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Construction Quality...Decades Behind?

  • Publish Date: Posted over 4 years ago

​Over the past 2 years, the team at Shirley Parsons has seen a huge demand for qualified professionals in the construction & civil engineering sector. Compared to other industries, there seems to be a lot of confusion around what quality actually is and how it should be prioritised.

I recently met ahead of quality for a major construction project whose quality career originated in the automotive sector. During our discussion he said “Decades ago when you bought a car, you would check under the bonnet, kick the tyres and inspect it for anything untoward before you drove it out of the showroom. All because there was a good chance something could be wrong with it.”

This statement made me recall an experience I had just over a year ago when I purchased a new car. I went into the dealership; chose the car I wanted and picked it up the following month. During this process, I never thought to check if anything was wrong with it. Even better, my assumption was correct and I’ve had no problems with the vehicle so far. Most of us would not expect anything less.

Automotive sector versus the construction sector

Conversely, at the same time I bought my car, my best friend bought his first house. After a month or two of settling in, I went to check out his brand new property. When he opened the door, he was holding a very long snag list. There were 45 issues raised on day 1 and after 28 days, another 27 had been found. I was staggered and couldn’t understand how a brand new home could have so many problems? But this was not an exception; it appeared to be a regular occurrence, with the new residents of the area comparing their snag lists. I couldn’t believe it.

We’ve been building houses throughout the world for nearly 10,000 years and cars for less than 120 years (The Model T Ford went into mass production in 1908), so how can there be such a gap in the quality of the work? I do, however, believe there is a stark difference between the working environment of a car manufacturing plant and major projects like Crossrail, Hinkley Point C and Thames Tideway.

According to the Get It Right Initiative’s (GIRI) report, “Construction errors cost the UK industry billions every single year. The annual spend due to error is estimated to be around 7 times the total annual profit of the UK Construction Industry.

When unrecorded process waste, latent defects and indirect costs are included, the situation gets much worse, with estimates of total costs from errors ranging between 10% and 25% of project cost or between £10–25Bn per annum across the sector.”

I attended the GIRI breakfast launch last week and unsurprisingly quality as an issue was mentioned several times. Leadership, culture and user-unfriendly tools were mentioned and it was hard to disagree with the statements that were made at the event.

Solving the construction sectors quality issue

Personally, I think this is a fantastic opportunity for the construction industry. If we can significantly improve quality within this amazing sector in a 5-10 year period, instead of decades, would there not be an array of best practice to share with other industries? If this was achieved, could construction be the benchmark for quality and create new, more innovative ways of working?

I really hope so because quality has a massive part to play in the constructions’ £25Bn problem.

About Jonny Montgomery ACQI

Jonny Montgomery is the Divisional Lead for the quality team at Shirley Parsons; the leading recruitment specialists in the HSEQ sectors. Operating at a senior level within Shirley Parsons and as a recognised strategic partner of The Chartered Quality Institute, Jonny heads up the pioneering quality talent acquisition team.

A team is a group of highly motivated individuals who recruit quality professionals and instil quality principles into Shirley Parsons’ business and culture using lean processes, methodologies and philosophies.

Contact Information

The author Jonny Montgomery can be contacted using the following:

Mobile (+44) 7554 402660 | DDI (+44) 1296 611314

For more information about quality sector recruitment please contact Shirley Parsons (+44) 845 056 0819