Construction project management can be challenging at times. Even if you stay on schedule and within your budget, if your project doesn’t meet quality acceptance standards, you risk not just upsetting your stakeholders but also possible legal action. Quality means different things to different people, which is why you should adhere to construction quality control. It’s a detailed process evaluation and management system that enables you to specify what acceptable quality assurance looks like, monitor it, and make the required adjustments to make sure benchmarks are reached.
In the construction sector, quality assurance is crucial to a company’s expansion, reputation management, and revenue generation. But not everybody has any influence over the calibre of their projects. According to research, 12% of construction defects are the result of system and material failures, while over half (54%) of all errors “may be linked to human factors like untrained labour or insufficient supervision.”
What is quality control in construction?
A management technique called construction quality control makes sure the finished product adheres to the norms and regulations established by the client. That entails finishing the project within the agreed-upon parameters and preventing conflicts throughout the course of the project. Clients, regulatory bodies, environmental standards, and policy directives all determine quality. A construction quality management plan contains a list of all these methods and requirements for quality assurance.
Construction quality has two components: quality control (QA) and quality assurance (QC). Quality control is the strategy to attain it, whereas quality assurance establishes the quality management expectations and how quality will be reached. The construction quality control manager drives this quality management plan throughout all phases of the project.
The importance of construction quality control
If your client isn’t happy, your project isn’t successful. Controlling the quality of construction is crucial since it raises customer satisfaction. A satisfied client is one who will use your services once more and even suggest you to others. Practically speaking, producing quality work results in less rework. Reducing costs and keeping you on schedule come from not having to redo work that should have been completed correctly the first time. The morale of your team may be maintained in this way, which will make them more motivated and productive.
The fact that construction quality control results in a successful project is what matters most. Your work’s quality will determine how well a project is managed in the construction industry. Less issues and modifications result from a quality-focused approach, which also saves time and money.
Tips for introducing construction industry quality control procedures
There must be quality control methods in place when working on building quality control in order to make the task more transparent. Follow these four steps to accomplish this:
1. Make a quality assurance checklist
Create a quality control checklist to ensure that the inspection process is thorough and less likely to miss anything. Be precise. For pre-task discussions on how to carry out the work, a punch list should be distributed to the team. A checklist conveys to the crew what is crucial in their tasks and ensures quality control is met.
2. Create a plan for site inspections
Check the completed work carefully to check if it satisfies your quality acceptance standards. To decide what will be inspected and to inform the team when it will be inspected, create an inspection plan. Additionally, whether it be a member of your crew or an outsider, there must be someone in charge of conducting the inspection.
3. Define build quality expectations clearly – and early
This involves meeting all coding standards, finishing the project without any errors, and adhering to the client’s instructions. To make sure everyone is on the same page after done is defined, communicate the conclusion to your superintendents, crew, subcontractors, and everyone else involved in the building project plan.
4. Follow all on-site safety and compliance requirements
In addition to ensuring the safety of your employees, effective safety and compliance procedures stop your project from receiving subpar or inappropriate work. Use a trustworthy time-tracking tool to ensure employees take the required breaks and don’t work excessive overtime, for example, as a fatigued employee is more likely to need a shortcut now and then or to forget something totally.
5. Review, revise and rework as needed
The task isn’t done once you identify and correct a construction defect. Review what transpired and talk with your team about ways to prevent a repeat of the issue. To ensure that the problem doesn’t surface elsewhere, whatever the result, it should be communicated to the entire building team. Add the newly discovered information to your inspection checklist, if necessary.
How can digital construction quality management software help your business?
Currently, manual techniques are still used extensively for construction quality assurance, particularly during the constructing and inspection phases. The site manager regularly inspects the area to make sure that workers are adhering to quality assurance standards. However, this can be a cumbersome and ineffective method that necessitates using pen and paper and manually producing reports based on subjective feedback. A new generation of building document management software seeks to significantly increase efficiency in this.
By using a digital quality assurance platform like PlanRadar, the following aspects of typical building site operations can be streamlined:
- Plan comparison: Rather of having to wait for a paper blueprint to be delivered, if the architect’s plan changes, everyone working on the project is immediately informed.
- Task management: PlanRadar enables site managers to assign tasks to specific employees and then check to see if the job was completed to the required standard. To verify this, the workers can take pictures or videos of the task they’ve finished.
- Report generation: Site managers can quickly produce quality assurance report templates so that all interested parties can assess development. These status reports can also highlight newly discovered quality problems so that corrective action can be taken.
- Building inspections: Ensure that the work has been finished to your standards of quality, and note any problems directly on the blueprint.
- Real-time communication: Quality in construction relies on constant communication and rapid responses to queries, and communication is key to ensuring the highest possible level of building quality. With real-time communication, all project participants can ask questions, raise tickets or submit feedback + reports as soon as they come up.
How to get started with digital quality control
Monitoring the work closely is necessary to manage the quality of building projects. You should utilise construction project management software to simplify this procedure. PlanRadar’s cloud-based software provides you with the real-time data you need to react and satisfy your client’s quality requirements at any stage of the build, from design to planning to construction.
Looking to start using a construction management tool that will allow you to organise your projects more effectively during all phases of building construction? Contact us today to schedule a free PlanRadar demo.
