UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE CAJAMARCA

ESCUELA DE POST GRADO

MAESTRA EN CIENCIAS
MENCIN INGENIERA
LNEA: INGENIERA Y GERENCIA DE LA CONSTRUCCIN
Mag. Ing Hugo Miranda Tejada
1

PAPER N 01

QUALITY CONTROL

Quality is defined as 'fitness to purpose', i.e. providing a product (a building)
which provides an appropriate quality for the purpose for which it is intended.
The price to be paid for a building is a reflection of the expectations of quality -
A cheaper building probably uses inferior materials and is likely to be less
attractive and less durable. The quality is also related to the timing of when it is
delivered.

1.- Quality control in the construction industry can be looked at as having
three elements:
To produce a building which satisfies the client
To produce a building where quality is related to the price.
To produce a building in which sufficient time is allowed to obtain the
desired quality.
Like most other aspects of construction management quality control has to be
planned. Planning seeks 'order' and a quality control system for a construction
project reflects this sense of order. It may be seen to be in five basic stages:
Setting the quality standard or quality of design required by client.
Planning how to achieve the required quality, construction methods,
equipments, materials and personnel to be employed.
Construct the building right first time.
Correct any quality deficiencies.
Provide for long term quality control through establishing systems and
developing a quality culture.
2.- The costs of quality

It is obvious that quality is proportional to costs associated with the construction
process. Costs associated with quality need to be identified for management
decisions. The costs of quality can be broken down as follows:
Failure costs: The costs of demolishing and rebuilding, the cost of
production time, delays to other gangs
Appraisal costs: The cost of inspection and testing.
Prevention costs: The costs of providing better designs, more training to
reduce failure costs, more maintenance.
3.- Quality Assurance QA

Quality assurance is a mechanism for ensuring that the construction process
takes place within the framework of a quality management system. This
UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE CAJAMARCA
ESCUELA DE POST GRADO
MAESTRA EN CIENCIAS
MENCIN INGENIERA
LNEA: INGENIERA Y GERENCIA DE LA CONSTRUCCIN
Mag. Ing Hugo Miranda Tejada
2

suggests that quality assurance defines the organization structure, tasks and
duties for implementing quality management.

In 1987, the Building research establishment surveyed the quality problems on
Britain's construction sites. They found that half of the faults were design
related, and 40% of the problems arose from faulty construction. 10% were
products failing.

4.- Design faults
Misunderstanding the client's brief to develop the design.
Using information which is incorrect or out of date.
Misunderstanding of the client's expectations of quality standards.
Lack of co-ordination between the designers.
Loose or inappropriate specifications.
5.- Construction faults
Not building to drawings or specifications
Poor supervision leading to bad workmanship
Insufficient management of the quality of construction.
In order to eliminate those potential problems many clients have looked.
to quality assurance to reassure them that they will get the right building
without undue quality problem.
6.- Cost Control and Cost information systems

Cost Control is an obvious objective in Construction Management and
Construction Scheduling. It should be recognized that no amount of paperwork
achieves this construction cost control. The actual control is achieved through
the ultimate decision of the manager that something should be done differently
and the translation of that decision into practice. The paperwork provides
guidance on what control actions should be taken and therefore it is rather a
cost information system.

The elements of a cost control system are:

Observation
Comparison of observation with some desired standard
Corrective action to take if necessary.

A construction cost control system should enable a manager to observe current
cost levels, compare them with a standard plan or norm, and institute corrective
action to to keep cost within acceptable bounds.

Most construction cost control systems have an inordinately long response time.
Even the best cost control system would provide information on what was
UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE CAJAMARCA
ESCUELA DE POST GRADO
MAESTRA EN CIENCIAS
MENCIN INGENIERA
LNEA: INGENIERA Y GERENCIA DE LA CONSTRUCCIN
Mag. Ing Hugo Miranda Tejada
3

happening last week or last month. Since, in construction projects some
activities might finish in a week or a month, then nothing could be done if the
performance of such activities was reported to overrun estimates of respective
costs.

7.- Developments in Cost Control Systems

There are three developments in construction management which show
promise of improving cost control system in the construction industry

1. Short term scheduling and control.
2. Project Cost model.
3. Quantitative scheduling

One of the unique Construction Software that provides a futuristic construction
cost control tool for construction management is the CFF3 for cash flow
forecasting. Version three has taken into consideration the possible deviations
from estimates of cost as well as cash in patterns and provided a means to
return back to the original estimate by damping out these deviations through the
remaining period of construction. Updated estimates are provided each time an
actual figure is added such that the end cost remain same as was originally
estimated. It provides an excellent guide for managers through the construction
project to capture the best possible actions in each period activities. Labor rate
and efficiency constitute the core of Quantitative Scheduling which is highly
recommended if cost minimization in respect of productivity rates is sought.


