QuCon

80 Int. J. Quality and Innovation, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2012

Copyright 2012 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Quality evaluation of residential houses: the development of a real-time quality assessment tool

Michalis Menicou*, Vassos Vassiliou, Marios Charalambides and Petros Christou Department of Mechanical Engineering, Frederick University, Cyprus, 7 Yianni Frederickou Str., Pallouriotissa, P.O. Box 24729, 1303 Nicosia, Cyprus Fax: +357-22-43-82-34 E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: The construction industry has been heavily affected by the economic crisis. Product differentiation and cost reduction through improved qualities could be the way out. However, applying quality control to the construction industry is a challenging task since construction projects are highly customised, constituting the application of statistical process control principles extremely difficult. This paper presents the constituting elements of a real-time quality assessment tool for the residential housing sector. It has been designed to be used primarily for internal company purposes. In particular, utilising the tool for assessing, in real-time, the quality of the projects currently in-progress and comparing the quality of completed projects and consequently drawing conclusions about the companys quality progress. The tools structure comprises of

1 a model of the construction process 2 a checklist 3 a quality scoring algorithm 4 an application methodology 5 an accompanied software tool.

The forthcoming challenge of the research team is to pilot test the tool and evaluate its results.

Keywords: quality assessment; quality management; performance monitoring; continuous improvement; construction Industry.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Menicou, M., Vassiliou, V., Charalambides, M. and Christou, P. (2012) Quality evaluation of residential houses: the development of a real-time quality assessment tool, Int. J. Quality and Innovation, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp.80104.

Quality evaluation of residential houses 81

Biographical notes: Michalis Menicou is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Frederick University, Cyprus. He received his PhD from the University of Sheffield, UK, his MBA in Industrial Management from Sheffield Hallam University, UK, and MSc (Research) in Materials, Structures and Systems Engineering from the University of Sheffield, UK. Over the past few years, he has set up and coordinated more than ten international research projects with partners from Europe and the USA in the field of industrial management, engineering economics, application of renewable energy sources technologies and food sustainability.

Vassos Vassiliou is a Research Associate at Frederick Research Center of Frederick University, Cyprus. He holds an MBA from the Cyprus International Institute of Management, since 2009 and a Dipl. in Mechanical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens with a specialisation in Industrial Management, since 2007. Currently he is a PhD candidate at the same institution exploring the stochastic simulation and evaluation of construction projects quality.

Marios Charalambides is a Lecturer of Applied Mathematics in the General Department at Frederick University. His research interests are consistent of two components: a) basic research that includes numerical analysis of channel flows and geometry of polynomials, and b) industrial research that includes optimisation methods and risk analysis and structural dynamics. He has published in leading journals of his field.

Petros Christou is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at Frederick University in Cyprus. He has experience as a Design/Consultant Engineer and Project Manager. His involvement in research includes the area of engineering software development, construction practices, non-linear analysis, structural dynamics and soil structure interaction. He is a member of various technical committees, he is registered as a Professional Engineer with the Technical Chamber of Cyprus (ETEK), a member of the Cyprus Association of Civil Engineers (CyACE) and he also holds the title EurIng.

1 Introduction

Modern construction industry operates along a broad spectrum of projects ranging from complex and sophisticated projects to more simple, such as residential houses and apartments. Todays complexity and scale of the construction processes in addition to the helpful international environment of globalisation and falling national barriers, has transformed many of the once family owned construction companies. The transformation of the once locally operating construction companies into pan-European and/or global players did not come without a price. Competition is fiercer than ever, shareholders are demanding higher profits, and buyers, which are now more informed, are demanding better products. Last but not least, the economic crisis has contributed a lot into aggravating the already turbulent construction business environment. Therefore, to remain competitive and successful has become a challenging task for any construction company.

82 M. Menicou et al.

Construction companies have long recognised the pivotal role quality plays for their business existence where client satisfaction through product excellence proves to be of the uttermost importance (Dikmen et al., 2005). However, now more than ever, quality has become a decisive element of business excellence. Dikmen et al. (2005) have indicated that quality can act as the differentiation factor in a highly fragmented industry such as this but also based on our research, it can prove to be the determining factor upon which purchase decision can be made especially during turbulent times. This dual role of quality is what motivated construction companies to adopt quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) concepts stemming from the manufacturing industry in an effort to minimise the expenditures in time, money and resources (Arditi and Gunaydin, 1997).

This paper presents recent advances in the QuCon research project and in particular the software tool for the real-time assessment of construction work derived from the case of Cyprus (Menicou et al., 2010). The Cyprus construction industry in recent years had experienced a sudden boost in property demand mostly for residential housing complexes and apartments (CSS, 2007, 2006, 2003). The increased demand drastically raised the prospect of successful business which lured a lot of entrepreneurs. These new players offered a lot more than the conventional products, shifting the buyers focus towards the modern house designs and the augmented house amenities such as swimming pools, garden landscaping etc. All these resulted into a considerable increase in competition thus unbalancing the historic equilibrium of only a handful of land-developers and contractors. However, currently the Cyprus construction industry has its share of downturn due to the aforementioned reasons of economic crisis and the resulting buyers scepticism (mainly international buyers such as British and Russian) (RICS, 2010) similar to the Spanish case (BBC, 2009). Today, the majority of Cypriot contractors consider crucial the close monitoring of the performance of their subcontractors throughout the projects timeframe since this highly influences the overall project quality and hence their business existence. Subsequently, this represents the major challenge addressed here by the research team.

