Total Quality Management: in search of best practices for the client's representatives

In conventional management systems, the active role of the Client's Representative as regards quality is limited to simply ensuring that the product or service is according to predetermined standards. There was little thought given to the close working of the Client and/or Client's Representative with other participants in establishing common objective, sharing ideas and plans for performance improvement. and arriving at an action plan for achieving common goals. One such strategy, that provides an environment to achieve this approach, is Total Quality Management (TQM). This strategy requires all participants to commit themselves to the establishment of a new management culture towards excellence. This requires the Client's management to take the initiative to promote the continuous improvement approach to work situations. The traditional role of the Client's Representative in construction projects can vary from simply designing to the full monitoring of the project. In order to achieve total quality, the responsibilities of the Client's Representative include many of the same tasks performed under a traditional arrangement of a project. The way, however, they perform their tasks should deviate from the traditional approach and incorporate the TQM concept. In order to address this problem a research was conducted at the Loughborough University of Technology, UK. The findings include the important tasks of the Oient's Representative when TQM is adopted in construction projects. The results of the empirical investigation of the tasks indicated that they could be adopted by the Client's Representative for efficient utilisation of people, material, and other resources for achieving Total Quality in construction.