Performance of District Assembly Consultants on Common Fund Projects Based on Iso 9000 Quality Management Systems
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Date
2011-06-21
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Abstract
The quality of service delivered by consultants has not been a subject of thorough investigation because clients have underestimated the impact of substandard consultancy service to the success of a construction project. Many of the problems in construction can be traced to consultants. Consultants supervise projects on behalf of most District Assemblies in Ghana. Evaluation of project consultants is a means of ensuring that consultants are aware of their performance for continuous improvement. ISO 9000QMS certification guarantees benefits to both client and consultants.
The objective of this study was to assess the performance of District Assembly project consultants. In order to assess the performance of consultant, a list of roles of building consultants developed by Hong Kong Housing Authority, a public agent in Hong Kong was adopted as the roles of consultants. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of 80 District Assemblies by post and in person. An incremental scale was developed, system of weights and rating was used to assess the importance of each role.
Results showed that District Assemblies considered design solution, presentation of drawings, quality of tender documents, tender evaluation, supervision of contractors and quality of end product, final measurement and final account the most important roles of consultants within the list of roles used as the evaluation criteria. District Assemblies were of the opinion that consultants performed well in their recommendations, reports, design quality of tender documents, tender evaluation, handling of claims and final measurements. District Assemblies were also of the view that consultants performed poorly in their final drawings, presentation of drawings, collection of information during the design phase and cost estimates during design and construction phase. Overall, consultants achieved a slightly above average performance composite mark of 62%.
Results also showed that of the documented benefits of ISO 9000 implementation, increasing accuracy of project budget estimation, saving cost, promoting communication with client, meeting clients’ deadline and reducing time for responding to queries were considered important by the District Assemblies. There was also a significant difference in the expected benefits of ISO 9000 implementation and the level of benefits achieved from consultants.
Description
A thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the
requirements for a degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE in Construction Management'2011