IMPACT OF QUALITY MANAGEMENT AND SAFETY CULTURE ON CONSTRUCTION PERFORMANCE
ABSTRACT
Construction safety culture have attracted some research attention over the years, but the way in which safety practices affect the productivity and functioning of workers requires some attention in construction projects. The purpose of this study is to determine the degree of compliance with the use of protective clothing and other safety control systems to improve the safety performance and productivity of workers in construction projects. Participants with many years of experience in site management in the state of Lagos, Nigeria, received a total of 128 (128) copies of the questionnaire. The data obtained based on the snowball and the random sampling methods were analyzed with the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), version 21, using the average scores, the index of relative importance (RII). The importance of each of the associated variables, which affects the safety practices of construction workers in construction projects, was determined by the Mann-Whitney U test, an independent sampling test. The descriptive result of the statistical analyzes showed that there is a great demand for security practices. The results of the study show that workers are dissatisfied with the effective use of protective clothing and its application to local operators, since it is difficult to adapt to traditional practices (RII = .776).unethical practice of workers due to human attitudinal peculiarities (RII=0.766), inadequate engagement of safety managers on sites  (RII=0.764), inadequate engagement of safety managers and ineffective supervision on site (RII=0.762) as well as poor communication between site managers and site operatives (RII=0.750) as factors preventing effective use of safety wears among the categories of respondents sampled. inclusion of safety matters from the planning stage, setting safety guidelines into conditions of contract, reward workers that exhibit excellent safety performance, conduct in-house safety training were found to be statistically significant with medium effect. The study recommend minimum of one safety managers on every construction sites.
 Table of content
ABSTRACT
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 background to the study
1.2 Statement Of The Problem
1.3 Research Questions
1.4 Aim And Objectives
Hypothesis of the study
1.5 Significance Of The Study
1.6 Scope And Limitations
1.7 Definition of Terms
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Historical Background about the Operation of the Nigerian Construction Company
2.3 Current State of Construction Safety Practices and Performance
2.4 Construction Operatives’ in Nigeria
2.5 Gaps between worker competence and productivity
2.6 Workers productivity
2.7 The perception of safety practices and workers productivity.    
2.8 Causes of Accident on Construction Sites
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODS
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Research Design
3.3 Study Population     
3.4 Sample Frame
3.5 Sampling Techniques     
3.6 Sample Size
3.7 Data Collection Instruments
3.8 Methods of Data Analysis
CHAPTER FOUR
ANALYSES, PRESENTATION AND INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS
4.1 Introduction
4.3 Data Presentation
Test of Hypothesis
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Discussion of Findings and Justification of Research Objectives
5.2 Conclusion
5.3 Recommendation
LIST OF REFERENCES
 CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 background to the study
An overview of construction quality and safety reveals many striking similarities for these two management concept. In some cases safety is considered a part of total quality management (TQM). In the international construction scene, the inclusion of both the traditional qualities and safety efforts within a TQM system is advocated by Dias and Curado (1996). They suggest that the TQM emphasis on the customer will lead to protection of the employee who is a vital customer. They write that safety record keeping would be improved and a needed safety culture comparable to the existing quality culture would result.
Quality management has increasingly been adopted by construction companies as an initiative to solve quality problems and to meet the need of final costumer ( kanji and wong, 1998). As suggested by (Oakland and Aldridge, 1995) if ever an industry needed to take up the concept of total quality management (TQM),it is the construction industry. Alfred (1988) advances the view that construction very probably promises a greater pay back for performance improvement than any other service industry because of its magnitude.
Over the years, a lot of attention has focused on the causes of occupational incident (Haslam 2005). When accident occur in the work place, it is important to understand what human factors may have contributed to the out come in order to avoid similar incidents in the future. Through developing and understanding of why and how incident occur, appropriate method for incident prevention can be developed (Williamson and Feyer 2002). In the past, any attempt to improve work safety or to control work place risk has focused on technical aspects and on the direct influence of human behaviour (Gadd and Collins 2002). Several papers have sought to identify specific safety management practice that acts as a predictor of safety performance (Mearns 2003). Through examining organization with good safety performance, it was intended to identify common features that are associated with good safety performance.
This Research work will present a review of the literature on quality management and then on safety culture in construction industry. It will also use data from the studies on quality and safety in construction industry to further illustrate the problem of defining quality.
