Quality control

Abstract

When managing conformance in construction projects an important aspect is quality control (QC), in order to assure high quality of outcome as well as in the project process. Thus the main purpose of performing QC is to determine if the established quality requirements and the project objectives are achieved. Furthermore an important part of QC is to investigate the causes of the arising problems, as well as finding ways to eliminate unsatisfactory performance.

As quality control techniques are needed in order to perform QC, two quality control techniques are introduced in this article. The first technique introduced is “cause and effect diagrams”, which focus on correcting the non-conformance after it has occurred, which is the focus of most quality control techniques. The idea of the technique is to find the roots to the problem and visualizing them by creating a fish bone diagram. The possibilities and limitations to the technique will be clarified. “Statistical process control” is a tool to prevent unsatisfactory performance and is the second technique introduced in the article. This technique deals with statistical analysis of data obtained from similar projects, and control chart can be used to determine if the outcome of the analysis is tolerable. As this technique requires data logging of previous projects, the possibility of implementation of the technique in a construction process is discussed as the complexity and conformance requirements in construction projects can make the technique less effective even though the construction process is a repetitive process overall.