Framework for Implementing Quality Management in West Bank Construction Projects

Firms world-wide are actively engaged to achieve internationally accepted quality levels to ensure their position in the emerging international market especially those from developing economies. Unfortunately the construction industry, generally, has lagged behind other industries in implementing Total Quality Management (TQM) which provides excellence in customer satisfaction through continuous improvements of products, processes or services. The main reason for construction lagging has been the perception that TQM is for manufacturing and service sectors rather than the construction sector. The objective of this research is to study the implementation of quality management of construction projects in West Bank. Construction sector is considered as a vital sector in today’s economy, due to the development in construction which is taking place in the world in general and the West Bank. A survey of 300 contracting companies registered in the Palestinian Contracting Union (PCU) was conducted to establish the current quality management practices and managers perception of factors required for a successful implementation of TQM. The data is analyzed using descriptive Statistics especially in SPSS. The results indicate that the major problems affecting implementation of QM program are lack of skills, knowledge/resources in QM, changing the behavior and attitude, lack of education and training to drive the improvement process, lack of employee commitment/understanding, and lack of top-management commitment. The results indicate that the most important benefits for implementing a quality system in the construction projects in West Bank is to keep improving the performance, develop the firm image and being a qualified competitor –market position-, and attain and sustain the competitive advantage. Depending on the distributed questionnaire, a framework was developed to facilitate the successful implementation of TQM in construction projects in West Bank.