Internet based Construction PROJECT Quality Management System

Quality management (QM) systems have been developed and used by many in the construction industry to ensure right things are done and things are done right the first time. However, current quality systems are designed to monitor and control the “production process” of a specific organization, with the QM data being revealed to the accreditation bodies during the auditing process only. As great deal of data is captured during the QM implementation, and much of this data is related to a construction project involving a multitude of stakeholders, there is a potential to convert the project-specific quality data (collected at an organizational level) into useful information for exploitation by other relevant project participants. The development of an Integrative Project-oriented QM (IPQM) system for construction would satisfy the stringent requirements of client satisfaction and continuous improvement as required by ISO9000:2000. In view of the fragmented nature of the construction industry, a tool that could facilitate easy communication of QM data between different participants is inevitable. The development of Internet technologies may open up new ways to ensure QM data is efficiently and securely transmitted. This paper provides a conceptual framework and prototype decision model for such an IPQM system.