IJIE 2003 Quality and Safety Management Systems in Construction: Some Insight from Contractors

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IJIE 2003Quality and Safety Management Systems
in Construction Some Insight from Contractors

• Todd W. Loushine, M.S., P.E.
• Peter Hoonakker, Ph.D.
• Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement
• University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Funding provided by CPWR (no. 1020-48)

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Overview

• Safety statistics for construction indicate high
  fatality and injury rates
• Quality research indicates inefficiencies and
  mismanagement are wasting billions of dollars
• The nature of construction requires the work
  processes to deal with uncertainties, continuous
  changes, and risk
• We are investigating a new type of management
  system, to deal with the dynamic and uncertain
  nature of construction work

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Safety Statistics

• Construction fatalities account for 22 of the
  U.S. total, while employing only 7 of workforce.
  In comparison, manufacturing employs 15-21 and
  accounts for only 11 of fatalities (BLS, 2003)
• W.C. premiums cost contractors anywhere from 1.5
  to 6.9 of total project costs (Agarwal
  Everett, 1997)
• A construction company operating on a 3 profit
  margin would need to increase sales by 333,000
  to pay for a 10,000 injury, such as amputation
  of a finger (Construction Chart Book, 2002)
• Indirect costs associated with worker medical
  injuries were estimated up to 20.3 times greater
  than direct costs (Hinze Applegate, 1991)

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Safety Issues in Construction
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Safety Issues in Construction
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Cost of Quality in Construction

• From a quality/productivity standpoint, labor
  typically accounts for 30 of project costs
  (Picard, 2000)
• Manpower mismanagement and construction delays
  were found to contribute to 40-60 non-productive
  time for onsite work (Jereas et al., 2000)
• Rework costs up to 12 of total project costs and
  up to 11 of total project work hours (Love et
  al., 1999)
• Dun Bradstreet data indicate that construction
  business fail at a higher rate than all other
  businesses (Construction Chart Book, 2002)

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The Nature of Construction

• Three primary participants (Carty, 1995)
• Owner wants something built
• Designer develops a plan
• Contractor converts a plan into a product
• Construction is very complex and non-standardized
  (Rowlinson Walker, 1995)
• Exposure to weather, dynamic site conditions,
  coordination of multiple parties, etc.
• 81 of U.S. contractors have less than 9
  employees (Construction Chart book, 2002)

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Our Concept Integrate Quality Safety Management

• Apply traditional safety management (OSHA,
  1989)
• Management commitment
• Employee involvement
• Hazard identification and control
• Training and education
• Accident investigation
• Program documentation and Review
• To Quality Management principles (Dean Bowen,
  1994)
• Customer-focus
• Team work
• Continuous Improvement

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Our Basic Research Question

• Can quality and safety be integrated into a
  management system?

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Literature Review

• Conducted Fall 2001, updated Fall 2003
• Key search engines ABI inform, WebSPIRS,
  ProQuest, PsychINFO, and Web of Knowledge
• Key words quality, TQM, quality management,
  safety, safety management, occupational safety,
  construction, and construction industry
• 18 construction safety articles
• 26 construction quality articles
• 2 empirical and 3 theoretical articles on safety
  and quality management

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Safety Management Articles

• Positive effect on safety performance indicators
• Management commitment (9)
• Audits/observations (8)
• Strong safety culture/climate (8)
• Communication (6)
• Employee involvement (5)
• Continuous improvement (4)
• Safety through Designers (3)
• Partnerships (1)
• Training (alone) was not found to improve safety
• Safety performance comprised of incidence rates,
  EMR, survey response, and observations

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Quality Management Articles

• Positive effect on quality performance
  indicators
• TQM, in general (7)
• Employee empowerment (4)
• Partnering with subs and suppliers (4)
• Customer focus (3)
• Team work (3)
• Management commitment (3)
• Communication (2)
• Continuous improvement (2)
• Quality performance indicated by cost (budget)
  and time (schedule) growth, number of
  defects/errors, survey response,
  audit/observations, and customer satisfaction
  rating

