Inspection and Other Strategies for Assuring Quality in Government Construction (1991)
Chapter: ASSURING QUALITY IN CONSTRUCTION
a simple, cost-effective, management tool to inform agency personnel where improvements can be made. Coupled with a TQM focus, quantitative quality measurements will help foster change and provide the information needed for positive improvements in quality to be effected.
EFFECTIVE QUALITY MANAGEMENT
Agencies seek quality facilities that enhance safety, productivity, and overall quality of life. This quality is assured only when there is a commitment to quality throughout planning, design, and construction. This commitment must be extended to operations and maintenance of facilities as well. Senior agency administrators should assert this commitment and establish definite programs for making the commitment effective and lasting.
This recommendation applies not only to construction agencies, but to users as well. Satisfaction of users' needs is the source of requirements to be met in construction and the ultimate measure of quality. Effective construction quality management requires that the user's interests be reflected.
ASSURING QUALITY IN CONSTRUCTION
Quality in construction is a product of the complex interaction of many participants in the facilities development process. The committee's recommendations, aimed primarily at agency managers, address design and construction professionals, educators, and policy makers as well. Quality in construction is assured only when there is a commitment to quality throughout all stages of the facility service lifetime, from initial conception through operations and maintenance. Quality facilities that meet and exceed expectations—enhancing our safety, productivity, and overall quality of life—are the result of such commitment and the real goal of the committee's work.
