Literature Review: Constraints of Quality Control in Projects

This literature review examines the critical aspects of quality control in project management, addressing the constraints that often hinder its effective implementation. The review emphasizes the importance of quality control in ensuring project success and customer satisfaction, contrasting it with the prevalent tendency of project managers to prioritize cost and time efficiency over quality. It analyzes the impact of neglecting quality control, the roles of project managers and organizational leaders in upholding quality standards, and the adverse effects of poor quality on businesses and customer relationships. The review explores constraints such as time, cost, and scope, which often lead to the exclusion of quality control measures. Furthermore, it suggests the utilization of technology, such as simulation software, to enhance quality control processes, offering recommendations for integrating quality control into project plans, allocating adequate resources, prioritizing customer needs, and leveraging technological advancements. The conclusion stresses the long-term benefits of prioritizing quality control, including increased customer loyalty and sustainable business growth.

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Literature Review: Constraints of Quality Control
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1LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
Quality control is defined as the activity that is undertaken to ensure that the quality of an
end product of a manufacture (from industry) or project is according to the pre-set standards.
However, recently, quality control is mostly ignored by the project managers in order to save
time and money in the project. In order to analyse and address this issue, this literature review
has been conducted that is mainly based on the quality control of a project. The entire study has
been conducted on different factors related to the quality control and issues related to a project.
The study first starts with the analysis of the importance of quality control in a project and then
the role of project managers or organization leaders in ensuring the quality of the project and
finally the adverse effects that may be occur in a project due to lack of quality control.
Furthermore in this report, the use of technology for quality control has been suggested and for
that purpose, the different technological processes that can aid the quality control and
management of a project have been analysed.
In this assignment, a literature review has been conducted on the quality control factors
and the constraints that prevent application of quality control in a project. Following the
literature review study and analysis, suitable recommendations have been provided for the
purpose of quality control of a project.
Literature Review
Quality control is a system that is needed more and more with the progress of time as the
needs for setting a certain standard of outputs are growing. This is mainly because, these days,
most of the manufactures are only after profits and hence, in order to maximize it; they are

2LITERATURE REVIEW
continuously using poor quality materials for the manufacture of the products. As a result, the
outcome of the manufacture is of the poor quality and this is resulting in the depletion of
customer satisfaction that in turn negatively affects the business of the retailers. Researchers
have studied this issue for some time and have developed the concept of quality control. A
literature review has been conducted based on the works different researchers as follows.
According to Munier (2013), some manufacturers, especially in the countries with
developing economy ignore the quality factor and aims for producing the materials at the least
possible expense for gaining maximum possible profits. As a result, they are delivering poor
quality products to the retailers who are in turn selling poor quality products to the customers.
This in turn angers the customers and the customer base of the retailer starts to decrease.
However, this does not affect the manufacturer much as they find other retailers to sell their
products. According to the researcher, this is significantly affecting the retailers and the
customers whereas the manufacturer is earning huge amounts from selling poor quality products
at low cost.
As per the works of Corona-Suárez, AbouRizk and Karapetrovic (2014), not only the
retail industry, quality factors are also becoming rising issues in projects as many project
managers are not undertaking sufficient measures for the quality control of the project. As a
result, the quality of the project is getting severely affected. It is the duty of the project manager
to control the quality of the project in order to ensure complete success of the project. Without
quality control, the project may be successful but after sometime, various faults and loopholes of
the project become noticeable.

