Impact on Construction Quality Management Due to COVID-19?

COVID-19 has affected many sectors, including construction. The experience provided an opportunity for us to look at construction quality management and how organizations can cope with social distance and the threat of a virus – not to mention the losses in capacity and operations resulting from them. By implementing better collaboration and innovation, the sector can recover from the impacts of the Coronavirus, operate more productively, and better prepare for unexpected risks in the future.

It is an undeniable fact that COVID 19 has negatively impacted businesses. The stay-at-home orders, social distancing norms, and other disciplinary actions added to the business continuation challenges.

Despite this, construction has found itself in a somewhat stronger position than most other industries. All but one state has declared that public infrastructure and COVID-19 relief projects are vital and should be continued.

As a condition for continuing significant construction projects, all parties must put measures to mitigate the impact of COVID-19. To help those in the construction industry accomplish that, here are some tips:

1) Ensure Best-Practices to Contain the Coronavirus Spread

Construction sites must follow best practices like social distancing norms to contain the spread of Coronavirus. Additionally, they should manage work schedules so that there shouldn’t be many people on the site at one time. With lesser people a day, it would become easier to practice social distancing.

The best practices are not just limited to social distancing; there should be proper sanitation stations on the construction sites. Even the tools that workers use should be disinfected, or you should provide appropriate training (instructor-led) and instructions to your workers on maintaining hygiene as much as possible. Designate a team to supervise and manage such training needs in all the business units quickly and compliantly.

Related Article: 7 Signs You Should Seriously Take an ‘EQMS Way’ of Managing Your Training Requirements

2) Meet Compliance with Safety Measures

It is necessary to implement all the social distancing measures and sanitation requirements strictly. For this reason, a construction site’s manager must assign workers to help monitor their compliance.

The monitoring team must document any health or safety issues that may arise in addition to tasks such as temperature checking with non-contact thermometers. Additionally, they can periodically check whether workers maintain social distance and sanitation while on site since they are prone to forget the rules set forth. A cloud-based document management solution works best to share information flexibly and securely across the organization, regardless of the geographically dispersed business units. Have you documented the safety measures yet?

3) Keep The Contingency Plan Ready

Construction workers on site are at risk of falling ill with COVID-19, which has proven to be a highly communicable disease. Whenever anyone exhibits symptoms on a construction site, a contingency plan must be in place to address the issue. But be sure that you make this decision in a way that won’t seem discriminatory or retaliatory when you return the worker to the office or maybe even when he seeks immediate medical attention. As an employer, you must always protect your workers’ rights.

Prepare a contingency plan with your HR and compliance officers to ensure that everything is handled fairly. You can also seek approvals from top management. And all this can be managed using a cloud-based QMS that enables your quality teams to streamline critical processes and meet compliance.

4) Keep Your Teams Informed

Globally, COVID-19 is an unfamiliar disease. The virus is still pretty mysterious, and whatever we know now about the virus might no longer be accurate in a few months.

As information is critical during Coronavirus, you must update everyone, including stakeholders, suppliers, and workers involved, about the social distancing measures and the status of the construction project itself,

Amid the COVID-19 threat, put your best foot forward to provide the safest working conditions possible to everyone on the site of your construction project. In addition to the tips listed above, take advantage of government guidelines to ensure the safety of everyone involved in your construction project. Coordination among all parties will enable the construction industry to manage the COVID-19’s impacts effectively.

5) Make Use of Technology

Take full advantage of the capabilities of project management platforms to facilitate remote working and make cloud collaboration and digital capital products the norm for projects.

Despite the challenges the construction sector has faced over the past few months. The only way to maintain long-term resilience lies in collaboration with more uncertainty ahead, says Construction Leadership Council (CLC). 

Therefore, it is still possible to recover the construction industry by transforming processes with new ideas and increasing collaboration between teams.

If we wish to discover new methods of doing things, technology and digital systems will play a significant role. The construction quality management system plays a pivotal role in facilitating this new collaborative approach and ensuring that quality, risk, and compliance are managed.  

Using Qualityze EQMS Suite, you can store and conveniently access all necessary data and documentation in a centralized location. For example: 

• Using the supplier module, you can manage your supply quality digitally, ensuring the status of records and compliance details always stay up to date. 
• Using the risk management tool, you can make more informed decisions 
• Implement an effective CAPA Management System to identify the root cause of the problems and develop preventive and corrective actions accordingly.
• Using the audit module will help you identify and assess the inconsistencies through the system 
• The inspection management solution will help ensure the quality of raw materials used in the construction project.
• Take care of documentation online with electronic signature and Watermark capability to meet compliance with document management module. 

Implementing standardized, repeatable processes based on industry best practices, Qualityze Enterprise QMS helps meet your quality, compliance, and regulatory requirements. The integrated design of Qualityze ties together all the QMS processes. 

It enables you to transform your business QMS into a quality decision-making engine. Regardless of their team size and their geographical locations, you can perform quick real-time analysis of quality data collected with analytics and reporting, immediately notify quality teams of upcoming Reviews, Audits, Training sessions, Follow-ups, Actions, Approvals, and Change Implementations.

Qualityze is built on Salesforce.com, a globally trusted and secure platform that lets your quality teams manage end-to-end quality from anywhere in the world. Experience the Qualityze difference to manage and optimize quality by requesting a free demo today.

If you want to know more about our construction quality management software and how it can streamline your COVID post-implementation operations. Get in touch with our customer success team at +1-877-207-8616 or email us at info@qualityze.com, and we will be there for you.