This effort was accomplished by a multi-disciplinary research team, drawing expertise from civil engineering, industrial management and applied mathematics to bear the exploration of this undertaking. The result is a multi-faceted tool comprising

1 a model of the construction process

2 a checklist template together with a detail version for a typical house

3 a quality scoring algorithm

4 an application methodology.

Quality evaluation stems from a quantitative appraisal of particular tasks and/or products based on a set of industry-accepted checks performed at specific points along the construction timeframe.

Within this context, this paper also presents a state-of-the-art critical review of quality assessment and management research activity, as this applies to the construction sector, where most of which resulted into the development of software tools/systems. In particular, a selected set of recent innovating comprehensive quality management/QA tools and some automated QA/QC tools, are presented, coupled by a critical review based on extracted parameters. Next, the overall framework of this quality assessment tool is presented, comprising of

1 a model of stakeholders landscape and the overall construction process


2 the quality checks and respective scaling

3 quality monitoring practices and quality quantification.

Based on this framework, an overview of the software database tool is presented.

2 Literature review

2.1 Quality in construction

The notion of quality as this applies to the construction industry has been examined by numerous researches. Toakley and Marosszeky (2003) very simply but accurately state that quality has a dual character that being an objective and a subjective one. In more explanatory terms two very distinguishing descriptions exist. The first comes from Sherwood (cited by Wing, 2000) and Sanson (no date cited by Wing, 2000), who report that the word quality has several distinct purposes that can be grouped into three categories which are

1 comparative sense or degree of excellence, where similar products may be ranked or graded on a relative basis

2 quantitative sense, where a product is measured technically or statistically to define its quality level

3 fitness of purpose, which relates the product to the satisfaction of a given need.

The second description comes from Arditi and Gunaydin (1997) who defined quality as the meeting of legal, aesthetic and functional requirements of a project. The legal and legislative aspect refers to the governing of professional liability of engineering consultants during the completion of a project, whereas aesthetic quality, although highly subjective, is defined as how well a building blends in, taking into account physical as well as psychological impacts. Finally, the functional aspect which also encloses the economic part of a project can be enriched with todays concepts of ergonomic design.

Arditi and Gunaydin (1997) have also developed a graphical illustration to describe how quality can be realised in construction projects by identifying the key factors that define quality. Figure 1 illustrates the widely accepted elements and the industry-specific factors that affect both the process quality of a construction project and total quality management (TQM). The single-dotted line rectangles shown in Figure 1 indicate the factors on which this tool will focus on. It is considered necessary to augment those with additional explanatory information according to this paper. Correspondingly, Statistical Methods refers to the comparison between subcontractors, projects and similar processes quality score. Moreover, Statistical Methods will also apply in real-time to ongoing projects. Similarly, Supplier Involvement will separate subcontractors and raw materials vendors but consider the impact of both on quality. The Cost of Quality element will monitor only the top-level processes budget and actual cost. Last but not least, Construction Industry-Specific Factors will provide the framework for the aforementioned factors.


Figure 1 Total quality management perspective in the construction industry (see online version for colours)

Source: based on Arditi and Gunaydin (1997)

2.2 Quality management/assurance systems and tools

When attempting to apply QA and QC practices to particular construction projects, site engineers have to take into consideration an immense number of standards, codes and regulations that govern construction practices, materials and/or the constructed final product. Each of these documents refer to a specific engineering discipline which signifies the need for a holistic view that will enable a more centralised control thus leading to the creation of quality management systems (QMS). However, these systems were not able to ensure the bottom line quality of construction projects due to the four Ds i.e., discontinuous, dispersed, diverse and distinct nature of the construction activities (cited by Tam et. al., 2000). Nevertheless, two distinct examples exist of systems that were designed specifically for the construction industry.

The first is by the Hong Kongs Housing Authority titled Performance Assessment Scoring System (PASS), created back in 1990 (Tam et al., 2000). Tam et al. (2000) and Wing (2000), give a detail description of the PASS system and its constituting components. In particular, PASS is developed to measure performance output directly against defined standards and to provide a fair means of comparing the performance of individual contractors. The assessment used is a simple yes or no indicating compliance with the predefined standards. The system is divided into three types of measurement input, output and maintenance assessment. The second assessment, which is the most relevant with this papers aim, deals with the quality of the final output of building works. In it, four types of work are defined structure, architecture, external work and general obligations along with their associated quality weighting factor.

In 1989 the Singapores Construction Industry Development Board set up the CONQUAS to assess the quality of public building works and consequently the quality performance of the building contractors (Wing, 2000; Tam et al., 2000). The CONQUAS


sets out the standards and criteria to measure the quality of various parts of a building work and awards points according to the criteria (Wing, 2000). This QA tool is presented in detail in CONQUAS 21 Guide (CONQUAS21, 2005) where it evaluates quality around three major work components giving also their corresponding weighting factor.

