Measuring workmanship quality in the North-West of the UK for tendering purposes in commercial projects

Abstract

This report is intended to investigate the history of quality in the construction industry in particular with the Latham and Egan reports and the current practices resulting from this. The practices identified in the initial investigation will be evaluated to establish if they achieve the quality improvement as intended. The current practices of clients in assessing workmanship quality performance will be investigated and the findings will be analysed to assess if the recommendations and targets set out in the Latham and Egan reports are being achieved and if a measurement system can be implemented to help clients compare contractor workmanship quality performance.
This report was conducted by carrying out a literature review to investigate the history of workmanship quality in construction including defining what quality means for the purposes of this report. The current industry standards were also investigated in the literature review with other standards arising from the interviews. These findings were used to structure interview questions targeted at clients who are involved in awarding large commercial projects to contractors. Conclusions were achieved through the findings of these interviews along with the literature review research.
This report concluded that workmanship quality cannot currently be measured for tendering purposes in the North West of the UK. The leading factor in this is the vague definition of a defect, for workmanship quality to be measured first defects should be categorised to distinguish the differing impacts of defects onto both the clients and end users.
Although it was concluded that workmanship quality could not currently be measured it is recommended that similar quality standards expected of a Principle Contractor are also expected of sub-contractors to generally improve quality performance of the industry. The Federation of Master Builders being an example of a potential organisation to facilitate this recommendation to be carried out.