Improvement of the quality of collaboration between contractors and subcontractors

There are a number of different parties involved in the processes for realization of building projects. A good collaboration between those partners is very important in order to achieve an optimal building process. This research project is focused on the collaboration between two important parties: the contractors and sub contractors. The aim of the research is to enlarge the efficiency of the building process by improving the quality of the collaboration between these two parties. The research method is based upon the Quality Function Deployment, which provides a systematic approach for meeting the customer’s needs. Both contractors as well as sub contractors are in this research approach regarded as customers and suppliers, receiving goods and services form each other during the construction process. Both groups in this research are asked to judge from their point of view of ‘clients’, the performances delivered by their ‘suppliers’. The research program contains three major steps. First an adequate instrument is developed to represent and measure performances of collaboration. The instrument, in terms of a dedicated questionnaire consists of 31 different variables or ‘components’. In the next step this instrument is used to measure recent performances of collaboration between contractors and sub contractors in the Netherlands. For this purpose a large group of experts from contractors and subcontractors has been asked for contributions. The response group was large enough to obtain a qualitative representation of the contractors and subcontractors of the Dutch building industry. The results of this phase in the research project provide data for identifying the specific aspects of collaboration that need improvement. Both the measurement of each variable as well as the ranking of each variable in a list are presented