Quality Assurance in the Construction Industry Essay

Quality Assurance (QA) is one of the most important steps in any project or plan being put together. Making sure the highest quality is provided at the end of a project is what will make a difference to shareholders and customers. Ensuring that all steps of the project are checked and validated will help catch any risks that might hinder the project success. A QA plan needs to be put together by the PM to make sure all steps and tasks of the project are checked to for highest quality. Checking in with the stakeholders throughout the whole project stages to review quality of the product is also very helpful in reaching stakeholder satisfaction in the end.

Quality Management is viewed as a vital factor for the long-term achievement of an organization. Quality Management implementation has been an imperative viewpoint for enhancing organizational performance. The connections between quality management and execution have been explored by various researchers. While analyzing the relationship between quality management and execution, researchers have utilized distinctive execution sorts, for example, budgetary, creative, operational and quality execution. Research on quality administration has analyzed the connections between the Total quality administration and organization's performance. Quality management concentrates on continuous change of processes inside the organization to give excellent

Senior leadership must determine and direct the level of quality that is acceptable within the organization. Leadership should prioritize areas of quality and use data based on benchmarks from other facilities. (Dlugacz, 2006). In addition the author states there are some important areas that must be monitored for quality. Compliance must be followed by leaders and all

The purpose of this paper is to propose on outline for evaluating the quality improvement initiative and financial implications, along with giving a description of specific metrics. A recommendation will be discussed as to how the organization can represent the data related to the quality improvement issue for ongoing monitoring. Also, there will be an explanation of how the organization can create an integrated view of performance that links finance and quality.

While the assessment function of external quality assurance provides a significant amount of motivation for organisations to engage in continuous learning and development, the goal-setting function provides direction and a framework for learning and development. Organisations that face external quality assurance programs will naturally work towards meeting the standards that they face. As a result, learning and development in the organisation is guided by the standards of external quality assurance bodies and the best practices that they prescribe. By both setting the standards and creating the motivation for organisational learning and development, the functions of external quality assurance bodies play a

Project Quality Management| -Cost Benefit Analysis -Cost of Quality -Control Charts -Benchmarking -Design of Experiments -Statistical Sampling -Flowcharting -Proprietary quality manage- ment methodologies -Additional quality planning tools (Brainstorming, Affinity Diagrams, Nominal Group Technique)| -Cost benefit: Looking at how much your quality activities will cost. -Benchmarking: means using the results of quality planning on other projects to set goals for your own. -Design of experiments: is the list of all the kinds of tests you are going to run on your product. -Total Quality Management (TQM): Everyone in the company is responsible for quality and is able to make a difference -Continuous Improvement (Kaizen): constant process improvement in the form of small changes -Just-In-Time(JIT) -ISO 9000: Companies document what they do and they do what they document

To be effective, organizational structure should be established after an organization’s strategy (Pryor, et.al., p. 1-4). Because an organization is tied closely to the Five P’s (Purpose, Principles, Processes, People, and Performance), Strategic Quality Management should permeate its entire breadth. An organizations mission, vision, goals, and objectives should include dedication to the act of providing customer satisfaction through a clear definition of quality. Its principles should include a focus on customer-based quality management, as should its processes people, and performance. Once the strategy is determined, the organizations systems and structure should compliment its dedication towards Strategic Quality Management.

The article highlighted several areas on how quality management affects the performance of an organization. Studies done have come back with mixed results. Some studies have proven that implementing quality implementation can have many benefits to an organization. However some studies have shown that organizations that have implemented total quality managements do not necessarily outperform organizations that do not or have not implemented total quality management programs. Of the results that have been published for organizations that had issues with quality management implementation several

Quality assurance is any orderly procedure of checking to see if a product or service being developed is to a high standard and meets specific requirements in developing products and services. Various companies have a different department which is truly dedicated to quality assurance. A quality assurance system is said to give customers confidence within the company and their company's reliability, to expand work processes and their efficiency, and to enable a company to better compete with others. Quality assurance was initially introduced in World War II when weapons were reviewed, examined and tested for defects after they were made. Today's quality assurance systems emphasise catching defects before they get into the final

At the very outset , it is important to state that there is no so called best or correct structure for quality improvement. More importantly is the institutionalization of Quality improvement with clear delineation of oversight roles and responsibilities as well as accountability for undertaking various Quality Improvement (QI) activities. Different environments calls upon different types of structures, for example what operates in centralised organizations may not work or equally effective in case of decentralized organizations. Awareness about quality aspects needs to be for the entire organization cutting across the levels and departments. To the extend possible there should be quality objectives for each and every activity and or operations

Quality management is an act that monitor all activities that needed to maintain and sustain high quality output, continuous improvement of process and product to a desire level of excellence in order to create customer satisfaction (Flynn, Schroeder, & Sakakibara, 1994, p. 342). Nowadays, increase in globalization and international trade had led to the increase of competition in the global market. The increase of competition had forced companies to focus on the concept of quality in their business and discover that effective quality management can increase their competitive advantage in the global market (Anderson, Rungtusanatham, & Schroeder, 1994).

Quality has been defined in many ways. One of the most popular definitions of quality is meeting or exceeding customer expectations but the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the American Society for Quality (ASQ) defined quality as the “totality of characteristics of a product or service that bears on its ability to satisfy specified need” (Evans, 2008). Although the construction industry defined quality as meeting the requirements of the designer, constructor and regulatory agencies as well as the owner, but the problem that the industry has is one of poor culture. The industry appears to operate under the impression that quality management applies only to certain construction processes but fail to realize that the approaches used to handle customers and build a lasting relationship, develop strategy, measure performance and analyze data, reward and train employees, design and deliver products and services, and act as leaders in their organizations are the true enablers of quality, customer satisfaction, and business results. A construction project only matches the owner's needs when it is on time, within budget, and in

The company is a firm believer of quality in every step and maintains it in every facet of the organization. A quality management system has been designed and implemented by the company to ensure a consistent level of standards at all times. It also works continuously on technological and process innovations in order to improve them.

Quality assurance can be defined as a system to monitor to and evaluate a product or a service. It identifying and recommending measures to make improvements to set standards and performance and ensuring everything is working well aiming to avoid problems keeping everything running smooth and improve products and services. In relation to the teaching, training assessing it ensures the product/service which the learner is receiving being to correct standard and the internal quality assurance are the checks which are done to ensure this is occurring.

Quality is defined as conformance to the requirement, not goodness: The first absolute explains that management must strive to ensure that during the quality improvement process everyone is getting things done right the first time. Crosby stated that in other to do this management must state clearly what are the individual roles of the employee, management must also supply the employees with the resources needed to do their task and lastly management must give continuous support and encouragement to the employees during the improvement process. When quality is defined as conformance to requirement it helps to reduce hassle and improve quality at the same time. Crosby (1995).