Investigation of Quality Management practices in Building Construction Sites in the UK

Some large construction companies have adopted quality certification such as ISO9000 to manage the construction projects to ensure the effectiveness, flexibility and competitiveness of a business as a whole. However, the aspects of quality management are not addressed systematically and quality management at site level is left to the site managers without due considerations by the senior management. It is perceived that quality management does not get a high enough priority in comparison to Health and Safety management. A study presented in this paper investigates the status of quality management on building construction sites of a major ISO9000 certified construction company in the UK. A questionnaire survey of site managers working in different projects was conducted and the views of site managers were analysed to investigate their perception, types of quality management techniques used; priority of quality management over health and safety and status of training of site managers in quality management. Finally, the conclusions of the study are discussed.