A construction quality costs quantifying system for the building industry

Abstract

There are three components that make up quality costs: prevention, appraisal and failure costs. The ISO 9000 standard introduces a quality management system that has been widely claimed would reduce the costs of business. One of the ways it does this is through a reduction in quality costs. The ISO 9000 quality management system establishes work procedures that reduce defects. Proper design and implementation of these work procedures would lead to reduced wastage as more work would be done right the first time. Ultimately, the costs of operation would decrease. However, no study has been done based on the above premise. Although it has been widely claimed that ISO 9000 would reduce the costs of doing business, no studies have been undertaken within the context of ISO 9000 certified construction firms. Due to this vacuum, this paper for a start proposes a costs system to capture site quality costs, namely the “construction quality costs quantifying system” or CQCQS.