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Construction challenged to act on quality

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Comments

  1. I would have thought that the following points as stated in the article are established standard practice.

    •How do we achieve quality assurance in construction?
    •What is the role of Building Control?
    •Is there a need for independent assurance?
    •Do certain elements of construction need independent assurance on the grounds of health and safety implications?

  2. As interim PM, personally investigate why bricks were swimming only to discover the bricks had been laid frog down. Neither previous PM, BC officer or CA had noticed or appreciated affect on wall tie engagement.

  3. Whilst QA and ISO Standards and Management theory associated with Quality Assurance is all well and good in theory. The reality in many cases is and has for a long time been quite different as illustrated in this article as well as others.
    When you are working to such low margins as a result of a lowest price culture within a fragmented industry which struggles to recruit, train and develop its people, is it really surprising that quality is an issue.

  4. It is within this fragmented industry that the traditional checks & balances evolved and should be reinstated.

    Independent assurance is essential whether by Building Control, resident Engineer/ Architect, CoW or other inspection authority.

    Self certification provides little if any quality assurance and it’ll be some time before any integration or serious investment in skills happens.

  5. Whilst poor workmanship and supervision were clearly primary causes the lack of independent assurance/ scrutiny was also found to be significant failures. The four key point questions raised by John Cole re. quality assurance , building control and independent assurance are far from standard practice and needs to be answered.

    But there’s no simple answers but it appears key processes are no longer fit for purpose, checks and balances need to be reinstated and independent assurance, particularly of safety critical elements need special attention.

    Currently a fragmented industry implements fragmented, ineffective QA, ISO and regulatory standards across design, construction and building control processes. Part of the answer lies in a more joined up approach and more robust control of safety critical elements.

  6. In response to the April article on structural quality concerns:
    Is this really a surprise, each issue there’s another BIM note, another whizzy way to build….why don’t we go back to basics??
    Let’s get back to training staff, let’s get people back on site talking to and working with the work force. Instead I see more and more reasons to keep staff in the site huts behind computers.
    Let’s get the design team understanding construction basics rather than forcing BIM on projects?
    Quality starts on a blank piece of paper.
    However you dress this up we are builders and should celebrate this. We have to respectfully communicate with the delivery team, reduce texts, reduce emails, talk/engage – work on site, gain experience, learn and improve.
    We seem to constantly look to e solutions to solve site issues……
    Let’s let the site teams work to well coordinated well designed drawings on site not constantly sat in front of a computer, heck I can’t remember the last time I saw an A1 drawing!!??
    Soap box time over but I do worry that the industry I so enjoy is been steered by some who may not know the fundamentals yet preach that we have to modernise our approach.

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