The expansion of market reforms is accompanied with increased competitive struggle between economic agents in building industry. The most important factor determining the competitiveness of a construction company is the quality of its final product.
The problem of construction production quality management is especially challenging nowadays. This is due to the fact that over the last decade, any growth of quality stagnated in Russia, while the EC countries saw steady growth of quality with high enough rates.
Obviously, the significant increase of the building products quality is impossible without implementation of an effective quality management system (QMS) in the business entities.
The most important part in the creation of effective quality management systems for building products is the development of theoretical and methodological foundations to improve the quality of management, taking into account the basic market requirements and the current circumstances in the country.
We should emphasize, that both Russian and foreign scientists participate actively in solving the problems connected with the development and improvement of effective methods in quality management. However, despite the large number of research papers and some palpable results in the quality management, a significant number of unsolved problems remains. Particularly, questions concerning influence of quality management in building products on building contractor’s competitiveness is underanalyzed in current research. The problems of optimal quality management of building production in emerging and developing markets are almost unstudied.
Quality management of building production is an integral part of the management of the entire construction industry. Quality management is the settlement, supply and required level control required with the systematic monitoring and deliberate action on conditions and factors influencing the production quality.
We’d like to present the basic principles of construction quality management system implemented in the Moscow construction practice:
1) Quality and quantity control of the performed works (production turnout volume) is based on a single continuous process of production management;
2) Quality management is an integrated system covering all areas of the company and the factors affecting the quality, and includes organizational, technical, economic, social activities and support measures;
3) Firstly, the work of each employee, set technological processes and conditions, in which these processes are performed, are put under control. This position is based on the fact that the quality of the products depends on the quality of employees’ work which is presented usually in the qualitative characteristics of the product;
4) Product quality control is performed on the product’s standardization base and technological processes.
Forms and methods of products organization, their interaction, cooperation and functioning of separate services, departments, divisions, quality-forming technological processes, organization of teamwork and single-worker operations, forms and means of stimulating them to achieve high quality products, maintenance supply, warehousing and transportation, final product preservation and other components of the manufacturing are harmonized with the assistance of the head office, management, union or system of standards department which are organizational and technical management means;
5) QMS is based on a specifically created regulatory-technical and accounting forms prepared to guarantee coherence and co-operation of all major elements of the technology: equipment, means, materials and supply, as well as the workflow organization.
Regulatory and accounting forms define the products parameters, organizational methods of the technology, procedure and methods of quality control, system analysis of testing results, supporting and analytical documents forms, methods and means of information, providing direct links and feedback between the direct worker and managers of all levels responsible for the product's quality assurance;
6) The principle parts of a complex QMS are quality control; evaluation of the productivity quality, work and production as a result of control;
The information about from the bottom-up control results; control actions on the technological process and the quality of work from the top down and the material, moral and legal incentives for the direct executors for amelioration. It also means that the loss of even a single element of the system drastically reduces the efficiency of the system as a whole. Firstly, this circumstance should be taken into account during the phasing-in of a quality management system.
Quality assurance test and technical analysis of product quality and installation and construction act directly on a construction site thus giving an opportunity to determine level of a product quality in dynamics, the characteristics of allowed deviations at the place of production, regulatory requirements, the reasons for their induction, quality parameters and actions necessary for each organization to proceed with the development of an operational control quality system, quality evaluation, mid-term work acceptance. During manufacturing of concrete products, technology adherence and the quality of final products according to government standards were tested in factory settings. On the construction and installation works during the operational control, quality assessment and mid-term work acceptance trust, construction rules, regulations and technical specifications, regulatory requirements, existence of breaches, regulatory requirements were checked and the reasons which caused them were identified. In particular, tests showed that the quality of a final object is formed mainly at the stage of items manufacturing that’s why closer attention was paid to constructional materials industry.
