Understanding the relationship between Quality and Cost (and to a lesser extent Time) in construction projects, with the aim of preventing the occurrence of Quality problems

The main objective of this project is to understand the root causes of quality problems that have a significant impact on time and a significant impact on cost. The reason for this is because before an issue can be prevented, it must first be understood what is causing the issue to occur. In the case of Quality problems in the construction industry, despite significant advancement of technology and centuries of experience to learn from, there are still an alarming about of defects that occur in 2017 on a project- by- project basis. In order for the aforementioned objective to be achieved, an extensive knowledge of all the relevant topic concepts and ideologies was required, along with statistical information on the different levels of risk associated with defects in each trade area. Through conducting the necessary research, it was found that ‘Waterproofing’ was the trade that was considered to be the most ‘high- risk’ in terms of defects. As a result of this finding, it was determined that ‘Waterproofing’ would become the focal point of the analysis section of this research topic. A list comprised of 34 different Waterproofing defects was then accrued in order to be able to undertake the required analysis. This analysis was undertaken in the form of a 2 stage questionnaire process. The first questionnaire was concerned with determining the risk factor of each of the 34 individual defects in order to isolate those that were considered to be ‘high- risk’. 20 various industry professionals, with a minimum of 10 years experience in the construction industry, completed and returned the 1st questionnaire. The results obtained from this questionnaire showed that 11 of the 34 defects were considered to be ‘high- risk’. Following this, the 2nd questionnaire involved the participants providing a written response for each of the 11 ‘high- risk’ defects using a method known as the ‘Five Whys Technique’. In total, only 12 of the 20 participants completed and returned the 2 nd questionnaire. Despite the issues some of the participants had with comprehending the concept of the ‘Five Whys Technique’, all 12 of the participants provided detailed responses for all of the 11 ‘high- risk’ defects. The final stage of this research project involved the determination of the most suitable ‘Quality Management’ tools and techniques for each of the ‘high- risk’ defects, in order to either prevent or better deal with the root causes identified from the responses obtained from the 2nd questionnaire