In contrast, the quality inspection and defect management system (QIMDS) is a computerised system and tool described by Kim et al. (2008), for tackling various problems in the construction industry and in particular for the Korean apartment housing construction. The authors observed that contractors paid more attention to complete quality inspection and defect management until the projects final commissioning since apartment demand was massive due to the countrys population density. Therefore, they designed and pilot tested the QIMDS in order to tackle, among others, problems such as

1 non-unified traditional checklists and a number of documents to manually fill out

2 poor communication among project participants.

Addressing again the South Koreas construction industry is the ISO 9000 Quality Management Information System (QMIS) which is an Internet-based quality management information system. In particular, Chin et al. (2004) modelled the project construction phase and designed the QMIS to focus on quality management during the construction phase including requests for quality inspection, non-conformance reporting and the monitoring the corrective actions.

Lam and Ng (2006), describe a similar internet-facilitated QMS called EQUALITY. The authors suggest that failure in construction projects can be minimised if quality is closely scrutinised and controlled throughout the design and construction stages. A prototype is developed to facilitate instantaneous reporting, monitoring and controlling of a construction projects quality.

2.3 Automated QA and QC tools and systems

In this section the-state-of-the-art is presented regarding automated QA and QC tools and systems. To begin with, Wang (2008) presents a construction quality inspection system called RFID-based quality inspection and management system (RFID-QIMS). The author reports that quality inspection and management plays an essential role in the construction industry. Nevertheless, existing methods for tracking and managing the inspection in material test labs utilise manual recording using paper-based documents which are unreliable and ineffective. Furthermore, the author argues that inputting, retrieving, analysing and disseminating the result data suffer from these labour-intensive methods.

Dong et al. (2009) present the concept of a telematic digital workbench for facilitating synchronous collaboration between the construction site and an off-site office. The authors report that current defect management common practices require personnel to collect defect data on-site, make notes onto drawings, and then have secretaries input the data into an online database. Therefore, they present a horizontal tabletop user interface which integrates real-time, rich-media data communication, mobile computing and wireless communication for automating the defect management in the Australian construction industry.

Leung et al. (2008) present a cost-effective construction site monitoring system which integrates a long-range wireless network, network cameras, and a web-based collaborative platform. The authors argue that site monitoring is an indispensable


procedure in construction QC. They continue by saying that it plays a critical role nowadays in such a way that it provides valuable information for the project manager such as workers behaviour and project progress. Therefore, this system will enable them to develop contingency plans to prevent structural disaster by facilitating cooperation and communication among different stakeholders.

Finally, Akinci et al. (2006) present a methodology called Advanced Sensor-based Defect Management on Construction Site (ASDMCon) which integrates existing technological modules such as scheduling software, embedded sensors and scanning tools. The authors argue that 20% to 40% of site defects can be attributed to the construction phase and that the status of the work in place at construction sites changes continuously as the project evolves thus current surveying and QC approaches are ineffective. What ASDMCon formalism achieves is to enable active QC through, among others

1 acquiring and updating design information

2 inspection planning

3 defect detection and management.

3 Critical review and major requirements

The foundations for the development of the software tool are drawn on the insights extracted from the focus group interviews with the three cooperating leading construction companies in Cyprus regarding industrys best practices. The main requirement is that large contractors need to continuously monitor and somehow assess the work of individual subcontractors and continuously monitor and manage the overall residential projects quality. These explicit and implicit requirements are translated into assessment parameters which are presented below and are enriched with parameters extracted from the research teams review of

1 industry guidebooks

2 quality standards

3 laws, regulations and codes of practice

4 review of actual project plans and documents.

The following parameters are utilised to evaluate the methodologies and software systems tools presented in Section 2.

Technology platform: This parameter examines the technology used, i.e., whether existing tools/ methodologies are web-based; stand-alone software; require manual entries; and if they employ real-time or asynchronous information exchange, wireless communication or possessing advance features.

Detail checklist: Whether each software tool/system supports the creation of detailed checklist of construction elements for assessing the overall construction quality.

Timeframe of checks: Whether the software tool/system enables quality checks to be performed during the construction process or occur at the end.


Overall quality score evaluation: This parameter examines if a feature exists that enables for every construction project overall quality score calculation by assigning weights to individual checks, linked with a mathematical algorithm.

ISO based/industrial based: Whether the structure of the software tool/system or methodology is ISO based or based on industrys best practices.

Project management: Whether the software tool/system or methodology enables project management features such as scheduling of construction activities and quality tasks, setting interdependencies and monitoring key variables such as delays.

Cost monitoring: Whether the software tool/system or methodology enables cost monitoring of individual construction activities.

Report generating features: The ability of the software tool/system to generate various reports regarding construction quality monitoring. For example, comparison of sub-contractors performance with respect to particular categories of tasks, along a number of construction projects employed.

Parametric ability: The flexibility and expandability of the software tool/system. This means being able to easily customise the tool depending on the scope and needs of individual contractor.

