Authors : Hafeth I. Naji, Raquim N. Zehawi and Zainab Hasan
Abstract: Quality performance is considered as one of the most important aspects in construction industry. This industry has a special importance in Iraq due to the adverse circumstances that took place during the last two decades. Consequently, the quality of construction projects was deeply affected what gave the motivation to legislative authorities to enact a series of enhancements to the legislations that control the construction industry. Four successive acts created four legislative periods lasted from 2003-2014. In this research, an evaluation is made to the impact of the changes in legislations on the quality performance. The data of some 30 construction projects was collected. The quality was quantitatively assessed on one hand by conducting a questionnaire which depending on the final acceptance deficiency observations and their subsequent cost redaction penalties while in the other hand, a system dynamics model was also developed in which the quantitative estimate of quality was made depending on the accumulation of defects and errors that arise during the project progress period and their subsequent reworks, modifications and change orders. The questionnaire returned the quality estimates of 69, 72, 81.5 and 84.5% for the four successive legislation periods while the system dynamics model produced the qualities 67, 76, 84 and 87.6% for the same periods. These results show that a tangible enhancement to the projects quality was noticed in each legislative change.
Hafeth I. Naji, Raquim N. Zehawi and Zainab Hasan, 2018. Managing Quality Performance by Legislation in Iraqi Construction Projects: A System Dynamics Approach. Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 13: 8511-8519.