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Quality Management Articles

• Barriers to successful implementation
• nature of construction
• poor understanding of customer expectations
• lack of management commitment/leadership
• lack of worker empowerment
• Self-assessment tools, such as ISO 9000, MBNQA,
  and BS 5750 were helpful
• Also found to improve safety performance in a two
  studies

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Safety and Quality Management Articles

• Safety and quality criteria used in
  pre-qualification for hiring subcontractors
• The complexity of an integrated SQ management
  system requires expertise and resources
• Based on a survey, quality managers were more
  positive than safety managers about integrating
  quality and safety
• The Deming approach was applied to safety
  management (theoretical)

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Objectives for Interviews

• The literature review indicated
• Characteristics of safety programs
• Safety performance indicators EMR, IR
• Characteristics of quality programs
• Quality performance indicators budget and
  schedule growth
• Safety and quality integration has been given
  minimal attention by researchers
• We wanted to know what contractors were doing for
  safety and quality, and what they thought about
  integrating quality and safety

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Methods

• Interviews (face-to-face and telephone) were
  conducted in the Summer and Fall of 2002.
• A list of interview candidates was provided by
  the WI ABC, attempted to provide a variety of
  work specialty and contractor size
• Out of 12 candidates, nine interviews were
  conducted
• Semi-structured interview format was used
• Interviews ran between 30-75 minutes, and were
  tape recorded for transcription

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Study Sample
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Results - Safety

• 5 contractors felt that the EMR was the best
  representation of safety performance
• Safety goals cited varied, zero accidents(6)
  and/or reduction of the EMR(3)
• Education/training of workers(3), more
  involvement by GC(3), and management
  commitment(2) were cited for safety performance
  improvement
• Contractors felt that worker attitude(3) and
  nature of construction(5) were barriers
• I think the biggest barrier (to safety) is the
  worker himself. They have an uncanny belief that
  its not going to happen to them, and they dont
  need to do it (work safely).

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Results - Quality

• Cited measures for quality how it looks, work
  hours to complete, productivity or efficiency
  rating, meeting schedule deadlines, visual
  inspections, number of building defects, repeat
  business, customer satisfaction rating, and
  cleanliness of jobsite
• Quality improvement methods reported
  education/training(4), teamwork(2),
  accountability(2), audits(2), and use of
  pre-qualification(1) data for hiring subs
• Reported barriers to quality improvement
  included worker attitude(4), lack of
  awareness(3), product/supply problems(2), and the
  nature of the construction process(2)
• Boy, I dont know how you would collect data on
  the quality performance.

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Results Quality and Safety

• Concerning similarities, 2 acknowledged the
  potential benefits (improved productivity,
  happier workers, better business)
• 6 contractors felt that safety and quality were
  two entirely different issues (and required
  special attention)
• 3 contractors indicated that a strong safety
  program would probably improve quality
  performance
• You have people that either have their stuff
  together and are doing well, and then those who
  are not following safety are not running a good
  business either.

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Discussion

• Safety response were similar to the literature
• Use of EMR IR for safety performance
• Traditional safety characteristics
• However, focus on worker
• Quality responses were not similar to the
  literature
• Varying definition of quality, and metrics
• Limited acknowledgement of a formal system
• Similar to safety, focus on worker
• Integration of quality and safety not well
  understood, limited application

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Summary

• Construction is a complex process, involving
  multiple parties (with individual interests) to
  transform a mental concept into a physical
  structure.
• The non-standard or unpredictable nature of
  construction increases the variability within the
  process
• An integrated safety and quality management
  system could help reduce some variability in the
  construction process, however it is not very well
  understood at this time

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Acknowledgements

• Professors P. Carayon, M.J. Smith, UW-Madison
• Professor E.A. Kapp, UW-Whitewater
• WI ABC Safety Director Don Moen
• CPWR for support
• Thanks for Listening!
• For more information or copies of reports,
  contact Todd W. Loushine at twloushine_at_wisc.edu