Real-time quality monitoring: The software tool/systems design that enables the user to review quality status with the construction of a particular project, hence enabling remedy actions to be taken if needed.

Table 1 illustrates a comparative matrix of individual tools/methodologies with regard to the assessment parameters. As it can be clearly seen none of the existing tools and methodologies fulfil all assessment criteria. However, the CONQUAS and PASS initiatives are close to industrial requirements except from lack of

1 supporting software

2 process oriented checks

3 project and cost monitoring facility

4 parametric ability

5 report generating facility

6 real-time quality monitoring.

Thus, the effort of the research team was to address these needs in the best possible way. It is important to state at this point that the research team has also reviewed the

software features and user capabilities of the demo versions of off-the-shelf commercially software tools and systems through the research projects work-package four, titled Prototype development and pilot testing, led by the SME consortium partner (Synectics, 2009).


Table 1 Comparative matrix

No.

As

sess

men

t par

amet

ers

CONQUAS

(Wing, 2000; Tam et al.,

2000)

PASS

(Wing, 2000; Tam et al.,

2000)

QIMDS

(Kim, et al., 2008)

ISO9000 QMIS

(Chin et al,. 2004)

EQUALITY

(Lam. and Ng, 2006)

RFID QIMS

(Wang,, 2008)

Telematic Workbench

(Dong, et al., 2009)

Construction Site

monitoring

(Leung et al., 2008)

ASDMCon

(Akinci et al., 2006)

1 Te

chno

logy

pla

tform

O

ther

feat

ures

A

naly

tic

Ana

lytic

W

irele

ss

Web

-bas

ed

PDA

Web

-bas

ed

Wire

less

W

eb-b

ased

PD

A

Wire

less

W

eb-b

ased

PD

A

RFI

D

Wire

less

W

eb-b

ased

3D

CA

D

Dig

ital

wor

kben

ch

Pock

et-P

C

Wire

less

W

eb-b

ased

N

etw

ork

cam

eras

C

olla

bora

tive

plat

form

Not

kno

wn

3D la

ser

scan

ner

2 D

etai

l che

cklis

t Y

ES

YES

Y

ES

YES

N

O

YES

N

ot k

now

n N

O

NO

3

Tim

efra

me

of c

heck

s En

d En

d En

d Pr

oces

s ba

sed

Proc

ess

base

d Pr

oces

s ba

sed

Proc

ess b

ased

N

/A

Proc

ess

base

d 4

Ove

rall

qual

ity sc

ore

eval

uatio

n Y

ES

YES

N

O

NO

N

O

NO

N

O

NO

N

O

5 IS

O b

ased

/indu

stria

l bas

ed

Indu

stry

In

dust

ry

Indu

stry

IS

O90

00

ISO

9000

In

dust

ry

Indu

stry

In

dust

ry

Indu

stry

6

Proj

ect m

anag

emen

t N

O

NO

N

O

YES

N

O

NO

N

O

Indi

rect

ly

YES

7

Cos

t mon

itorin

g N

O

NO

N

O

Onl

y fo

r re

wor

k Y

ES

NO

N

O

NO

N

O

8 R

epor

t gen

erat

ing

feat

ures

N

/A

N/A

Y

ES

YES

Y

ES

YES

Y

ES

NO

Y

ES

9 Pa

ram

etric

abi

lity

N/A

N

/A

YES

Y

ES

Not

kno

wn

YES

N

ot k

now

n N

O

Not

kno

wn

10

Rea

l-tim

e qu

ality

mon

itorin

g N

/A

N/A

Y

ES

YES

Y

ES

YES

Y

ES

YES

Y

ES


4 Project focus, stakeholders and construction process model

4.1 Project focus

Within the context of the Real-Time Quality assessment tool currently being developed, quality is perceived as a hybrid between the quantitative sense and the functional aspect described above. In particular, the tool aims to measure the functional aspects of a residential construction project based on design requirements coupled with conformance to existing regulations, codes, laws and policies as indicated by Arditi and Gunaydin (1997). The initial goal is to provide a tool to be utilised mainly for internal company purposes not excluding the possibility of utilising the tool for external purposes. The former is expressed by

1 utilising the tool to evaluate, in real-time, the quality of the projects currently in progress and consequently the on-going processes

2 comparing the quality of completed projects and consequently draw conclusions about the companys quality progress.

In any case, the performance of the corresponding subcontractor is appraised based on the quality score obtained. This approach coincides with the findings of Yung and Yip (2010) who present in their paper the top factors that affect construction quality through reviewing 35 recent studies and short-listing eight of them. In three out of the final eight reviewed studies it is reported that quality is affected either by

1 the comprehensiveness of subcontracting inspection system (Chan et al., 2006)

2 the contractor QC and management capability (Ling et al., 2004)

3 the development and improvement of a QA and QC system (Abdel-Razek, 1998).

The external use, on the other hand, is expressed through the potential scenario that the tool is to be adopted by regulatory authorities and adjusted to state specifications, as in the case of PASS and CONQUAS. As a result, it can be used as an industry-wide benchmarking tool which will evaluate similar projects based on the overall quality score obtained.

