Digital Quality Control System—A Tool for Reliable On-Site Inspection and Documentation

Abstract

The construction industry has seen an increase in its complexity. This has meant an increased need for time-consuming and costly quality control. Moreover, the construction industry continues to perform detection-based quality controls with little to no focus on prevention. Quality control documentation is a source of information and data that can support the development of construction processes toward prevention. However, current documentations are ambiguous and subjective, so they remain ineffectual. A case study was performed to explore the causes of the ambiguity and subjectivity of traditional quality control documentation, and to analyze the identified project-variable procedure’s transformation into standardized or even automated documentation. Evaluating the traditional quality control’s preparation, inspection, and documentation phases highlighted unique challenges requiring tailored solutions. This study identifies the challenges of inaccurate data creation and data entry, unusable documentation, and inefficient documentation. Therefore, the usefulness of data structuring and process standardization became apparent. Hence, the study explores two solutions: a digitalized quality control system (DQCS) that ensures one accurate structured data entry method, and a centralized unit that prepares the necessary data for quality control inspections, instead of the unique preparation for each project. The results show the benefits of increased accuracy, usability, and efficiency for reliable on-site inspection and documentation.