Roles of Contractors in Implementing Quality Assessment System in Construction (QLASSIC) in Construction Projects

Abstract

In recent decades, the construction industry has been widely criticized for its lack of efficiency and productivity, and it has been shown that the Malaysian construction industry records poor quality on its projects. To overcome this issue, the Technical Committee on Quality Assessment in Construction with the support of the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) has introduced Quality Assessment System in Construction (QLASSIC). QLASSIC is a scoring system that is used to assess and evaluate the performance of construction buildings. It is based on the Construction Industry Standard (CIS 7:2006). Unfortunately, this assessment system had poor implementation since its introduction in November 2006. QLASSIC was not extensively implemented and was taken lightly by the contractors and developers in Malaysia. There are still a huge number of contractors that are not aware of QLASSIC even the big construction companies. Thus, this research is aimed at investigating the contractor’s perspective towards the implementation of QLASSIC in the construction industry in Malaysia. Three objectives are developed to achieve the aim: (1) identification of the needs to implement QLASSIC; (2) investigation of issues and challenges to implement QLASSIC and (3) recommendation of strategies to implement QLASSIC. Structured questionnaire surveys were distributed to the G7 and G6 contractors in the Klang Valley area; which may have or may not have experience in implementing QLASSIC in their projects. The result revealed that majority of the respondents were aware and understand the needs of QLASSIC implementation, but there were still few who were unfamiliar with the QLASSIC. The current level of implementation of QLASSIC in Malaysia is still not satisfactory due to several issues and challenges acting as barriers to its implementation. Therefore, the initiatives from the government are important to promote QLASSIC implementation in the construction industry. By doing this, the contractors would be aware of the implementation of QLASSIC in the construction industry. The significance of this research is that it will assist contractors and other construction players in comprehending the implications and importance of QLASSIC implementation.