Quality, requisite imagination and resilience: Managing risk and uncertainty in construction

Abstract

Measuring and determining the risks of rework is critical for determining the reliability of construction and ensuring peoples safety. In this paper we aim to addresses the following question: “How can we anticipate and mitigate the consequences of rework in construction?” We adopted a sense-making approach to tackle this question and in doing so acquired knowledge and an understanding of managerial practices and conditions that contributed to rework in a leading construction organization. Using non-conformances as a measure of quality we analyzed 9088 events that required rework in 210 projects to determine its costs and identify those subcontract trades where it was most prevalent. To garner an understanding of the conditions that hindered the organizations ability to ‘anticipate’ the presence and ‘respond’ to the occurrence of rework in its projects, we conducted a series of interviews and found three issues contributing to this situation: (1) the absence of a homogenous culture; (2) a misalignment of strategy; and (3) organizational amnesia. We develop a novel framework to manage the risk and uncertainty of rework based on the concepts of requisite imagination and resilience. The developed framework can be applied not only to construction, but also form part of an integrated preventative maintenance policy to manage an asset's quality during its operations.