MODELLING THE FACTORS AFFECTING QUALITY OF BUILDING CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS DURING THE CONSTRUCTION PHASE IN Trpoli city

I. Introduction Background

Quality measurement is the trigger for quality improvement. The things which can not be measured can not be improved. The real scope of quality improvement in construction projects is the difficulty and-maybe-lack of quality measurement methods. provide clients, project managers, designers, and contractors* with necessary information needed to better manage the quality of a construction build project in Trpoli. Factors that affect the quality of a construction building project during construction phase are identified. Nominal Group Technique (NGT) was used at the preliminary stage to identify these factors and the associated sub-factors. Combining the results of (NGT) and literature review yielded 14 main factors and 60 sub-factors affecting quality of a building construction project. A questionnaire was developed and used as a

research tool to obtain the opinions of 65 contracting companies and 24 consulting firms on the identified most important factors affecting quality. Four Approaches were used throughout the study for the development of representative models. The appropriate model was resulted from a stepwise multiple regression analysis on the quality factors resulted from Factor Analysis approach. It is concluded that the most important factors affecting quality of a building construction project are: characteristics of site layout, skill and experience of site staff, characteristics of design documents, and using equipment, materials, quality and labor management systems and the owner quick response in taking decisions. Type of awarding system and the political environment also among the factors effecting quality. It is recommended that contracting and consulting firms to develop a quality system before starting the construction of a project to meet the requirements of international quality standards, and to develop comprehensive management systems for equipment, materials, and labors. Also, using the developed model as a tool to measure quality of the construction project and identify the weakness points that lowers the degree of quality and improve it.

.1 Problem Background Like the majority of developing economics, Trpoli city has been relying completely on the philosophies, methods and techniques concerning quality that were initiated and developed in both the West and the Trpoli East. These have been accepted and illapplied without any adaptation to suit the backgrounds of the countries. Efforts to improve quality in developing countries should be based on methods that stem from

their own economic and technological backgrounds. The characteristics of these backgrounds should be turned into advantages to give a competitive edge instead of being regarded as constraints and limitations on the application of the methods and techniques expounded in the modern imported philosophies on qualit (Abdel-Razek, 1998a). The construction industry in TRPLOI CITYis characterized by poor quality. There is no current published work which addresses any of these aspects of quality in a way that relates to, or is adapted to suit, the economic, political, social and technological environment of Trpoli city . Nor is there any published work, which is written from the standpoint of Gaza Strip human resources, and the structure of its construction industry and organization. Therefore, determining the construction industrys viewpoint on the factors which would improve construction quality in Trpoli city , and the relative importance of each factor, is an essential first step towards establishing methods for a real improvement of construction quality in TRPOLI CITY and most other developing countries 1Importance of the Research Quality is playing a pivot role during the construction phase of the project. There is a need to develop a specified method to measure quality due to lack of quality measurement methods. It is noticed that there are a number of problems in the construction industry caused by bad quality control, and the situation seems to getting worse. Projects are frequently late, over budget and suffer from poor workmanship and materials. Conflict is increasing, resulting in litigation and arbitration with depressing regularity.

 Failure of many contracting firms happened due to these problems. Understand the quality criteria for the building construction projects and its impacting factors will make it possible to handle the quality problems much better. 1.4 Thesis Objectives 1. Define the factors that affect the quality of the building construction projects during construction phase which serves as the basis and reference point for implementing quality model and quality improvement. 2. Derive the relative weights of the impacting factors to provide a base to develop a model for measuring quality. 3. Define a model(s) to represent the factors affecting the overall quality of construction building projects. 4. Testing the hypothesis that there is a significant difference in perception between contracting and consulting companies with regard to factors affecting quality. 5. Testing the hypothesis that there is a significant difference in ranking quality factors between contracting companies who have an ISO certificate and those who do not have. 6. Testing the hypothesis that there is a significant difference in ranking quality factors due to the position of respondent (Manager, Deputy Manager, Project Engineer and Site Engineer).