Abstract:
In South Africa, construction projects still experience non-conformance to quality
requirements as well as cost and schedule overruns to the detriment of clients. For
project success to be attained, conformance to these parameters is the minimum
expectation in the face of other considerations related to client satisfaction. Thus,
through the use of existing literature, and a field study conducted among site
management employees working for general contractors (GCs) in the Eastern Cape
province of South Africa, the management of quality on construction sites was
examined. The study that was descriptive in nature shows that lack of skilled general
workers and artisans contribute to poor quality control and management processes;
while defects and rework form the main reason for project quality deviations on the
sampled sites. The quality deviations in turn influence the level of cost and time
overrun experienced on construction projects. The study corroborates the literature
reviewed in that there is an interrelationship between cost, quality, and time in South
African construction. For example, when the quality of work is below the required
threshold, it leads to cost and time overruns due to rework that requires extra effort
and expense. The value of this explorative study is that both site management and
workers should be hands-on in terms of managing quality on project sites as failure to
do so could have a domino effect relative to other project considerations
