Achieving Excellence in Construction

The UK construction industry at its best is excellent. Nonetheless there is a deep concern that the industry as a whole is underachieving. Problems such as low and unreliable profitability, a lack of research and development, a shortage of skills, usage of tender price evaluations, and a fragmented industry structure, are widely recognised by the industry. These problems must be tackled in order to modernise (Egan, 1998). Developed using Egan’s principles ‘Constructing excellence’ has been formed to help the industry deliver world -class products and services. In general management practice the principles of business excellence models are used to realise the similar objective of ‘delivering world-class products and services. This enables the application of business excellence models in construction. EFQM excellence model & MBNQA are two well known internationally recognised excellence models. This paper compares Egan’s principles with those of widely used business excellence models to identify areas that may point the way forward in achieving excellence in construction.