As the saying goes “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” but in new home construction does that mean the builder can deliver anything as long as it’s worthy in his eyes. Some would say “Yes” but if that’s going to be the builder’s attitude then the business will very soon suffer and fall by the wayside.
Achieving a high standard of quality in residential construction requires attention to many aspects along the journey to building a new home. It could be defined as a ‘system’ and yes, there is a certified quality management system you can implement into your business to ensure you will deliver consistently high-quality outcomes and buildings every time. For small builders with very few staff and subcontractors, you can achieve the high quality easier than very large companies purely because you, as the builder, will be overseeing almost every aspect of the pre-construction and construction process and you can determine the final outcome.
For mid-size and large companies, delivering high standards of quality is difficult because there are so many people involved in the process. People- if only you didn’t have so many people to depend upon.
This is where your quality management system will decide if you can deliver. Whether it be certified to an IOS standard or be made of robust processes and systems that will give you as the business owner comfort that your business can deliver the high standards of quality every time, the management of quality is a deliberate process that needs to be implemented at every step of the journey from the initial discussion with your client to the final handover.
Before we start looking at what makes up a good quality management system, you also need to understand the difference between quality control and quality assurance. Quality control is the very ‘hands-on’ process of physically checking, monitoring and aligning off on the important aspects of the construction that you decide need to be checked. Quality assurance is the process of ensuring you have a system in place that will ‘assure’ you that high quality outcomes can be delivered each time in each building – this is about the system of checklists, ratings, documentation and a number of other aspects that all work together.
The following ten components are what I believe should form the basis of a system to deliver high quality residential buildings without the need to achieve full ISO certification:
1. Workflow Plans
2. Strong and Documented Procurement Processes
3. Very Good Quality Documentation
4. Appropriate Construction Details
5. Robust Specifications
6. Extensive Scopes of Work
7. Extensive Use of Checklists
8. Robust Construction Programs
9. Quality Benchmarking
10. Robust Monitoring and Reporting
Delivering high quality buildings is not just about high-quality workmanship, although the workmanship is the outcome that is seen as the hallmark of high-quality construction. Achieving high standards of workmanship doesn’t just happen without the attention to detail of the ten components noted above. Each in itself contributes however it is the combination of all ten and the sustained focus on all of them that will produce consistency and sustainable results.
Let’s look at each of the components in more detail:
1. Workflow Plans
Your ‘workflow plans’ will document the processes and systems across all parts of your business. From your customer journey mapping to the process for handing over a home, you should document every step of the way from the first time a ‘lead’ contacts your business. The workflow plans can also automate the tasks and follow up steps you want undertaken at each important stage of the process, particularly for sales follow ups.
While you are very small it is easier to keep on top of all the things you need to do in the business, and you will likely wear many ‘hats’. As your business grows, you will need to delegate many aspects of the business and you will need to train new staff. This is where ‘workflow plans’ and process mapping become very important. Read more about Process Mapping in my previous article " Process Mapping - A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words".
AS The 3C Mentor, I have a saying “If your business is setup to grow, it will grow”. It’s not rocket science to see that the more you document your business and have it ready for staff to use, the easier it will be to ensure the way in which you want to conduct business is maintained. Big businesses know the value of documenting their systems and processes because the directors and senior managers need a way to communicate the same information to many staff and without having to do it over and over again.
For smaller and mid-size building businesses, it is even more important to implement the right workflow plans and process mapping as training will be required for all new staff as the business grows.
The contribution to quality will be the consistency in the customer journey and the ability to establish the required standards of customer service every time your business interacts with a customer.
2. Procurement Processes
You may not think the way you purchase or procure labour and materials for your projects would contribute to the eventual quality of your homes. Would you like working as a contractor or supplier for a business that is disorganised, does not issue purchase orders, expects you to do all the estimating and take-offs for yourself even though you are up against several other competitors each time, has poor documentation and expects favours all the time?
Many suppliers offer rebates for volume and for well run businesses as a reward for their business. This way the supplier is not in a ‘race to the bottom’ on price but can offer further discounts to the builders they choose to reward without disclosing their bottom-line price structure.
The procurement process captures the standard of documentation (see more on this later), the material and product specification (see more on this later), scopes of work for trade contractors (see more on these later), quality of materials and installation methods, service and warranty support, price and the relationship with your nominated account representative.
For small builders, all these aspects are dealt with by the one person, the business owner usually however as the business grows, these responsibilities and functions are delegated to other people until the business is large enough to employ a dedicated purchasing or procurement manager. It’s really hard for a procurement manager to be successful if all the aspects of the procurement process are not in place and documented properly.
You could outsource the procurement role however, if you do this, you will need to make sure all the aspects and components are robust, documented and well organised otherwise the external procurement manager will spend a great amount of time trying to find out information and even worse change the way you do things without your knowledge. If you a procurement manger to operate at the highest level, then make sure you support that person by having all the aspects discussed in this article in place and documented.
