9634270 Past efforts to apply TQM techniques to construction engineering and management have not been successful due to the dissimilarity between the areas of manufacturing and industrial engineering to construction engineering and management. This proposal suggests that the area of construction engineering and management needs immediate information feedback techniques such as those developed for manufacturing and process engineering. The competitive environment of the construction industry urges the necessity to know current status of budgets, quantities, materials, procurement, and crew locations. As technology has increased, the ability to track money, time, and materials has also increased through the use of scheduling, estimating, and database software. There remains the problem of a significant time delay between events and knowing the status of those events. This research will adapt TQM techniques to the construction industry to achieve immediate information feedback and event status. It will identify events in the construction industry in which immediate information is highly desirable, as well as methods to achieve immediate feedback. finally, this research will develop a plan by which to realize actual immediate feedback techniques in the construction industry.