TQM IS A NEW MANAGEMENT
PHILOSOPHY


Also Construction Cost is directly related to Material price, Material usage and
waste, Fixed and varied overhead expenditure. These are the areas where
managers should seek action for future adjustments in order to get back to
original estimate or practically as near as possible.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, where early management
theoreticians such as Taylor, Emerson, and Church introduced the basic ideas
of control, the concepts and frameworks of management control theory changed
constantly. As Berry et al. (1998) point it out, the early study of management
control seems to be rooted in a functionalistic and rather mechanical paradigm
in line with other general management and organization theories,
which were dominating in the same period. However, the literature study on the
subject shows that during the last several decades, various alternative
viewpoints based on different sets of conceptions and assumptions have been
presented.
UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE CAJAMARCA
ESCUELA DE POST GRADO
MAESTRA EN CIENCIAS
MENCIN INGENIERA
LNEA: INGENIERA Y GERENCIA DE LA CONSTRUCCIN
Mag. Ing Hugo Miranda Tejada
4

TQM is a relatively new management philosophy, which has evolved from a
rather narrow and mechanistic approach known as Statistical Quality Control
introduced by Shewhart to a more holistic and humanistic approach under the
term TQM (Dahlgaard et al. 1994, 1998, 2002; Dahlgaard, Park et al., 2001).

During the last five decades the basic assumptions and paradigms of quality
have constantly changed parallel with the changes of paradigms within
management control and organizational theory (Dahlgaard, Park 1999).

Despite of the increasing focus on TQM during the 80s and 90s, and despite of
the fact that quality became a central agenda for top managers, there have
been relatively limited attempts on searching, reflecting and analyzing the TQM
framework seen from a broader theoretical perspective (Scott & Cole, 1999). In
fact, this was also one of the major criticisms, which the quality movement often
received from various theoreticians during the middle and last part of the 90s in
particular from organization theorists (Dahlgaard, Park 2002).

Although we find, that much of the criticisms from organization theorists are
unreasonable, because it is often based on insufficient knowledge on the quality
movement and the becoming process of TQM (Dahlgaard, Park 2002), we do
believe that the two areas can and should mutually benefit by learning from
each other. In this respect sound criticisms may stimulate the learning process,
and we hope that this article can initiate new research, which integrates
knowledge from both TQM and organization theory.

With this consideration in background, the overall aim of the article is to
compare the contemporary thinking within Management Control theories with
the contents and basic concepts/ principles of one of the leading quality award
models the EFQM Excellence Model. In this article, we will assume that the
leading quality award models such as the Malcolm Baldrige Model and the
European Excellence Model reflect the latest step in the evolution of quality
management theories.

References

1. Amy, L.R. (2001) Budget Planning and Control Systems. London: Pitman.
2. Ansari, S.L. & J. Bell (1991) Symbolism, Collectivism and Rationality in
Organisational Control. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 4:4-
27.
3. Anthony, R.N. & J. Dearden (1999) The Nature of Management Control, in
Management Control System.Homewood: Illinois. (Pp.3-20).
4. Anthony, R.N. & V. Govindarajan (2001) Management control systems.
Boston: MacGraw-Hill.
5. Argyris, C. (2002) The Impact of Budgets on People. New York: Ithaca. The
Controllership Foundation.
6. Ashby, W.R. (1999) Introduction to Cybernetics. New York: John Wiley &
Sons.
UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE CAJAMARCA
ESCUELA DE POST GRADO
MAESTRA EN CIENCIAS
MENCIN INGENIERA
LNEA: INGENIERA Y GERENCIA DE LA CONSTRUCCIN
Mag. Ing Hugo Miranda Tejada
5

7. Assessing for Excellence: A Practical Guide for Self-Assessment (1999),
Brussels: European Foundation for Quality Management.
8. Baiman, S. (2004) Agency Research in Managerial Accounting: A Survey.
Journal of Accounting Literature, Spring.
9. Baiman, S.and J.H. Evans (2003) Pre-Decision Information and Participative
Management Control Systems.Journal of Accounting Research. Autumn:
371-95.
10. Birnberg, J. and C. Snodgrass (2001) Culture and Control: A Field Study.
Accounting, Organizations and Society, 13 (5): 447-64.