Roy, R; Waller, J and Low, M (2002) Development of a process documentation system for the house-building industry. In: Greenwood, D (ed.) Proceedings of 18th Annual ARCOM Conference, 2-4 September 2002, Northumbria, UK.
Abstract
The UK housing industry has often been criticized for the quality of its products. There is growing interest in the industrialization of house building methods. Much of the focus of attention has been on the use of manufactured structural components, which addresses the inherent problems of reliance on 'wet trades'. However, there is a need also to improve the quality of the assembly and 'fitting' processes on site. The house building process has tended to develop more through custom and practice rather than formal analysis of methods. There is a lack of standards, and of mechanisms for process review or sharing knowledge and good practice. The result is significant process variability on site. Process documentation is a rigorous description of a process, procedure or policy to facilitate training, development of consistency of operations, and analysis and improvement of current standards. The paper describes work on the development of a process engineering information system that has already been partially implemented by a major house builder. Process sheets have been designed for effective communication of quality-care points, and the system supports feedback from site staff on operation standards and maintains an audit trail of changes.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | house building; information management; process improvement; quality |
| Index terms: | building industry, information system, building process, variability, site staff, housing, process improvement, industrialization, audit, builder, good practice, documentation |
| Subjects: | economic development, management, performance measurement, professional development, building construction, information systems, statistical analysis, industry analysis, construction type, practitioner |
| Topics: | Construction Technology, Sustainability, Roles and Professions, Research Practice, Information Management, Business Strategy, Site Management, Quality Management, Digital Applications |
| Descriptive scope: | 2 PC |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here