The main factor of the QMS is the technical quality control, including such active factors as employees’ self-check, detailed operating management of factory personnel (foremen, masters) and statistical randomized examination of operations carried out by a qualified quality control personnel.
Additional sticks in quality control system are supervisory and acceptance sampling types of control carried out by designer’s technical supervision, State Architectural and Construction Supervision Authority, technical inspection of construction companies and public representatives.
For example, about 50 % of consistent framework products, produced by Glavmospromstroymaterialy, was awarded with the State High-Quality Mark.
High accuracy, full operational compatibility of production at consistently rigid physical and mechanical parameters of lightweight concrete (mass specific gravity, durability, humidity) and progressive methods of their production provided the State High-Quality Mark award to exterior wall panels tiled with travertine.
Raising the quality of construction elements is an essential factor in developing of the construction industry. Quality influences all parts of the public production efficiency: it accelerates scientific-and-technological advance, improves the use of business assets and capital investments, reduces expenditure of workforce, material and financial resources, leads to developments of new technology in production and management.
The workmanship means not only the quality of the construction, components, materials, construction and installation work which were used in building industry, but also the quality of construction documentation, reliability creation, durability and operation characteristics of construction objects, development complexity, etc. Thus, quality is a complicated term, it has a technical, economic and social meaning.
We investigate problems closely connected with the raise of construction and installation works’ quality. The problem can be solved by using a complex quality control system of construction products. The system is based on quality control subsystems at the levels of design, construction and installation, and final acceptance. Each subsystem is an integrated system, the main aim is to improve the quality of construction products.
The purpose of the complex quality control system is to guarantee the conformance to regulatory documentation and raise the organizational and technological level in construction industry. A complex system should be worked out in accordance with the following principles:
1. Standardization principle: all the system functions and requirements to quality of construction products’ must adhere to state-approved standards, regulatory documentation, company internal standards;
2. Systemic principle means management processes expansion of all production cycle’s levels and stages;
3. Feedback principle is a consistent introduction of work quality control, study of its results and decision-making dependent on such studies;
4. Acceleration capacity principle determines a continuous process of quality control system improvement due to the natural changes in construction industry, scientific and technical progress, changes in regulatory documentations.
The main factors of a complex QMS are a constant development of technology and construction products’ organization as well as control, accumulation, processing and storage of information on methods of production with the help of developments in IT.
Development, implementation and improvement in quality control system of construction products should start with distribution of responsibilities between the company’s departments.
The general management of quality control system in development and implementation is under the supervising engineer’ control who may be in charged of a quality control department.
As in many other sectors of the national economy, complex quality control systems are also developed and implemented in the building industry. A complex QMS of construction products is a set of organizational, technical, economic and social methods to produce an optimal quality level of construction products on all stages from the design stage, through production of construction materials, to construction and installation works.
The organizational base of complex quality control system lies in evolution of building industry management, creation of quality control departments and provision of constant control to perform a set of organizational and technical events to gain the required level of quality in construction production.
The technological foundation of the system is the will to improve the construction production and manufacturing base, organization and production techniques through widespread use of scientific and technological progress, to improve the production culture. Its economic foundation is the will to improve the quality of planning and marketing activities.
The social foundation lies in a set of measures to raise necessary attitude to labor, develop feelings of personal responsibility for the quality of their work and collective responsibility for the teamwork results.
References:
1. Quality management of construction and installation works. Electronic resource: http://www.stroitelstvo-new.ru/proizvodstvo/upravleni... (Date of access 26/11/14)
2. Kirpichnikova TV Assessment of the cost-effectiveness of construction companies to ensure the quality of construction products // Construction Economics, № 4, 2001. — pp. 52–58.
3. Mishin VM Quality management. M.: UNITY — DANA, 2000. -307 p.
4. Krylov GD Foreign experience of quality management. M.: Publishing house standards, 1992. -502 p.
5. Chisein V. I. Quality production control. Rostov na Donu: Phoenix, 2000. -183 p.
