PREPARATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF ISO 9001:2008 IN THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

Abstract

The International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) is a worldwide federation of national standards bodies from approximately 162 countries. ISO is also a non-governmental organisation that forms the missing link between the public and private sectors. With increasing awareness and attention on delivering quality and desirable products to the end users, ISO certification became an important benchmark and confidence for both the organisation and its customers. To keep up with the evolution and advancement in the different industries such as manufacturing, hospitality and construction, and also to satisfy higher customer’s expectations, ISO has to constantly improve and renew its standards. Therefore, ISO came out with an updated version of ISO 9001:2000 recently and called it ISO 9001:2008. It is also known as the Quality Management Standard. ISO 9001:2008 does not evolve from a major overhaul of the ISO 9001:2000 edition, but it introduces significant clarification to the requirements stated in ISO 9001:2000. This study looks into the willingness and receptiveness of players in the construction industry to obtain the newly improved certification. It also focuses on the construction industry and discusses about the organisation’s behavior when transiting and responding to the new ISO 9001:2008. Richard W. Scott three pillar framework will also be elaborated and analyzed in this report in relation to the organisation’s behavior towards ISO certification. From there, the link between the ISO standard and the organisation can be clearly portrayed. Surveys are conducted with A1, A2, B1 and B2 construction firms which are listed in the BCA websites to understand the preparations to be done and considerations to take when transiting to the new ISO standard. In addition to the surveys, interviews were conducted to understand more about the reasons for transiting and for some, rejecting the ISO 9001:2008 certification.