Based on the assessment parameters the following requirements were set by the user committee which are also enriched with the conclusions of the scientific literature and commercial software review. In summary, in terms of the Technology platform: the tool, at least at the beginning, should have a web-based form with access via the companys server; Project management: the tool must be supported by Project management ability, i.e., monitor the progress of individual tasks and entering checks to be performed as milestones; Detail checklist: a structured checklist should accompany the tool having the ability to be easily modified according to the characteristics of the project under review. Furthermore at the initial stages a completed template of the checklist should be included based on the Cyprus industry-accepted checks as extracted by this research project; Timeframe of checks: The checks should be associated with individual construction tasks and therefore monitor whether individual checks have been carried out along the construction process; Overall quality score evaluation: an algorithm should be integrated to enable overall quality score evaluation; ISO based/industrial based: the tool should be developed based on construction industrys best practices integrating, where applicable,


widely accepted standards; Cost monitoring: this function should be an integral part of the tool for monitoring the budget and actual costs of top-level construction processes; Report generating features: a wide variety of reports should be available to enable overall quality assessment, subcontractors assessment and statistical analysis between different construction projects; Parametric ability: the tool should have the ability to be customised to serve the needs of individual contractors/users; Real-time quality monitoring: the user should have the ability to constantly monitor quality performance during the development of a construction project in order to be able to take remedy measures if needed.

4.2 Stakeholders landscape and construction process model

Designing the tool required the consensus of all participants, academics, engineering consultants and industry representatives. As a result, the stakeholders landscape was initially developed, as shown in Figure 2, based on major stakeholders identification coupled with their respective roles during the construction process. Through the stakeholders landscape the tools end-user was decided i.e., the contractor, and based on this, major end-user requirements were recorded and a draft shortlist of the tools major functionalities was also developed.

Figure 2 Stakeholders landscape (see online version for colours)

In brief, as exemplified in Figure 2 the stakeholders can be categorised into three major groups. The first is the Employer which can be an independent buyer and/or a land-developing company. The second group consists of the Consultants who during the design phase produce reports (structural analysis, electrical report, etc.) and create the engineering plans/designs (architectural plans, structural designs, etc.) relative to their engineering principle. These reports and plans/designs are essential for acquiring the necessary town planning and building permissions from the respective authorities (municipalities and governmental offices). The Consultants act as representatives of the


Employer during the design and construction phase interacting regularly with the Main contractor. Usually, during the construction phase a member of the Consultants group would take the role of the contract manager representing the Employer in supervising and managing the overall progress of the contractual agreement. In addition, every Consultant is responsible for inspecting and supervising the construction tasks compliance with the respective engineering report and engineering plans/designs. The third and final group is the Main contractor including the various suppliers and subcontractors. The Construction project is the basis of the contractual agreement between the Main contractor and the Employer and which the contract manager oversees.

Following major stakeholders contribution clarification a generic high-level construction process model was developed describing the Cyprus case. The model was based on Arditi and Gunaydins (1997) illustration as shown in Figure 3. The model was enriched with the Quality monitoring phase during which the tool under consideration will be utilised, in addition to elements added to best represent Cyprus construction industry process. Drawn with a dotted line are the inputs/outputs and respective phases the tool is taking under consideration. The dashed line rectangles are the major stakeholders of the construction process that the tool will have fields to monitor their actions hence monitor their impact to the projects quality.

Figure 3 Cyprus construction process model (see online version for colours)

Source: based on Arditi and Gunayditin (1997, p.240)

With the aid of the aforementioned construction model, the review of actual project plans and the extensive study of explanatory global and project-specific technical guidebooks, seventeen distinct construction process were recorded. Those span to all works for the completion of a residential unit i.e., a two-storey residential house or a three floor apartment building. Although these major construction processes were easily identified, listing their components was a challenging task. For example the Excavation and earthworks process can be break-down into ground investigation, excavation/earthworks


and underpinning depending on the construction site. All tasks, activities, sub-processes and processes were functionally grouped and not according to chronological order. This approach was adopted since in most of the cases residential construction projects do not follow a consistent sequence of activities for their completion but task allocation usually is based on the contractors resources availability and overall task workload.

5 QC tools structure

5.1 Quality checks and respective scaling

Utilising all aforementioned information a list of the commonly executed checks has been developed. This list of checks was based on industrys best practices coupled with literature review and involved researchers experience. This approach led the developing team with two paramount viewpoints, the first being of the implementers i.e., the contractor, and the second being of the designers i.e., the consultant engineer. In this way a comprehensive view of the entire construction process was achieved. By integrating the two approaches, specific points along a residential projects development and corresponding parameters where quality can and should be measured were identified and documented. Consequently, this approach ensures the construction projects compliance with the regulatory framework and its conformance to the proposed design and customers requirements, therefore theoretically, achieving maximum quality.

