Continuous improvement to the construction industry: Enhancing quality through learning

Quality-driven Continuous Improvement Programmes (CIP) in construction organisations require extensive research to better examine links between characteristics of total quality management (TQM) and aspects of CI via organisational learning (OL), that will lead toward adaptability, efficiency, quality and satisfaction. The basis of CI in the global construction context focuses fundamentally on time, cost and quality. A thorough comprehension and exploitation of the mechanism of ‘learning' and ‘quality' will remain the pivotal root to an evolving industry, inclining towards the principles of CI. Critical aspects have been identified as key to CI that could be pragmatically implemented in general construction organisations, via a top-down approach with a focus on the enhancement of OL to achieve performance and quality via cultural change. Qualitative analysis confirms the general focus of CI would hinge mainly on (1) the financial bottom-line (i.e. ) cost (survivability/profitability), (2) innovation (to endear the market and solicit business opportunities) and (3) efficiency (to maximise results with minimal resource input). In view of current industrial trends worldwide, the adaptive rate at which construction entities learn may become the only sustainable source of competitive advantage and should precede (the significance of) (any CI endeavour, especially so for developed Far Eastern economies from where principles of CI and TQM arguably propagated to global commercial recognition; countries wherein the same principles have been ironically stigmatised due to the prolonged economic plateau following decades of immense industrial progression.