The Malay Mail taps into the mind of the independent project consultant, K. F. Chan, who is entrusted with the task of making this promise a reality for the company’s buyers.

He was taken aback when Sri Hartamas’s Wong Hock Seng put forth the challenge to him.

Now, on hindsight, Chan said all it needed was a lot of thinking and the highest level of commitment from the management to make the zero defect policy a success.

Roof leakage, wall cracks, settlements, sinkholes, collapsed ceiling and toilet leakage. Do all these sound familiar?

Yes, these are the common defects faced by most houseowners each time developers hand over the keys to their new house.

Most of the time, housebuyers are forced to take possession despite the homes coming with defects and utility services unconnected.

When Sri Hartamas first announced its intention to offer a zero defect house and move in upon the issuance of vacant possession together with utility meters connected, the first thought that came to most minds is that it’s all a sales gimmick.

The company has since developed a unique quality control standard concept known as The Home Standard, the brainchild of Wong who pointed out that quality control began from the designing stage, right up to the completion of the house.

All development projects at Sri Hartamas are based strictly on these standards.

Chan went on to describe the five critical areas of a project management identified as root causes of defects in the industry.

He said that these needed to be addressed at the budding stage otherwise no amount of training or the establishment of QC systems would help. Chan discusses them in detail:

The normal sub-contract practice in the construction industry, while being practical, is often abused as the contract works are further sub-contracted out.
As a result, the unit rate given to the actual sub-contractor doing the task will be unprofitable. Thus, they resort to supplying substandard materials and workmanship to minimize losses.

Sri Hartamas, however, has insisted that all specialist trades, for example, structural elements and quality finished, must be contracted out on a supply and install basis to the manufacturers and proprietors.

This arrangement the cost increase is somewhat insignificant will ensure quality and eliminates latent and patent defects.

In the construction industry, every project development is managed and supervised by a team of professional consultants.

Complaints by the housebuyers are nonetheless still being highlighted in the local media.

At Sri Hartamas, instead of the project being supervised by the superintending office which is the industry norm, an independent professional construction manager is appointed to the superintending officer and the developer.

A viable idea is for the authorities to consider setting up a regulating body for the registration of professional construction manager.

The most commonly-used technique in monitoring and supervising a construction sequence of works is known as the method statement.

It is a pre-requisite for the contractor to submit the proposed method statement of works outlining the sequence of work to be carried out in detail for approval by the consultants, prior to the actual work on site.

Although it may seem simple prepare a method statement, it is hardly enforced on the contractor by consultants.

This failure has resulted in work done not according to specifications, leading to increases in the number of latent defects which may eventually result in serious consequences such as structural distress.

Sri Hartamas has established its own method statement for selected critical trades of finishes to prevent the potential of patent and latent defects.

Besides the method statement, Sri Hartamas has also developed a unique 98 quality points checklist which cove over 147 items, including item to comply with the sales and purchase agreement.

Sri Hartamas is determine to ensure that all homes as built only with approved and proven quality materials; for example, Sirim-approved or the equivalent, and carries warranty or mill certificates for the manufacturers.

The company also made it policy to have all materials and products testing carried out be independent testing companies or laboratories in all projects.

Construction is a cash intensive industry and any delay in payment to the contractors or consultants would have chain reaction like impact with respect to progress of work workmanship, quality of finishes and the overall timely completion of the project.

This is where the traditional practice of sales generated and progress payment cast flow is inefficient as it is dependent on too many variable parameters such as disbursement of loan from financial institutions and Government treasury.

There is thus an urgent need for the developer and the financial institution, in particular, to shift to a more practical and viable financing tool.