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Quality in housing : an explorative research to the way Norway, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom measure and define quality in housing and a description of how they try to improve housing quality by the use of new procurement routes

Plegt, Marieke (2007) Quality in housing : an explorative research to the way Norway, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom measure and define quality in housing and a description of how they try to improve housing quality by the use of new procurement routes.

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Abstract:When analyzing the approach of Norway, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom to quality in housing the first differences are being noticed in the characteristics of the country and the way the governments are organized. This comes forward in chapter 3. When looking at the housing policies we see that quality is an aspect in each country but it is not visible from the policies what is exactly meant with the word quality. The centralized structure in the UK and the high level of involvement of the government in the housing industry are also recognizable from the developed tools. The UK is the only country where in case of social housing the fulfillment of all the criteria of a quality tool are mandatory to get funding from the Housing Corporation. Chapter 4 describes the tools and the organizations which developed these tools. In the Netherlands the industry is more involved in the quality measuring process and tools are used as indicators to show users and contractors the level of quality of a house builder. In Norway and the UK policies from the government are used to developed criteria for the measuring tools. Examples are the Building for Life and the Quality Check List in Norway. The first tool is built directly on housing policies from the government. The second one relates to quality criteria set by the Norwegian State housing Bank which is working closely together with the government. The stakeholders who determine the quality and the phase in which this is happening are analyzed in chapter 5. The (design) quality is set in the program and the design phase of the building process. Literature review shows that owners have a preference to stay involved in the program and design phase as long as possible. Although different organization models are used this is the trend in all three countries. The new models which are supposed to have a positive influence on quality can be divided in a few different groups and are described in chapter 6. The first group contains models related to partnering during the building process. This can be short or long term relationships between different stakeholders in the building process. Suppliers can also be part of a partnering agreement. The supply chain is important in the second group; here the concept of mass customization is introduced. The building process now also contains the supply side. Suppliers can be part of the design phase to put in extra knowledge and adjust the design to the possibilities of the supply chain. The criteria used in the tendering process are shifting to more value than only price based. Quality is being integrated into the process. There are several differences between the countries and to learn from each other it should be kept in mind that simply copying tools and models will not do as there are fundamental differences in the characteristics of the countries and the national housing markets.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Clients:
SINTEF Bygg og Arkitektur, Norway
Faculty:ET: Engineering Technology
Subject:56 civil engineering
Programme:Civil Engineering BSc (56952)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/74815
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