Tools and Techniques for Construction Quality Assurance

Advice on Quality Assurance Tools and Techniques for Construction

By Ruth MacEachern

Product Manager

This article provides expert advice on tools and techniques for ensuring construction quality, offering practical recommendations to guide builders and technical directors in maintaining high standards throughout the project lifecycle.

Reputation is of crucial importance to the success of a construction company, and sadly it is often the case that the detrimental impact of just a single instance of poor quality may take a long time to repair. What’s more, given the scale of the budget involved in many construction projects, the financial impact of a lapse in quality can be catastrophic. It is therefore essential that adequate quality controls and a vigorous quality assurance system are in place prior to commencing any construction project. This high standard must then be maintained and monitored throughout the entire lifecycle of a project.

In this article we will seek to provide expert advice on how to implement a suitable quality assurance system when realising a construction project of any kind, suggesting quality assurance tools, tips, and techniques that you may wish to apply in order to realise a successful construction project and ensure a high level of customer satisfaction.

Safety first

Safety is the top priority in any construction project. It is for this reason that a thorough risk assessment must be carried out for every aspect of the project and site, from the materials and equipment to be used, to ensuring the appropriate qualification and briefing of all those who will be present and working on site. It is also vital that checks are in place to ensure that the equipment and materials to be used have undergone appropriate certification procedures and inspections.

Clear lines of communication

When it comes to ensuring that all project players are aware of safety requirements and potential hazards on site, clear lines of communication are essential. Indeed this applies for all aspects of construction throughout the entire project lifecycle. Planning and ensuring these lines of communication are a key part of a construction quality assurance plan. A chain of command must be clearly established, with all personnel aware of their personal areas of responsibility, who they must report to, and how, and when concerns must be reported. 

There must also be clear communication with regard to project objectives, requirements, and deadlines. A quality control plan should ideally be drawn up and distributed to all players, outlining the procedures to be followed with a view to ensuring quality during the construction process. This should be followed up with continuous interaction during the build, to ensure that specified standards are adhered to and that inspection and testing schedules are respected. Roles should be clearly defined, with a dedicated Quality Assurance Manager appointed with responsibility for establishing standards for supplies and materials, and a Quality Control Manager responsible for approving these standards and monitoring compliance

Timely project completion represents another aspect of quality assurance and as such, communication within the context of supplier management is essential in order to ensure that all materials, equipment and staff are present on site in accordance with schedule.

Quality assurance software solutions that support construction 

There are a number of IT solutions that can facilitate and expedite the various tasks involved in successful quality assurance within the context of a construction project. These include:

• Digital reporting tools: these help standardise construction documents with a view to ensuring compliance with legal record-keeping requirements, for the purposes of project communication, and for compliance assurance. Digital solutions prevent the excessive use of paper documents, offer increased security, facilitate collaboration through document sharing, and in many cases provide data analysis functions that offer valuable insight into how processes can be optimised and areas for improvement identified.
• Construction quality management software: several providers offer comprehensive quality management solutions aimed specifically at the construction industry. These cover everything from the establishment of objectives and requirements, to the creation of drawings and documents, the logging of snags and issues, the creation of forms and price lists, and compliance monitoring.
• Building Information Modelling (BIM) – this tool plays a key role in the design and construction process, granting access to a digital twin of the building, enabling checking for clashes and compliance.

Quality Control

 Whereas quality assurance focuses on planning and prevention, quality control concentrates on the inspections and audits to be performed prior to and during the commissioning of a building. After construction is complete, commissioning is conducted and a final building inspection is held prior to handover. Checks are conducted to ensure that everything works as intended. The inspection also identifies any components that fail to comply with code requirements. Non-destructive testing can be performed using methods such as ultrasonic testing, radiography, and infrared thermography, with a view to assessing the integrity and quality of structures without causing damage. Only once all checks have been performed and compliance has been verified can handover to the end customer finally take place. As with any new build, snagging is inevitable, and so it is worthwhile incorporating this step into your initial project schedule. Forms can be generated to facilitate and accelerate the snagging process, with adequate resources allocated to ensure than any minor issues can be quickly resolved.

And finally: an element of quality assurance that takes place right at the beginning of the process… training.

It is of vital importance that all personnel involved in a construction project are suitably qualified and have received adequate training. Everyone involved must know what they should be doing and when it should be done. This is the only way to ensure that a project will run on schedule, on budget, and to a level of quality that is in line with the customer’s requirements and expectations. When it comes to successful construction quality assurance, effective employee training, the clear allocation of roles and responsibilities, and clear briefing as to the project objectives and requirements are just as important as the checks, reporting and analysis that will be performed during the later stages of the project.