Last month, under the remit of the Scottish Construction Accord, the Construction Quality Improvement Collaborative (CQIC) was launched. It seeks to promote good practices to deliver improved performance across the Scottish construction sector.
Delivering continuously improving quality performance is necessary for the industry and for McLaughlin & Harvey as a business. It is needed to meet the technical requirements involved in achieving net zero ambitions, delivering compliance to building standards, creating safer buildings and enabling improved productivity and sustainable profitability for businesses.
To address some of these challenges, partners from across the Scottish construction sector, including McLaughlin & Harvey, joined together to form the CQIC and to launch a construction quality charter that encourages transformation across the industry with quality at the centre of all decision-making.
Derek Geyer, Head of Quality at McLaughlin & Harvey, attended the launch event and committed to the charter:
“I am delighted to commit to the charter on behalf of McLaughlin & Harvey and to support a campaign that mirrors our strategic direction for quality. A partnership of like-minded organisations has been long overdue in the Scottish Construction Industry where we can collaborate with our peers to improve the overall quality and culture of construction and rid the industry of the bad press that it has attracted over the years.
Within our company, we have a willingness to change and believe that this can only be done by constant collaboration with our clients and supply chain. Having robust processes in place that cover both quality assurance and control is key to delivering right first time, however, we must ensure that everyone working on our projects is trained and competent in these areas so we are all heading in the same direction.
Being part of a larger alliance will allow us to share best practice and improve the overall quality of the built environment in Scotland. Exciting times ahead for the CQIC and for us at McLaughlin and Harvey.’
To mark the launch of the CQIC, Derek also provided insight into the importance of planning for quality in the construction of cleanrooms. You can read the article here: https://cqic.org.uk/insights/a-cleanroom-approach/.
Colin Campbell, Associate Director at Scottish Futures Trust, who support and provide the secretariat for the Construction Quality Improvement Collaborative (CQIC), said,
“Putting in the work to get it right first time is a key theme of the CQIC. McLaughlin & Harvey has provided an insight into a part of the construction sector where that approach is of paramount importance. We can all learn from hearing about classes of project, such as cleanrooms, where achieving the required construction quality is imperative, and making a similar commitment across the sector to getting all work right first time.”