Developing a road construction quality assurance process measurement tool: The case of Mopani district municipality

The upgrading and prioritisation of rural roads networks are imperative in developing countries to improve the socioeconomic conditions experienced by societies. The road construction industry in South Africa has faced problems from great inefficiency, poor strategic planning and poor infrastructure quality. Data from Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) road construction organisations and local government suggest that projects suffer from 30.1 percent to 39.4 percent inefficiency, lack of strategic planning and poor quality of rural road building. The purpose of these roads is to provide access from homesteads to main roads that connect rural areas to cities and towns. In addition, limited information exists on the conditions of tarred roads, particularly in rural areas, and the related consequences to rural economies. However, inadequate planning and management control have been identified as major sources of inefficiency. This study developed and applied a tool for the implementation of road construction quality assurance (QA) processes, which could be used for checking the quality of road projects and providing a benchmark for future improvement in quality in the construction industry. For the study, a comprehensive literature review was conducted to identify current knowledge and information on the processes of quality assurance implementation in the construction industry. Numerous sources such as journals, books, and other relevant materials were consulted to identify, discuss and analyse key concepts.The study was limited to the Mopani District Municipality of Limpopo Province in South Africa as that the researcher could not afford to conduct more surveys because of financial and time constraints. As a result, the study used a purposive and simple random sampling technique. A mixed research approach was adopted to collect the data, analyse and answer the research questions. Both quantitative and qualitative methods of data analysis were used to analyse data gathered from self-administered questionnaires, whilst semi-structured interviews were also conducted with local authorities in the Mopani District Municipality (MDM). For the qualitative data collection, 15 local authorities affected by the rural road project activities were interviewed. For the quantitative research, a questionnaire was administered to 160 randomly selected project/construction managers, architects, quantity surveyors, client/managers and South African local government administrators. The study also used visual observation and field-based measurements to assess the physical factors affecting MDM roads in five rural communities in the Limpopo Province, South Africa.The data was analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.0 and a statistician at the University of Johannesburg was consulted. This, in turn, increased the validity of the thesis’s empirical study, which was also enriched through the rigorous use of both quantitative and qualitative data. In addition, descriptive statistics were analysed using frequencies, percentages, arithmetic mean and standard deviation whilst Pearson correlation was used to measure the strength of the relationships and confirmatory factor analysis.The survey’s results indicated that most of the SME road construction organisations had a very low level of awareness about the implementation of quality assurance processes. Furthermore, the results highlighted that the gap between quality management practice and project management techniques as well as implementation was great. The results further revealed that lack of commitment, improper planning and project control, poor process implementation and ineffective application of quality standards were the main difficulties causing construction SMEs failing to implement successful quality assurance process in the road construction networks. Based on these findings, the results of this study could assist SME road construction organisations, rural societies as well as local government authorities to implement Quality Assurance (QA) processes thereby properly ensuring that rural road building inefficiencies were identified and resolved during the planning phase. Moreover, the findings showed that rural road building inefficiencies and financial management factors caused construction design errors, which affected the project’s performance as well.Based on all the findings and to resolve the identified difficulties, this study concluded that construction SMEs, governments, local community authorities and organisations should strive to implement the processes of QA in rural road project projects. In addition, based on the findings, conclusions and recommendations are discussed and future research needs are identified.