Factors affecting quality cost in architectural design as a decision making process

Abstract

The management of architectural and engineering design practice has been poorly conducted. As a consequence of the inadequate design management, recently, many architectural design firms are caught in the dilemma of increasing design costs and the demand for higher quality. As a way to avoid losing profits or quality, or both, this paper examines the following issues: (1) What are the influencing factors for the rework throughout the architectural design process? (2) Which factor(s) get more concern in a particular phase? (3) How the factors can be related to each other in an architectural design environment? (4) Who are the most effective decision makers in each phase of the process?

To incorporate these questions, a model was constructed by synthesizing the strategic decision process model developed by H. Mintzberg (1976), the notion of effective decision-making entity by Kim (1996), the general architectural design process and finally, the cost of quality in quality management studies. After developing a research model on the design process and rework, a survey was conducted with 118 project managers and project designers in 8 architecture & engineering firms in South Korea to identify rework factors and decision makers in each stage of the process.

The results indicate that project attributes, project management, and design input are critical factors to rework. While the project management and project attributes are positively correlated to rework, the design input factor reduces it. We also observe architects engage in the whole process, especially concentrating on the development phase; clients greatly influence in the first two phases of the identification and development and contractors are actively involved in the development and selection while legislators are just involve in the development phase. The development phase, therefore, is the most complex in terms of the active decision makers and relevant rework factors.

The ana...