Understanding quality assurance in construction

By H.W. Chung

The ISO 9000 family of quality standards has been adopted world-wide as a framework for building better relationships between suppliers and customers.

Originally a manufacturing-industry concern, quality is now acknowledged to be a key issue for the construction sector whose clients increasingly demand quality certification.

Understanding quality assurance in construction explains the concepts and practice of quality assurance and management in construction.

Clearly written and well-illustrated, with plenty of sample quality system documents and other pro-forma, Understanding quality assurance in construction will make the daunting task of developing, implementing and managing a quality system a great deal easier for contractors.

This is practical guide for building and construction contractors and sub-contractors, project managers and other construction professionals.

Also, for undergraduate and postgraduate students of building, construction management and project management.

The construction industry has been slow, and somewhat reluctant, to embrace the ISO 9000 concepts of quality assurance in its practice.

The phenomenon is particularly apparent in small to medium-sized contracting companies. However, there is a movement especially in the public sector towards employing only quality endorsed contractors and subcontractors for new projects.

In the foreseeable future, all contracting companies irrespective of size will be attracted to the benefits, and certainly the business necessity, of following the trend already set by the big names in the industry.