Table 2 illustrates a completed version of the quality checklist template developed by the research team. The major challenge here was to develop a template that will

1 be able to explain the nature of the majority of residential projects in Cyprus

2 be flexible enough to accommodate any changes according to the end-users needs and the specific project under review

3 be expandable so that if adopted by regulatory authorities it could be easily used as the basis for standardisation

4 be robust enough to be used for mathematical calculations.

The table is organised into four columns which separate the residential house into its three main elements, the categories of work performed, the components of structure, the checks to be assessed and the assessment scale to be used. In detail, the first column titled Category describes the most common construction processes and it is comprised of 16 construction categories of checks. The second column titled Component governs whether a particular set of checks applies to the foundation, basement, subsequent floors (referring to ground and first or subsequent floors) or the roof. The third column titled Check points-checks describes the particular check whereas the last column describes the measuring scale to be used to quantitatively evaluate each check.


Table 2 Quality checklist template

Category Component Check Scale Category Component Check Scale

Excavation 1st fixing 15 Foundation Backfilling 2nd fixing 15

Earthwork

Basement

Foundation

3rd fixing 15 Blindings 15 1st fixing 15 Foundation

Formwork foundation

15 2nd fixing 15

Basement

Basement

3rd fixing 15 Column/wall

formwork 15 1st fixing 15

Beam formwork

15 2nd fixing 15

Slab formwork

15

Floor

3rd fixing 15

Floor (ground,

1st)

Stair formwork

15 1st fixing 15

Formwork

Roof 2nd fixing 15 Foundation Foundation

reinforcement15

Mechanical

Roof

3rd fixing 15

Basement Brickwork 15

Column/wall steel

reinforcement

15 Blockwork 15

Beam reinforcement

15

Basement

Lightweight blocks

15

Stair reinforcement

15 Brickwork 15

Floor

Slab reinforcement

15 Blockwork 15

Reinforcement

Roof

Masonry

Floor

Lightweight blocks

15

Foundation Concreting foundation

15 Brickwork 15

Basement Blockwork 15

Columns/walls concreting

15

Roof

Lightweight blocks

15

Beam and slab

concreting

15 1st layer 15

Floor (ground,

1st)

Stair concreting

15 2nd layer 15

Concrete

Roof

Plastering Basement

3rd layer 15


Table 2 Quality checklist template (continued)


1st fixing 15 1st layer 15 2nd fixing 15 2nd layer 15

Foundation

3rd fixing

Floor

3rd layer 15 1st fixing 15 1st layer 15 2nd fixing 15 2nd layer 15

Electrical works

Basement

3rd fixing 15

Roof

3rd layer 15 Windows 15 Type 1 15 Cladding 15 Type 2 15

Basement

Fixed furniture

15 Type 3 15

Windows 15 Type 4 15 Cladding 15 Type 5 15

Floor

Fixed furniture

15 Type 6 15

Windows 15

Basement

Type 7 15

Cladding 15 Type 1 15

Woodwork

Roof

Fixed furniture

15 Type 2 15

Doors 15 Type 3 15 Windows 15 Type 4 15

Cladding 15 Type 5 15 Fencing 15 Type 6 15

Basement

Balustrades-railings

15

Floor

Type 7 15

Doors 15 Type 1 15

Windows 15 Type 2 15 Cladding 15 Type 3 15 Fencing 15 Type 4 15

Floor


15 Type 5 15

Doors 15 Type 6 15 Windows 15

Wall finishes

Roof

Type 7 15 Cladding 15 Dry areas 15

Fencing 15

Basement

Wet areas 15

Metalwork

Roof


15 Dry areas 15

Foundation Foundation 15

Floor

Wet areas 15 Floor Floor 15 Dry areas 15

Water insulation and thermal insulation Roof Roof 15

Paintings

Roof

Wet areas 15




Type 1 15 Landscaping

15

Type 2 15 Swimming pool

15

Type 3 15 Boiler room 15

Type 4 15

External Works

Barbeque structure

15

Basement

Type 5 15 False ceiling type

1


2

15


3

15


4

15

Type 4 15 False wall type 1

15

Floor


15


15

Type 2 15

Basement

False wall type 4

15


1

15


2

15

Flooring (finishes)

Roof


3

15

False ceiling type

4

15

False wall type 1

15

False wall type 2

15

Partitions

Floor

False wall type 3

15




Floor False wall type 4

15

False ceiling type

1

15

False ceiling type

2

15

False ceiling type

3

15

False ceiling type

4

15

False wall type 1

15

False wall type 2

15

False wall type 3

15

Flooring (finishes)

Roof

False wall type 4

15

To evaluate each check two types of scales are utilised. The first is an ordinal one-to-five scale and the other is a Boolean pass or fail. These scales will not have generic step values given that each check is project-specific. Therefore, the one-to-five scale changes values according to the projects engineering designs and specification guidelines. The basic step categorisation is that score one represents a fail to pass standard/specifications threshold; score two is the threshold; scores three to four will have a check-specific range of values and finally score five will be the maximum quality score. In the case of the Boolean scale, fail will indicate a score one and conversely, pass will take score five.

Choosing the above scales came through reduction-ad-absurdum taking into consideration two major elements;

1 the nature of work (i.e., check-items) to be assessed

2 that the selected scale should be as such to enable mathematical model formulation and use of optimisation theory (a different work package within the same research project).

