The Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) has published a new guide for construction quality focusing on quality management during the site production and assembly stage of construction projects.
It comes as a response to high-profile failures including defective new schools in Edinburgh and the Grenfell Tower fire.
The Guide to Quality Management in Construction identifies issues that hurt on quality on site, assesses their likelihood and impact, and proposes practical measures to either mitigate or remove them.
The CIOB said it was intended as a practical guide for practitioners throughout the construction supply chain.
Priced at £40, the guide is free to CIOB members and is available here.
Its authors are Roger Flanagan, Professor in the School of the Built Environment at the University of Reading, and construction sector technical author Carol Jewell.
Quality is the focus of CIOB President Mark Beard, executive chairman of Beard Construction, during his year as president.
"The vast majority of building work that takes place is of high quality," he said, "but our customers have a right to expect more. Regrettably, many parts of our industry are stuck in old ways of working, and for this reason, I urge members to champion the CIOB Quality Guide, to embed it into your businesses and to help everyone in our industry rediscover the pride in doing the job right first time.
"As an industry, we need to go beyond the bare minimum and seek out the highest possible quality standards. By embracing the CIOB’s new guide for construction quality, we can and will achieve better."
Paul Nash, Chair of the CIOB’s Quality Implementation Group, said: "By focusing on quality during the site production and assembly stage of a project, this guide aims to raise the bar for improving quality on site. The report of the independent inquiry into the construction of the Edinburgh Schools and, more recently, the evidence we have heard from the Grenfell Inquiry, have underlined why a guide such as this is needed now more than ever if we are to ensure that the buildings we create are safe for those who use them. Along with the Code of Quality Management, this Quality Guide is part of the CIOB’s ongoing commitment to raise standards and promote best practice in quality management and building safety in our industry."
Image: Grenfell Tower still burning at 4.43am on 14 June 2017, London (Natalie Oxford/CC By 4.0)
