Implementing a Quality Assurance System: A Trade Contractor Case Study

PATH - A Public Private Partnership for Advancing Housing Technology

Implementing a Quality Assurance System:
A Trade Contractor Case Study

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Do you know how to get quality work out of your contractors? We do.

Key Findings:

Skilled labor is hard to find and retain. Errors and defects are frequent and costly. Undetected or uncorrected errors create big trouble when finishing a house. Most builder quality assurance strategies to prevent these problems don't work.

[IMAGE: NAHB Research Center's Contractor Program Seal.] But manufacturer strategies do. From 1999 to 2001, PATH and the NAHB Research Center tested such strategies with three major framing contractors. The result is a new quality assurance system that helped these companies cut quality defects by more than 50 percent; improve productivity enough to offset labor rate increases of more than 7 percent; and raise builder satisfaction ratings significantly.

Is it difficult? Not really. It all comes down to documenting the procedures you're already performing, and monitoring the work to be sure it meets your standards.

As Jim Hoffner of K. Hovnanian says, "Quality is not luck, it is the end result of a specific plan."

Recommendations:

It's as simple as 1, 2, 3. . . 4, 5, 6. [IMAGE: Contractors take it upon themselves to analyze hotspot quality issues to uncover root causes.]

Step One: Conduct a seminar on how the quality system works. Appoint a quality representative to oversee implementation of your plan.
Step Two: Assess current performance and quality issues, and then put your existing policies and procedures in a manual.
Step Three: Prepare an approved material list of commonly used building products, required equipment, and workmanship tolerances. Add this, and related installation instructions, to the manual. Qualify foremen or superintendents to lead or inspect specific kinds of work crews.
Step Four: Create inspection forms that track production status and quality data. Train your people to use them.
Step Five: Have managers and superintendents begin documenting their observations.
Train contractors in areas where there are recurring quality problems.
Step Six: Monitor your system, and adjust as needed.

Content updated on 1/5/2007

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