How does procurement contribute to quality? By ensuring the best materials and trade contractors are available at the best ‘value for money’ price taking into account the desired outcome, warranty and service considerations and leaving the site supervisors free to focus on ‘supervising’ the works to ensure the workmanship is to the high standard of quality.
3. Documentation
If you design your own homes ‘in-house’ then you will eventually sort out your documentation through errors and problems identified during and after construction and will eventually understand the value of very good quality documentation, hopefully. If you don’t understand this aspect, read my previous article on “It all Starts with the Plans and Documentation” so I’m not going to go over all that again.
If you tender on client’s plans, then again, the quality of the documentation is very important. You may use the poor-quality documentation to play the ‘variation game’ by clawing back or gaining extra profit margin by identifying and raising variations to the client because the documentation is so bad it leaves many opportunities to charge the client. This is an adversarial environment and one that is not suited to the residential building industry, in my view, as most clients are not educated enough to play the game. Again, I discuss the project co-ordination issues in my previous article, “It all Starts with the Plans and Documentation”.
How can good quality documentation contribute to quality? The plans and documentation are the way in which the designer and consultants communicate to the trade contractors about the how the building is to be built and the materials to be used for the construction. If this is not right then delays in resolving issues or even worse, trade contractors simply continue completing their work, even though they know it is wrong because they haven’t got time to sort of the problems caused by others. This usually leads to re-work and patch up work needing to be done. One of my bosses back in my early days as a draftsman told me ‘If you can’t build it on paper, how can you expect the supervisor to build it on-site” (sage advice Bob Smart).
4. Construction Details
I recently asked a smaller residential builder if he had any ‘standard construction details’. His response was ‘Why would I need those. The subbies know how to build it and I’m not a designer”. I would argue that the builder has limited control over how the quality is delivered on his projects.
In my previous article, “It all Starts with the Plans and Documentation”, I also briefly discuss construction details and I made a comment in there that “It could also be said that the drop in the quality of workmanship by trade contractors is also related to the reduction in the quality of documentation. Too much reliance is placed upon the trade contractors to make a decision about which detail is to be used during the construction.”
If your business has more than one of the same trade contractors E.g., carpenters, bricklayers, tilers, cabinetmakers and so on then you need to develop a set of standard construction details. If you expect the subbies to produce the same standard of quality and construction detailing, then you need to communicate your requirements to them.
For small residential builders, it could be simply a wall section showing exact wall heights with the top and bottom plates, eaves overhangs with the eaves moulding required and standard heights of cabinets such as kitchen, vanity, overheads and laundry cabinets at the very least. As these become embedded in the business, you can commission more to be detailed by your design/drafting team or external designer to include such details as floor junction of full height windows, door sills and thresholds, location and heights for meter boxes, gas meters, phone and NBN connections, waterproofing details, and so on.
By having these details available, all the team from drafting, estimators and site supervisors will know exactly how the plans need to be drawn, estimated and built without the loss of time chasing up information.
How does standard construction detailing contribute to quality? By having these details, it means the important visual details in a building will be consistency repeated and to the same standard you set, every time.
5. Specifications
A specification, in simple terms is just a way of communicating the materials to be used, the extent and standard of workmanship and usually the building standards that are to be followed.
Specifications can take many forms; notes on a set of plans, a separate schedule of materials or a schedule of colours and materials. Either way, you should have a specification that covers all of the standards, materials, colours, styles, finishes, fixings that relate to the plans and the construction details.
Coming from a design background before becoming a builder, I tend to keep the plans as uncluttered as possible and develop accompanying specifications and construction details that can be easily replicated because most times the information is the same. This allows the plans and the colour selection to be the documents that are more job specific and need to be used more by the trade contractors.
Why would specifications contribute to better quality? In developing a good specification, during the preparation and research, you find confirm the standards of quality, the building standards and codes to be complied with and it will enable you to establish if you are undertaking the construction in the best possible way to achieve the results you want. Again, it enables high standards of quality to be maintained and in a consistent way.
6. Scopes of Work
I don’t intend to do another explanation of why I believe Scopes of Works are essential for any building business as they are covered in my previous article on: “Scopes of Works- What the Hell are They?”
Suffice to say that I made a comment in the article which I’ll repeat here - “Engaging any sub-contractor without a scope of works is like jumping in a cab and then not telling the driver where you want to go. He can choose whatever he wants.”
How do Scopes of Work contribute to quality? They ensure there is no misunderstanding between the trade contractor and the site supervisor about what is expected of the contractor on the job. Again, it is the consistency of the results that are driven by the trade contractors knowing what is expected.