1.2 Statement Of The Problem
It is commonly known that accident have serious implication to the construction industry both in financial and humanitarian terms. Construction accidents may cause many problems such as:
1 Demotivation of workers
2 Disruption of site activities
3 Delay of project progress and adversely affecting the overall cost, productivity and reputation of the construction industry (Mohammed, 1999).
The primary problem to management system implementation success seems to be the nature of the construction process; the projects are very large; seldom situated in the same location and labour intensive; the work force tends to be transient; demand fluctuates, subject to the client is perception of the value of the construction project (Somerville, 1994). All of these are barriers or problems that have made implementation of management system to be almost impossible.
Another problem to quality implementation is non- standardization. In the construction phase of a project, general contractors want to ensure quality through out the project. However, according to (Rowlinson and walker 1995), the construction industry is characterized by its non standardization. Very often, products are one- offs and the production processes are to some extent different from each other. Hence, no universal standard or specification can be applied to the product, which leads to difficulties in quality assurance. Changes to the design of a project are typical and may be frequent throughout the construction process. Quality is often at risk when there are excessive changes.
1.3 Research Questions
The following questions are raised in the research.
1 what are the similarities between construction quality and safety?
2 what crucial factors are measured in improving quality
and safety performance?
3. What are the benefits of quality and safety implementation?
4 what are the possible methods used in implementing them?
 1.4 Aim And Objectives
This paper is aimed at examining the relationship between quality and safety and to explore how quality and safety can be operationalized in the construction industry.
The following are the objectives to aid the achievement of the aim:
1 To examine the current state of safety practices on building construction projects.
2 To examine factors affecting site operatives from using safety wears on construction sites.
3 To evaluate the decision making pattern of contractors in ensuring quality during the design and planning stages.
Hypothesis of the study
H0:-There is no significant difference between professional and site workers perceptions on factors preventing effective use of safety wears on construction sites.
H1:-There is significant difference between professional and site workers perceptions on factors preventing effective use of safety wears on construction sites.
1.5 Significance Of The Study
Constructors, client and others in the design and construction team do see obvious benefits of quality and safety improvement. Chase (1998) concluded,
“In the construction industry, application of TQM to the job site has been proven to speed – up project while increasing profitability”. Torbica and Stroh (1999) also concluded that, “for the first time an empirical study has confirmed that implementation of TQM is positively associated with home buyer satisfaction”. According to (McINtyre and kirschen man, 2000), Contractors do see benefits of quality improvement. More repeat customers and reduced rework.
1.6 Scope And Limitations
This research is restricted or limited to planning and implementing quality management and safety culture in achieving desired performance in the construction industry.
The area location of this study will be limited to selected site at Asaba, Delta State metropolis. Some of the limitations to this research study are: lack of adequate finance, time restraint etc.
1.7 Definition of Terms
Occupational Safety and Health (OSH): is defined according to Alli (2008) as the study of the expectation, acknowledgment, assessment and control of hazards emerging in or from the work environment that could impede safety of operatives.
Safety policy: is a strategy and commitment together with the arrangements on ground to create adequate safety education among workers on hazards related to their work and the role an individual/person needs to play at work settings in ensuring healthy working conditions. The goal and essence of establishing safety practices’ code and regulations on construction sites is to prevent, eliminate, curb, limit and total eradication if possible, the occurrence of accidents and injuries during and after the construction processes and as well train site operatives on safety programmes that will put all these in place.
Health: Health, as defined by Longman’s Dictionary of Contemporary English, is a point of well-being both in body and mind and free from unknown injury. It is also defined according to Hughes and Ferret, (2005) as the assurance of the body and psyche of individuals from anticipated injury coming about because of materials, procedures or strategies utilized as a part of the working environment.
Safety: According Gray (1990) safety is key to achieving success in construction project, is a state of being free from harm. In other word Safety is a state of being secured from accidents, hazard, injury or death due to measures put in place to prevent such from happening.
Accident: Accident is therefore an impromptu occasion that resort into injury of individual or damages to property, plant, materials or environment or loss of business opportunities (Hughes and Ferrett, 2011).
Productivity: Jarkas and Bitar (2012) define productivity as the ratio of using total input such as labour, materials, equipment, energy and capital to produce total output based on two measures.
Site operatives: Site operatives in this research work are refers both skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers engaged in the physical construction of a building.