Industry Article: Revisiting Quality Failure Costs in Construction

This paper by Peter Love of Curtin University, Australia, Pauline Teo of Deakin University, Australia and John Morrison of Frontline Coach Pty Ltd, Australia examines the costs of 7082 Non Conformance Reports over 218 projects.

The analysis revealed that mean NCR costs were 0.18% of a project’s original contract value. Structural steel and concrete subcontracted works had the highest levels of NCRs and differences were found in the cost of NCRs among different procurement methods and contract sizes. The research provides the international construction community with invaluable insight into the real costs of quality failure that have been borne by a contractor. The paper makes a call to reinvigorate the need to engage with performance benchmarking so as to engender process improvement throughout the international construction industry.

View article on American Society of Civil Engineers website