3LITERATURE REVIEW
Phillips (2013) said that quality control is a problem that is adversely affecting all the
industries as this is the age of capitalism and each and every company is looking to earn
maximum amount of profits irrespective of the quality of the product or service outcome. Quality
control requires extra expenses and project manager himself has to conduct the quality control
steps which also incur a lot of time. Project management is all about the cost and time efficiency
and hence, quality control is easily one of the activities that can excluded from a project by the
project manager.
However, Sallis (2014) reiterates the importance of the project quality management in his
works regarding quality control. According to him, instead of considering project quality
management as waste of time and money, the project managers should see it as one of the most
important and integral parts of the project that should never be ignored in order to satisfy the
clients and maintain the customer base. Moreover, ignoring quality control saves time and
money but has only short term effect whereas suitable quality control reduces the profit but the
advantages are applicable for a long term. Moreover, initially, the company has to bear some
costs whereas in the long term, their profits will continue to grow exponentially.
Kerzner (2013) researched about the constraints of quality control that are mainly faced
by the project managers during the course of a budget. According to him, the following are the
main constraints faced by the project managers.
Time Constraint: Often, the projects have extremely limited amount of time and the
project managers consider quality control as a waste of time and an excess to the requirements.
Moreover, before starting the project, the company instructs the project managers to earn as
much profit as they can as an outcome of the project. Hence, the project manager generally

4LITERATURE REVIEW
emphasizes on maximizing the cost benefit factors of the project instead of analysing the quality
aspects of the project.
Cost Constraint: Again, like the previous point, cost constraint is an important behind the
lack of quality control implementation in the project. Most of the projects have limited budgets
and the project managers are to gain maximum amount of profits and cost benefit from the
project as well as not to exceed the project budget during the project. Hence, quality control is
also considered by the managers as waste of money and they emphasize on maximizing the cost
benefit factors for the project.
Scope: According to the researcher, scope is another main constraint that for the lack of
quality control in the project. While preparation of the project scope, the project manager
emphasizes on the main deliverables of the project and generally ignores the quality control of
the project as it is considered as waste of time and money. Hence, after the preparation of the
project scope, the quality control is ignored and not included as a part of the project.
As per the works of Low and Ong (2014), there are certain steps that can be taken to
improve that quality of the project and maintain the limits of time, scope and budget as well.
These are discussed as follows.
Consider Quality Control as Part of Project – During the preparation of a project plan,
the organization chairman and the project manager should consider quality control as an integral
part of the project. They should know the importance of quality control in the project as well as
maintaining a good customer base and act accordingly during the course of the project. While
preparing the project plan document, the project manager should include quality control at

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different parts of the project to ensure all the project activities are conducted according to plan
and a sufficient quality is maintained.
Arrange Time and Money for Quality Control – When the plans of most of the projects
are prepared, the organization owners estimate the cost and time requirements excluding the
quality control during the project. Hence, the budget and time get limited and as a result, there is
no scope of inclusion of quality control within the project. However, if the quality control factor
is considered early during the project planning, there will be no shortage of time and budget
(Oakland 2014). However, first, the organization owner should be able to value the importance
of quality control and ensure a specific quality of the project output that will also not negatively
affect the customer satisfaction rating.
Value the Customers over Time and Money – Another important factor that stands as an
obstacle to the quality control factor of the project is the company’s emphasis of the cost and
time benefits instead of fulfilling the requirements of the client. Although the company reiterates
that their sole focus is solely on the client’s needs, in reality, their sole focus is earning
maximum amount of profits. Hence, simply preparing a strong mission and vision statement is
not enough for the company, they should be able to understand the importance of quality in
maintaining a strong customer base and implement it accordingly in the project.
Utilize Technology – Nowadays, quality control in a project is also aided by the
advanced technologies that also save a lot of time and money. Different technical projects like
electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and others are now aided by advanced simulation
and software driven technologies that can help to control the quality of the project if applied
properly (Botje et al. 2014). For instance, during the design of water flow tanks controlled by a

