Establishing measures to improve design quality in the Portuguese construction industry

Abstract

The Portuguese construction industry is currently experiencing great challenges. Along with the redefinition of its legal framework, so as to make it more efficient and bring it up to date, the sector is going through stagnation in the private market and a slump in the public construction market, mostly on account of the current state of economy country. It is very important to find ways to correct the problems and to make the sector more competitive. Recently there have been several conferences, symposiums and publications which have studied the reasons for its lack of competitiveness. One of the main reasons that have been identified is the recurrent poor quality of project designs. Previous studies have often found that designs contain a lot of errors and omissions. This paper wills critically discussion the problem of poor quality design in Portugal using literature and data from a set of interviews with expert construction managers. The reasons for the poor quality of designs have been established from the outcomes of a national survey undertaken and a series of interviews of experts.