To that end, the possible use of a commonly used descriptive scale with values such as Poor, Good and Excellent would be inapplicable. Conversely, considering an ordinal one-to-seven scale would practically propagate the scoring levels meaning identifying what quality level each score denotes for every check-item based on the projects specifications will be a laborious task. Similarly, a one-to-three ordinary scale, although minimising the effort of specifying what quality each level represents, it would have been


too narrow resulting in making difficult to asses which work has reached optimum quality from the one that is acceptable but not optimum.

Overall, through this approach, all listed checks will have an impact to the quality score of the Component they belong to followed by an impact to the construction Categorys quality score and finally to the overall projects quality score.

5.2 Quality monitoring and quantification

Quality monitoring constitutes a fundamental part of the construction phase and it is applied throughout in an iterative nature. Within the context of this tool, quality monitoring is perceived as a major sub-process applied within the construction phase, as shown in Figure 3. In practice, in Cyprus, quality monitoring is undertaken formally from the supervising Consultants who visit the construction site periodically and inspect the in-progress and already finished tasks conformance to engineering designs/plans and specifications. Quality is also monitored by the contractors project manager who visits the site on a regular basis (having in mind that we refer to small residential projects i.e., houses and apartment buildings, the project manager in most cases supervises more than one project). However, the day-to-day, continuous on-site quality supervision comes from construction foremen through their daily involvement in the completion of the various tasks.

What this paper suggests is that quality inspection will be done by a new stakeholder entity titled Quality inspector most likely after the actual formal inspection from the respective Consultant engineer. This entity, who will report to the contractor, can be either an external engineer not having a second role in the project, a project manager or a trained foreman. The quality inspection will be performed according to the actual project plan and based on the checklist presented in Table 2.

For the quantification of quality each check gets a score after inspection, based on the aforementioned scales hence, quality weighting factors are needed for measuring quality. To successfully achieve this, every construction category is assigned a quality weighting factor (impact) that represents the contribution of the corresponding category to the overall quality of the construction. Sequentially, every construction component is assigned a quality weighting factor that represents the contribution of the corresponding component to the quality of the category it belongs to and similarly, every check is assigned a quality weighting factor that stands for the contribution of the check to the overall quality of the parent component. Obviously quantifying all these weighting factors is a challenging task nevertheless the research team was able to create a first set of those through expert opinion based on the completed checklist shown at Table 2.

The overall quality of the construction project denoted by Q, can be expressed by equation (1),

in i i

i C

Q W S= (1) C is the set that contains the construction categories, Wi stands for the quality weighting factor of category i and Si is the score of the corresponding category. Wi is a known weight factor while the score is calculated using the expression in equation (2),


in i

i ij ijj C

S W S= (2) In this case, Ci is the set that contains the construction components of category i, Wij stands for the quality weighting factor of component j of the corresponding category and Sij is the score of the corresponding component. The Wij is a known weight factor while the score Sij is given by the expression shown in equation (3),

in 5ij

ijkij ijk

k C

SS W= (3)

In the same way, Cij is the set of checks performed on component j of category i, Wijk stands for the quality weighting factor for check k of component j of category i and Sijk is the score of the corresponding check. Since the scores Sijk attain values on a scale from one-to-five (in the case of the Boolean scale, one or five), we achieve normalisation by dividing with the number 5. Wijk is a known weight while the score Sijk is assigned by the corresponding inspector. The following equation (4) gives the analytical representation of quality quantification (Charalambides et al., 2010).

in in in 5i ij

ijki ij ijk

i C j C k C

SQ W W W= (4)

5.3 Real-time quality evaluation

The realisation of the real-time quality evaluation feature is straightforward. The end-user (i.e., the contractor) sets at the beginning the overall quality of the residential construction project based on the Employers wishes. Notice that all scores of present and past projects can be documented in the software tools database. The contractor then chooses subcontractors accordingly to achieve the desired quality based on the quality of work they offer. The quality of each subcontractor can be defined as the average score of employment in completed projects which is available to the contractor from the software tools database otherwise one could lie on expert opinion. After choosing subcontractors, the contractor can use past data to estimate the anticipated score for each check in the construction process. These scores represent the Initial construction scenario and if they are realised in practice they will provide a projected overall quality that must be greater than or equal to the desired overall quality. It is assumed that, at a predefined point in time the Quality inspector will enter the site to assess a particular check. Note that the inspection takes place before the assessed tasks work is covered with a successor tasks work or commissioned to a following subcontractor. This constitutes the real-time feature of the tool since a process in monitored throughout the completion of the composing tasks therefore the overall quality of the work is monitored continuously. In terms of inspection, in reality no contractor will send a Quality inspector 200 times (one for every check) to conduct inspections, but will most likely gather checks in groups. Thus, we assume that a Quality inspector assesses and assigns scores for check-groups from i to i + j. The new scores enter the system and the new projected quality is calculated using the scores of earlier checks that are final, the actual scores of the checks currently entered by the Quality inspector and the projected scores for the future checks. Have in mind that new scores might also affect future scores for related checks. As a result, the


contractor will instantly have the current overall quality of the particular project. Therefore, this real-time quality calculation enables him to make any necessary corrective decisions to either upgrade or improve the projects quality thus assuring that the actual outcome will be equal or close to the desired. Notice that when check(s) obtain a score below the threshold (i.e., one out of five) then the system informs the user about the issue with the use of a flag and does not proceed with calculating the overall quality score hence warning the user that the respective construction task(s) requires his attention.