6LITERATURE REVIEW
PID Controller, the researchers generally prepare a theoretical model and apply the model in the
real design accordingly. However, the quality of the final design becomes poor and inefficient.
However, with the help of MATLAB (a simulation software), the researcher can easily prepare
the final design of the project, simulate it to get the results and then prepare the same for the real
design. Again, there are several simulation tools that are utilized by the mechanical engineers in
order to ensure the quality of the outcomes of the project.
Hence, it has been seen that quality control is not a very impossible job for the project
managers neither it is a waste of time and money. The companies should be able to value the
opinions and requirements of the customers and should take suitable steps to ensure the quality
of the services or the products provided to the customer are always of the best quality. This will
not only help increase the customer base but will also strengthen the customer base that will
result in slow but exponential increasing in the annual revenue of the company (Shaari et al.
2015). Moreover, since technology is here to aid the process of quality control, the companies
and organizations should fully utilize its help and implement quality control in the project.
Moreover, quality control of the project should be done by the project manager and accordingly,
the project monitoring should be done. Furthermore, the company should not consider quality
control as waste of time and money and should spend the money for quality control no matter
what in order to ensure best quality outcome of the project.
Conclusion
In this assignment, a literature review has been conducted on the quality control factors
and the constraints that prevent application of quality control in a project. Quality control is a
system that is needed more and more with the progress of time as the needs for setting a certain

7LITERATURE REVIEW
standard of outputs are growing. This is mainly because, these days, most of the manufactures
are only after profits and hence, in order to maximize it; they are continuously using poor quality
materials for the manufacture of the products. As a result, the outcome of the manufacture is of
the poor quality and this is resulting in the depletion of customer satisfaction that in turn
negatively affects the business of the retailers. Researchers have studied this issue for some time
and have developed the concept of quality control. Instead of considering project quality
management as waste of time and money, the project managers should see it as one of the most
important and integral parts of the project that should never be ignored in order to satisfy the
clients and maintain the customer base. Moreover, ignoring quality control saves time and
money but has only short term effect whereas suitable quality control reduces the profit but the
advantages are applicable for a long term. Furthermore, initially, the company has to bear some
costs whereas in the long term, their profits will continue to grow exponentially.

8LITERATURE REVIEW
References
Botje, D., Klazinga, N.S., Sunol, R., Groene, O., Pfaff, H., Mannion, R., Depaigne-Loth, A.,
Arah, O.A., Dersarkissian, M., Wagner, C. and DUQuE Project Consortium, 2014. Is having
quality as an item on the executive board agenda associated with the implementation of quality
management systems in European hospitals: a quantitative analysis. International journal for
quality in health care, 26(suppl_1), pp.92-99.
Burke, R., 2013. Project management: planning and control techniques. New Jersey, USA.
Corona-Suárez, G.A., AbouRizk, S.M. and Karapetrovic, S., 2014. Simulation-based fuzzy logic
approach to assessing the effect of project quality management on construction
performance. Journal of Quality and Reliability Engineering, 2014.
Kerzner, H., 2013. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and
controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Leach, L.P., 2014. Critical chain project management. Artech House.
Levin, G., 2014. Project Quality Management: Why, What and How. Project Management
Journal, 45(5).
Low, S.P. and Ong, J., 2014. Quality Management. In Project Quality Management (pp. 29-36).
Springer Singapore.
Low, S.P. and Ong, J., 2014. Research Design and Methodology. In Project Quality
Management (pp. 69-77). Springer Singapore.

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Mir, F.A. and Pinnington, A.H., 2014. Exploring the value of project management: linking
project management performance and project success. International journal of project
management, 32(2), pp.202-217.
Munier, N., 2013. Project Quality Management. In Project Management for Environmental,
Construction and Manufacturing Engineers (pp. 201-208). Springer Netherlands.
Oakland, J.S., 2014. Total quality management and operational excellence: text with cases.
Routledge.
Phillips, J., 2013. PMP, Project Management Professional (Certification Study Guides).
McGraw-Hill Osborne Media.
Sallis, E., 2014. Total quality management in education. Routledge.
Schwalbe, K., 2015. Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.
Shaari, N., Abdullah, M.N., Asmoni, M., Lokman, M.A., Hamid, H.A. and Mohammed, A.H.,
2015. Practice for project quality management systems (PQMS) in construction project. Jurnal
Teknologi, 77, p.26.
Turner, R., 2016. Gower handbook of project management. Routledge.