Project manager's level of satisfaction in construction logistics in ISO 9001 certified Sri Lankan construction companies

Abstract

Customer satisfaction and continuous improvement are the fundamental goals of construction logistics and ISO 9001 standard. ISO 9001 is a universally understood and accepted quality management system which comprises of a set of tools, when properly implemented; gives customer confidence that the supplier can continuously meet their requirement timely in the required quality. While much attention and much research has been focused on exploring the relationships of external customer satisfaction, researches on internal customer satisfaction is very few in number. Happy satisfied internal customer will improve the bottom line of an organization. So by this case, the paper is to identify the factors that are required to increase Project Manger's satisfaction (most important internal customer) especially on actions that are taken by the management in ISO certified construction companies. The purpose of this study is to extend the framework for construction material logistics in customer satisfaction from owner to project manager level. This paper examines how construction logistics affect a project manager's level of satisfaction. A survey established the general importance that a project manager must place on the construction logistics. Accordingly, the most significantly correlated factors in customer satisfaction were obtained from a project manager's point of view. Key important factors related to satisfaction were found through interviews with project managers and a literature review. These included project's personnel, material flow, schedule, contractor's organization, and information flow. The study results out of the key logistic factors material flow, information flow, schedule and personal found to be highly significant over total satisfaction of PM on construction logistics in ISO certified Sri Lankan companies. Out of significant factors suggest that material flow, information flow and schedule are worthy of the most attention. Satisfying the above factors will greatly improve the construction logistics that will, greatly increase the project manager's level of satisfaction over construction logistics. This paper also investigates the effect of logistics on, time, cost and quality of a project and also suggested the actions that have been practiced by the management of ISO9001certified construction companies in fulfilling their Project manager's satisfaction.