World Construction Companies Benefit From ISO 9001 Certification

The world’s rapid population growth and rampant urbanization have brought an increasing need for a high-quality, safe and sustainable built environment. In the world of building and construction, ISO standards help codify international best practice and technical requirements to ensure buildings and other structures (known as civil engineering works) are safe and fit for purpose. Updated on a regular basis to account for climate, demographic and social changes, ISO’s standards for construction are developed with input from all stakeholders involved, including architects, designers, engineers, contractors, owners, product manufacturers, regulators, policy makers and consumers.

Quality Assurance

Quality assurance is important in the engineering and construction industry because of the risk involved in any project. The risk involved in not completing the projection time is high, because many external factors will affect the performance of the project. It is vital that a built-in quality assurance system is developed to avoid any  inefficiency that could result in poor quality of products and service being delivered to the customer. Everyone involved in the engineering and construction business has, in different ways, benefit from a common approach to quality work. Systematic quality work reduces the costs of failure in one’s own work and in the final product. The standards can make quality work more efficient by creating uniformity. A contractor’s in-house quality assurance system is of utmost importance; it pre-vents problems and their reoccurrence and allows his other clients to relax.

One of these quality system standards is the ISO 9001 standard, which has been adopted by a large number of industries in Oman including engineering and construction. The ISO 9001 clauses most often complied with are those dealing with (1) inspection and test status; (2) inspection and testing; (3) control of nonconformance product; and (4) handling, storage, and preservation. The clauses least complied with concern (1) design control; (2) internal auditing; (3) training; and (4) statistical techniques.

There is risk involved in any construction project. A contractor’s quality assurance system is essential in preventing problems and the reoccurrence of problems Documentation of a quality system is scarce for the majority of the contractors.

Quality System- Internal

An internal quality system covers activities aimed at pro-viding confidence to the management of an organization that the intended quality is being achieved. This is called a QMS (Quality Management System) Successful implementation of quality management systems can contribute to an increase in product quality, improvements in workmanship and efficiency, a decrease in wastage, and in-creased profit .

Quality System- External

An external quality system covers activities aimed at inspiring confidence in the client that the supplier’s quality system will provide a product or service that will satisfy the client’s quality requirements. This is called a ‘‘quality assurance system.’’ The quality system can work effectively only when the top executive responsible for engineering or production takes full responsibility for interpretation and implementation of the quality assurance program. A contractor’s quality assurance system is very important to her/his clients, who will gain confidence that ‘‘getting it right the first time’’ will be the contractor’s norm

Industry:

ISO standards help to make the construction industry more effective and efficient by establishing internationally agreed design and manufacturing specifications and processes. They cover virtually every part and process of the construction project, from the soil it stands on to the roof. ISO standards also provide a platform for new technologies and innovations that help the industry respond to local and global challenges related to demographic evolution, natural disasters, climate change and more.

Regulators:

Regulators can rely on best-practice test methods, processes and harmonized terminology that are constantly reviewed and improved, as a technical basis for regulation and policy related to construction.

Consumers:

ISO standards give consumers confidence in the construction industry, providing reassurance that buildings and related structures such as bridges are built to internationally agreed safety and quality standards. These help ensure that the buildings people live, work and study in are safe, comfortable and function as intended.

What standards does ISO have for construction? Of the more than 21700* International Standards and related documents, ISO has over 1100 related to buildings and construction, with many more in development. These cover: Structures Building materials and products Energy performance and sustainability Fire safety and fire fighting Concrete and cement Timber Masonry Information management in construction Heating, cooling and lighting Lifts and escalators Design life, durability and service life planning.

Implementation Difficulties

The acceptance of ISO 9000 standards in the construction industries is not as wide as in other industries, such as manufacturing. There are special features in the construction industry that limit the implementation of the ISO 9000 standard. The following are some of these features

• A construction project is usually a unique collection of people, equipment, and materials brought together at a unique location under unique weather conditions, while most manufacturing is a system of mass production wherein all of these factors are consistent with producing typical products over and over again.
• Performance testing in construction is generally not feasible as a basis for acceptance.
• It is common to have separate contracts for design and construction.
• It is not feasible to reject the whole constructed project after completion while attached to the purchaser’s land.
• Decisions to reject a defective part of a constructed project need to be taken promptly before succeeding parts are constructed or installed.
• The numbers of parties involved in the construction project’s procurement are more than those involved in manufacturing procurement. Achieving quality construction requires effort from all parties. This makes the interface and responsibilities of the various individuals and organizations more complicated than in manufacturing.
• The organizational structure of a construction company varies depending on the nature of the project while the same structure in a manufacturing company is almost unchanging. This affects the smoothness of communication and interface between the responsible individuals.
• Turnover of manpower in construction is higher than in manufacturing, which affecting the precision of long-term plans.
• Construction projects are very complicated and their execution may take years.

The generic nature of the standards often leads to differences in interpretations. In turn the implementation, use, and impact of ISO 9000 standards can vary from company to company and from country to country. The concept of ISO 9000 has been viewed in various ways; as a means of improving the overall quality of operations; as the requirements of customers to be complied with; as a necessary response to competition; as a way to reduce cost; as a means to improve the flow of activities and coordination in the organization; as a strategy to have better sales through an improved quality image; as a way to maintain competitive edge in the industry, etc.

Applicability and Benefits:

The majority of contractors believe that the ISO 9000standards are applicable to the construction industry and will be beneficial to their companies. These contractors made no exception to any of the clauses of the standards. Two contractors have some reservations about whether or not the standards add value to the quality of construction projects. Processes, rather than products or services, are ISO certified. The rationale is that if process management is good, then resultant products or services will also be good. It is important to recognize that some process steps add value, while other activities add cost but provide no value relative to the output of the process. These non-value-added activities include all delays in processing, temporary or permanent storage, inspections, and any rework necessary to meet customer requirements or engineering design specifications.

In general, value is added in a process whenever all three of the following conditions are simultaneously met:

(1) A desired physical change noticeable by the customer occurs;

(2) given a chance, the customer would pay for the activity to be performed; and

(3) the activity is done right the first time Difficulties Surrounding ISO 9000 Requirements Six contractors reported that the ISO 9000 standards are not difficult to implement, while other six contractors reported the following difficulties:

• Voluminous amounts of required paper work associated with the documentation of the quality sys-tem and its implementation
• Difficulty in controlling the subcontractors
• Difficulty in full implementation of all the require-ments, and the possibility of occasional deviation
• Difficulty in understanding the terminology of the standards
• Difficulty in sparing company personnel to under-take an additional workload in order to establish quality system and its requirements
• Lack in ability to afford full-time quality managers and specialists Obstacles to Implementation The contractors have identified various obstacles that discourage successful implementation of the ISO 9000standard in their companies. These are
• High cost, especially initial cost• Resistance to change at various levels in the organization
• Loss of productivity of the workforce due to the effort exerted in learning the new system and implementation, besides their regular duties
• Management interference• Limited ability of personnel
• Remote job sites, making it hard to control and track the quality system implementation in all sites
• Communication problems between personnel be-cause of language differences
• Cultural differences within the work force Remarks. There are several observations regarding contractor quality systems. These are highlighted below:
• There is a misconception about the objective of the ISO 9000 standards. They believe that it requires only a documented consistent level of quality, whether low or high—i.e., ‘‘write what you do and do what you write.’’ This misconception must be replaced by the correct concept, the ‘‘plan-do-check-act,’’ where the quality system is continuously monitored and updated to make sure that

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