Construction Quality Control
Quality assurance or quality control in construction is a term used for monitoring and evaluating the different aspects of a construction project. This monitoring exists to maximize the likelihood that the minimum standards of quality that are necessary for the construction project. Construction Quality Control may be concerned with safety standards, or other aspects of a construction project. Construction Quality Control is not, however, concerned with the overall quality of a construction project—quality control or quality assurance is only concerned with meeting the minimum standards of quality for a construction project.
The two most important aspects of Construction Quality Control are whether or not the project is fit for the purpose it is meant to serve and whether or not the project is completed properly the first time. Whether or not a project is fit for its purpose is very important. If a project is a hospital but it lacks certain important aspects of hospital architecture, it does not meet the minimum standards for quality control. Likewise, if the goods used to complete the project are shoddy, then the project may not meet minimum quality assurance standards based on the poor materials used during the duration of the project.
Construction Quality Control regulates the quality of the raw materials, products and components, and assemblies related to a particular project. Quality control or quality assurance will also monitor the services that are related to production of the project and management of the project. There are many different forms of quality control or quality assurance, particularly on construction sites. A typical quality control or quality assurance process may be concerned with testing, plans to improve, designs that take into account improvements that must be made, changes to and manufacture of new goods or materials, review of the new materials, and finally, testing.
A lot of quality control in construction is concerned with failure testing and stress testing. It is very important, in construction that materials hold up the way they are designed to. Without proper testing, materials and buildings can fail, injuring or even killing people who were using the building at the time. If the electricity in a new hospital is faulty, and it cuts out without warning, people in the hospital will probably die as a result of this power outage. For these reasons, quality control or quality assurance in construction projects is extremely important and cannot be ignored.