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Sinister challenges affecting construction quality
Obstacles in maintaining quality control on the jobsite
The devil’s in the details. Details matter. Details make perfection, and perfection is not a detail.
Have you ever noticed that a lot of good advice relates to paying attention to detail? It’s no wonder. Handling details well is directly connected to the quality of the final project. It’s easy for people to see the big picture and want to focus on the fun part of creating the concept, but great work is the result of countless hours and the meticulous technical skill required to get the small details right. Whether it’s painting art, rebuilding a carburetor or coding software, the small details really matter.
In most cases, details are the difference between success and failure; and attention to detail is what sets the experts apart from the amateurs.
As a child, one of my chores was to help wash the house windows in spring and fall. Never a fun task for anyone, let alone an elementary school kid who just wanted to be anywhere else. The allure of playing sports or skateboarding is overwhelming when you’re elbow-deep in cold, dirty water, stretched atop a precarious ladder trying to reach the top edges as soapy water runs down your arm, soaking your shirt. Anything else would be better.
My mother was steadfast in that honest work “builds character”. She would tell me, the difference between a job done right, and one that would take longer if I had to do it again, was how well I cleaned the corners. If I wanted to go play with my friends, it was easier and faster to do it right the first time.
That lesson has remained with me to this day. With building steel structures, the careful attention to detail is more important than ever; small errors can lead to much greater consequences. The principle is the same – you’ll get a job finished better and quicker if you take the time to get the details right rather than having to redo them later.
What lessons have my years in pre-engineered steel building construction taught me? Quality control is key. Here are the biggest challenges construction faces – most of which relate to handling the details accurately!
Lack of planning
Never go into a job without a plan. You should have already built out the project on paper and visualized every step of installation.
The human factor
People may be one of the biggest obstacles for obtaining quality control. The challenge is to try to keep people in the moment and focused on the job on hand. Empathy and understanding are important leadership qualities, along with investing in your team’s overall health and well-being.
Instilling a sense of pride in craftsmanship and constantly improving installation training, especially to address complicated details, are ways to help prevent mistakes and setting a commitment to attention to detail during installation. When in doubt, keep roles simple and clear. Connect with your people regularly to gauge their level of understanding and coach where needed.
Opposition to a quality control mindset
As we’ve mentioned in another article, obtaining buy-in for your quality-control process from the people doing the work is essential. Programs designed to catch issues after they have occurred are not going to be effective. Teams need to understand and appreciate that quality control is not an impediment to progress but a key component to reaching common goals. Leaders need to support and incentivise taking the extra time to do the job correctly the first time – even under the overarching pressure of project deadlines and maintaining costs.
Not paying attention to technical details
Complete the details accurately. The finishes, such as painting, caulking and soldering, can be monotonous but are essential details that make a huge difference in the long term.
Rushing to complete the job
The adage “haste makes waste” holds true. It may seem more effective to jump from task to task, but quality can suffer when too many tasks are trying to be completed simultaneously. It’s easy to become distracted and rushing won’t save time. When you take the time to focus on one job at a time and get it right the first time, you won’t have to track items and go back to fix mistakes.
Inclement weather and other conditions
Bad weather creates delays. It’s unavoidable… and something you can’t control. Projects tend to underestimate the effect weather (snow and frost are just part of working in Canada) and difficult conditions (location, cramped quarters, temperature) have on completion times. Working in changing or harsh environments can mean production must be postponed until favourable conditions return. Asking teams to increase their pace to make up for lost time is not a suitable solution. Quality control must never be a compromise. It’s best to build flexibility into bids and project schedules. At worst, you end up delivering ahead of schedule, which no client has never considered a disappointment.
The devil is in the details is a common saying for good reason. When it comes to quality control, the attention we place in the smallest areas makes all the difference. That's why we have built a quality-control process that incorporates higher standards into everything we do. Summit Steel Buildings takes pride in our construction and that’s a result of the extra time we place in the finishing touches as much as in the engineering and project planning. All those years of scrubbing window corners has paid off in the work I do today.
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About the author
Darren Sperling has specialized in the engineering and delivery of pre-engineered steel buildings for over 15 years and has experience in over 20 countries worldwide. He can be contacted at Summit Steel Buildings at (877) 417-8335, by email at
darren.sperling@summitsteelbuildings.com or on
LinkedIn.
