Contribution of Quality Management Practices towards Building Collapse in Nigeria

Abstract

Nigeria like many other countries is experiencing collapse of buildings at an alarming rate; this has become of great concern to all stakeholders in the Construction Industry. This situation is linked to the finding that the prevalent quality system on sites is the supervision of workers and work processes. Achieved levels of quality are thus totally dependent on the supervisor’s expertise; this can be counterproductive where supervisors lack requisite knowledge and experience. This paper examined the quality management practices on construction sites as it affects the menace of building collapse in Nigeria. The study is exploratory in nature, and employs the use of secondary data in conjunction with primary data obtained through a questionnaire survey. Findings suggested that a cyclical trend might exist in the incidence of building collapses which may be represented by a 2-period moving average trend-line. Collapses were more prevalent in buildings employed for residential and commercial uses (a total of 72% of the entire sample). The dominant cause of building failures in the study area was structural failure (46%) and use of substandard materials (21%). Design and Material issues (Mean score = 4.62 and 3.56) had the highest influence on the quality of the construction product. Three main recommendations were offered, including the need to design and implement proactive measures such as routine testing of building integrity which could be built into an ‘annual renewal of building approval’ process.