7. Checklists
According to Wikipedia “A checklist is a type of job aid used to reduce failure by compensating for potential limits of human memory and attention. It helps to ensure consistency and completeness in carrying out a task.”
Checklists can be used for every part of the process in building a home including the sales and marketing areas. Checklists are a great way to ensure consistency in an operation, in how a process is carried out and to make sure your customers are receiving the same documentation each time.
When you started your business, you understood what was needed in all areas but now you have staff doing these processes and documentation on your behalf, you will want the reassurance that quality is delivered to your expectations every time and to the standards you set.
Checklists are vital in any business to ensure the small details are not missed. Checklists are a great training tool for new staff to get up to speed quickly with your business standards. Checklists are proven to increase efficiency and productivity in your business.
In residential construction, using checklists avoids a supervisor forgetting any critical inspection points and also provides the trade contractor with a list of the items and criteria that will be checked. If you use a computer program to undertake site inspections, then you will need to create a checklist first before setting them up in a computer program or cloud-based application.
In a full quality management system, the checklists become Inspection Test Plans (ITPs), but they are still checklists.
How can the use of checklists improve quality in residential construction? Most checklists in construction are referred to as QA Checklists, whether it be in a paper-based form or in a computer system. Using the checklists assures you as the business owner that the critical items are checked every time, and this contributes to consistent quality and results.
8. Construction Programs
I’ve discussed at length construction programs and scheduling in my previous articles “Why Use Construction Programs”, “7 Traits of a Highly Successful Builder” and “Builders, Are You Flying by the Seat of Your Pants?” so I won’t go over all that information again but please go back and read the articles using the links to the articles.
How do Construction programs assist in achieving high quality buildings? They help the site supervisors be organised on and off site and good contractors like to work for organised supervisors. They enable a site supervisor to concentrate on the job of supervising and not trouble shooting all the time. When you combine the other aspects of the quality system, it makes a site supervisor’s job a lot easier.
9. Benchmarking or Quality Ratings
One way of ensuring your quality is at least at the industry standard or better, is to use external building inspections. There are a number of these businesses that do inspections of new homes rather than existing homes and if you work together with the inspection business rather than fighting it, you will find the reports are a good way to ‘benchmark’ your business against the industry standards.
Establish a ‘quality rating’ system with the inspectors and determine what your benchmarks will be. Back in the days of AV Jennings, we had a benchmark of 98.5% for every home to achieve before it could be presented for handover to the customer. This meant there were no more than 15 items that needed to be fixed before handover so the home could be presented as a 100% quality home. These benchmarks were established using the display homes in the area as those are most likely. The display homes had to be finished to e very high standard and all homes built in the same area were ‘rated’ against the home/s.
The building inspectors should focus on the quality of the finish and not cross over into any contract items.
There are accepted standards of tolerance in most materials and finishes and these are published by various organisations such as the HIA and the QBCC. These are usually referred to as a “Tolerances and Standards Guide” or similar.
Establish your benchmark of quality and obtain external inspections or if the business is large enough, you could employ your own independent auditor/inspector in the same way you inspect/audit your WHS on-site.
How can benchmarking improve the quality of the homes? Having a second or third set of eyes on the finished product will always help in raising the standards. Commit to a benchmark and hold the construction team to that standard. Reward those who consistently achieve the benchmarks and higher and train and help those who are struggling to get there.
10. Monitoring and Reporting
It’s no good establishing all these standards of quality in systems, processes, documentation, quality benchmarks and so on if you don’t monitor it and report on it.
You will create an enormous amount of data that will help you create reports for staff and management, and these can be summarised into dashboard reports to make the reporting simple and easy for everyone in the business.
Dashboard reporting should be the ultimate level of reporting for most businesses so that the information is available on a daily basis. You should also create a Business Reporting Framework to establish the level of reporting and the type of reports you produce across the business.
The 3C Mentor Builder’s Business Resources website has a ‘Business Reporting Framework’ available for purchase and download so you can review and amend to suit your business.
The 3C Mentor Builder’s Business Resources website has many of the documents, checklists and programs that will assist your business in creating and delivering a high level of quality in your homes. These cover QA Checklists, Scopes of Works, Construction programs, Business Reporting Frameworks, Process Maps. Check out the website and download the free “List of Resources and Price List” here.
The whole purpose of The 3C Mentor and Alpha Edge is to help create really great businesses in the residential building industry and delivered by our unique ‘Four Pillars to Your Success’ – Business Coaching, Business Consulting, Business Resources and Construction Software.
For an overview of these four pillars go to Alpha Edge here. To find out more about our Business Coaching go here, for further information about the services Alpha Edge can provide go directly to Alpha Edge here and to access the many documents and resources you need as a residential builder, go to our Builder’s Business Resource Centre here. For more information on the construction software and how to ‘Be a Better Builder’, click here
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