BUSINESS SUPPORT QUALITY WORK
A hallmark of being a Master Builder is that every project meets high standards. Here, FMB members share their strategies to ensure that they always deliver quality work QUALITY OVER QUANTITY
from the planning and communication into the finish and the standards column.” People matter Despite builders' best efforts, they won’t always get quality right. Often, this is due to inexperience, Kendal argues. Poor planning affects project timelines, which intensifies pressure, causing people to rush and standards to suffer. Weeks maintains that there are two main causes of poor quality: products and labour. For a start, a product could just be of inferior quality and not up to the job. But then builders can also procure the incorrect types of products. “A good example is sand used for building walls,” Weeks points out. “If that type of sand comes from different suppliers it can
I f you want to last in the construction game, you need to be good, which means delivering the kind of work that you are proud of and your clients get excited about. “Quality, to us, means we want to show our work to others, to point and say, ‘We did that,’” says Dennis Weeks, Managing Director of North London Loft Rooms in Essex. “I am not saying it’s necessarily something we like, as we all have different tastes, but it has to have been done right with the right materials in the right
“If the site is constantly untidy and the client isn't kept up to date with things, it can affect how they feel about your work and whether or not they'd recommend you.” Working to high standards throughout the “entirety of a project” is important, Kendal argues. “During and immediately after a project, it's probably an equal split of importance: 25% finish, 25% standards, 25% communication, 25% planning. Over time, the percentage points leak
way – and it will tell others, merely by its presence, that it is decent quality work.” From the start of the project to the finish and even a little beyond are all important moments to ensure quality delivery, says Michael Kendal, Property Developer at A. Kendal Builders NE Ltd in Scotland. Kendal explains: “Quality work, to me, covers the entirety of a project, with the obvious factors being that it is built to standard and finished to a high standard. But the manner in which it's delivered is also important.
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