Abstract
Reducing the cost of quality in mass-housing projects can reduce the overall cost and can also result in increasing profitability or the possibility of getting more projects due to the lower price offered in the tenders. The first step to reduce the cost of quality is to identify different elements, determine their impact on the final product quality and then prioritize them. In this study, questionnaires and structured interviews with experienced construction professionals were employed to identify and prioritize the fundamental elements using the P-A-F (prevention, evaluation, and failure) method, one of the most well-known methods for categorizing quality costs. The results indicate a high impact of preventive activities and the low impact of external failure activities on final product quality. According to the results, the use of experienced specialists and skilled workers is more effective than in-service training of inexperienced forces. Corrective actions of non-conformities and design improvements have a significant impact on final product quality. The new approach to COQ elements ranking, used in this research, can help decision-makers to prioritize the most effective activities in construction projects to increase final quality with an optimum quality cost.
Highlights
In recent decades, the increasing need housing in developing countries resulted in mass-housing or complexes projects managed government’s authorities
The Relative Importance Index (RII) method has been used to logically evaluate and rank the COQ elements according to their degree of importance
The main elements of COQ were detected and extracted in mass housing projects. These elements were prioritized by experts in the industry using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews
Summary
The increasing need housing in developing countries resulted in mass-housing or complexes projects managed government’s authorities. Several multi-million housing plans in Iran have been designed and implemented in the form of mass-housing construction projects within large cities suburbs [1]. In such circumstances, it is essential for construction companies to reduce the cost of housing without losing the expected quality to attend in bidding competition. COQ can identify the areas where the total cost of quality can be optimized to increase quality level [2] and can be useful as an overall measure of organizational performance [3]. It is very important to conduct COQ analysis as an input to financial evaluation of quality improvement programs [5]
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