Impact of Design, Construction and Cost on Project Quality

Too frequent reports in the media of engineering and construction failures, the ruinous awards from lawsuits over liability and equally ruinous costs of liability insurance, if obtainable, all make an awareness of the necessity for quality in engineering works a matter of professional survival. Lack of quality in engineering works is not pervasive but it does occur. Some causes of poor quality are presented in this paper. Those causes are numerous, and can run all the way through the engineering process from siting through construction. Trade‐offs between the impacts of investigation, design, contracts, construction and cost on construction quality are complex but some fundamentals seem clear. Five top causes of inferior engineering quality are: (1) Designs which lag construction; (2) designs which lag procurement; (3) inadequate cost control; (4) lack of effective scheduling; and (5) lack of change control. Other causes are presented in the paper.