviewConducted Fall 2001, updated Fall 2003Key search engines: ABI inform, WebSPIRS, ProQuest, PsychINFO, and Web of KnowledgeKey words: quality, TQM, quality management, safety, safety management, occupational safety, construction, and construction industry18 construction safety articles26 construction quality articles2 empirical and 3 theoretical articles on safety and quality management

Quality Management ArticlesPositive 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 ArticlesBarriers to successful implementationnature of constructionpoor understanding of customer expectationslack of management commitment/leadershiplack of worker empowermentSelf-assessment tools, such as ISO 9000, MBNQA, and BS 5750 were helpfulAlso found to improve safety performance in a two studies

Results - QualityCited 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 jobsiteQuality improvement methods reported: education/training(4), teamwork(2), accountability(2), audits(2), and use of pre-qualification(1) data for hiring subsReported 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 dont know how you would collect data on the quality performance.

DiscussionSafety response were similar to the literatureUse of EMR & IR for safety performanceTraditional safety characteristicsHowever, focus on workerQuality responses were not similar to the literatureVarying definition of quality, and metricsLimited acknowledgement of a formal systemSimilar to safety, focus on workerIntegration of quality and safety not well understood, limited application

SummaryConstruction 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 processAn 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

AcknowledgementsProfessors P. Carayon, M.J. Smith, UW-MadisonProfessor E.A. Kapp, UW-WhitewaterWI ABC Safety Director Don MoenCPWR for support

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

*Owner needs something built, residential, non-residential, highway, or commercial*We could only find these articles, we had to refer to manufacturing research to broaden our basis*More diffinative transition between barriers and helpful assessments