6 Software tool development

Currently, a pilot version of the software tool is being developed and partially tested by the involved software developing SME. Below are some key screen views of software accompanied by descriptive commenting.

Figure 4 House management (see online version for colours)

Through the Manage house option of the sidebar the user is redirected to the screen shown in Figure 4. Here, apart from the standard generic information the tool stores the Target quality score that was set by the Employer at the project initiation. Moreover, the user can add or remove subcontractors who are employed from a list of already stored ones. A subcontractor can belong to more than one construction category, for example (s)he can carry out mechanical and also electrical works, but for each project only one subcontractor can have ownership per category. Similarly, the system supports multiple house contacts entries.

When adding a new subcontractor entry the user is redirect into Figure 5. Here, some mandatory fields are needed shown in red border as well as adding the respective fields


of operations. The Default score is calculated either though averaging past work scores or through point estimates when no data exist. When adding a new field of operation the user can access the corresponding scores by clicking on the Manage scores option (see Figure 6).

Figure 5 Editing subcontractors (see online version for colours)

Figure 6 Managing subcontractors operation check scores (see online version for colours)

In the case for example that the user has added the Mechanical works as a new field of operations (construction category) for the specific subcontractor and clicked on the Manage score option the tool shows the above interface (see Figure 6). Here all respective checks for the respective construction category which are stored into the tools database are shown with their default score set as three. If past scores of the corresponding subcontractor exist regarding Mechanical works then the Avg score column will indicate the average score for each specific check.


Figure 7 Project management (see online version for colours)

In the project management module of the tool the user can enter the various processes, task, sub-tasks as well as checkpoints. The columns indicated by the letters D and C signify the duration and cost parameters of each task, respectively. The orange flags indicate that the specific entry is a check.

Figure 8 Assigning checks and entering check scores (see online version for colours)


By selecting the specific check entry and then clicking on the Edit checks option on the top toolbar the user is redirected to Figure 8. Here the user can assign (or remove) which checks are to be performed on that specific point in time. The user can then edit each assigned check by entering, among others, generic information like the assessment date but also entering some additional vital information such as the checks obtained score, under Score, the subcontractor responsible for that construction category titled Commissioned by and report if there was any raw material issue. The obtained scores shown in Figure 8 are the input for equation (4) which defines the actual overall projects quality. This is to be compared to the Target quality score which is the desired overall quality shown in Figure 4. As it can be observed warnings appear either when the check was evaluated wit a score below the one set in the Initial construction scenario or when is below its Threshold score.

At this stage the research team develops alternative sets of reports that the tool must generate. The appropriateness of various report formats are considered such as scatter diagrams, graphs and Shewhard charts that will enable a faster and better understanding of current projects on-going quality and past projects quality level.

7 Conclusions

Operating in a volatile economic environment where everything is flux the need for strategic planning accompanied by innovative thinking and materialised through state-of-art technology becomes a vital element for business sustainability and excellence. As national economies are falling into a debt abyss (BBC, 2010) while others are walking on the edge (The Economist, 2010) this need is emphasised even more. The construction industrys players especially in the EU, are facing this reality more than others since the industry has suffered severe losses over the past few months due to Global economic crisis as it can be seen from the high unemployment rates realised in the construction industry (Nistorescu and Ploscaru, 2010; OSEOK, 2009).

Our interviews with major Cypriot contractors strongly signified the industrys need to monitor and assess the quality levels of its projects in real-time. Although an immense number of commercially software tools exist, that address a diversified portfolio of needs, none fully satisfies the aforesaid one. Likewise, the implementation of QMS and standards although helpful they are still inefficient since the actual quantification of quality, at any given point during the construction phase, is still eluding. On the other hand, the literature review of the academic research results has shown that the developed tools and systems are still inadequate in many areas.

Within the context of this paper all the constituting essential parts of the development of a real-time quality assessment software tool are presented, which are, the construction process model, the checklist template, the quality scoring algorithm, and the application methodology. The capstone is the software tool which comes to fill the gap signified above, giving the contractors (end-users) the ability to monitor the performance of their subcontractors in order to realise existing quality levels, undertake improvement initiatives and reduce rework or replacement costs. The real challenge of this undertaking is to deliver a user-friendly, intuitive software tool with proven benefits for the end-users. This is to be realised in the forthcoming future.


Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Synectics Ltd., the software house for their valuable help in the project development as well as their consensus in reproducing the tools print screens. Special thanks also are paid to the Cyprus RPF for their financial contribution and support. Finally, special acknowledgements should be paid to Cyprus Association for Quality for overall project management activities and to the three participating SMEs.

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