What Owners Should Ask About a Contractor’s Quality Program Before Awarding a Project

Construction quality management is about more than meeting project drawings and specifications. For owners, an effective contractor quality program helps identify risks early, prevent costly rework, verify critical installations, and ensure a facility performs as intended long after construction is complete. 

Rather than asking only whether a contractor has a quality manager or a standard checklist, owners should ask how quality is built into the team’s decisions and daily work. 

1. How Early Does Quality Management Begin in the Construction Process? 

Construction quality management should begin during the design phase—not when work reaches the field. Early planning allows teams to identify constructability challenges, technical conflicts, and critical decisions before they affect construction. 

Owners should ask: 

• How will the team identify constructability issues, technical conflicts, permitting risks, and long-lead decisions early? 
• Which field leaders, trade partners, and subject-matter experts will participate in design reviews? 
• How will quality expectations be aligned with budget, schedule, operations, and performance goals? 

Early builder involvement gives the team time to make meaningful corrections while options are still available. An integrated team of preconstruction professionals, designers, engineers, and operations can utilize constructability reviews, BIM coordination, and transparent cost and schedule feedback as ways to reduce redesign, RFIs, change orders, and rework before construction begins.  

For technically complex projects, early work may include reviewing utilities, infrastructure capacity, specialized MEP systems, phasing, building envelope details, and maintenance requirements. A strong contractor should be able to show how those decisions are made — not simply promise that they will be addressed. 

2. Does the Contractor Have a Site-Specific Construction Quality Management Plan? 

A site-specific quality plan establishes how construction quality will be planned, executed, documented, and verified for a particular project. 

Ask whether the contractor will develop a site-specific quality plan that identifies: 

• Project quality objectives, performance requirements, and risk mitigation strategies 
• Design review milestones, documentation protocols, and team responsibilities 
• Mock-ups, pre-installation meetings, inspections, testing, and first-installation verification 
• Commissioning, closeout, training, warranty, and turnover requirements 

The plan should also identify how quality assurance and quality control activities will be coordinated. 

Quality assurance (QA) focuses on processes intended to prevent defects and establish consistent quality expectations. Quality control (QC) focuses on inspecting, testing, and verifying that completed work meets project requirements. Both are essential parts of an effective construction quality management approach. 

A comprehensive Site-Specific Quality Plan should be integrated into day-to-day construction activities and updated as project conditions change. 

3. How Does the Contractor Prevent Construction Defects and Rework? 

Effective construction quality assurance is proactive. Contractors should verify critical work before installation methods are repeated throughout the project. 

Owners should ask a contractor to explain how they verify important work before it is repeated at scale. 

Preventive quality management activities may include: 

• Pre-installation meetings with trade partners 
• First-installation inspections 
• Full-scale or partial construction mock-ups 

• Material inspections, sample installations and testing 

• Multidisciplinary coordination reviews 
• Verification of installation tolerances, sequencing, and inspection requirements 

Mock-ups help the team identify challenges, develop installation lessons, and establish an inspection process before the work was repeated on the project. 

This principle applies across all project types. Whether the work involves a hospital, behavioral health facility, research environment, civic building, or advanced manufacturing space, the team should test critical work early, learn from it, and carry those lessons forward. 

4. Who Is Accountable for Construction Quality, and How Is Progress Reported? 

A successful construction quality management program establishes clear accountability and gives owners visibility into inspections, deficiencies, corrective actions, and unresolved quality risks. 

Quality should be a shared responsibility across the construction team, supported by defined roles, authority, and reporting processes. 

Owners should ask: 

• Who has day-to-day responsibility for quality in the field? 
• How do the superintendent, project manager, quality manager, design team, and trade partners work together? 
• Who can stop or correct work that does not meet requirements? 
• How are unresolved issues assigned, escalated, and closed? 
• What information will the owner receive, and how often? 

A strong project organization identifies specific individuals for construction management, field supervision, design integration, BIM/VDC, building systems, commissioning, and quality control. The people closest to the work need the authority and support to act, while project leadership maintains visibility into trends, risks, and open actions. 

Owners should also ask how quality will be documented. Tools such as Revizto, Procore, and other digital platforms can help manage design comments, submittals, inspections, testing, corrective actions, and closeout.  

No matter which tools are used, the important question is whether it creates a reliable workflow for assigning responsibility, confirming resolution, and giving the owner a clear view of what is complete and what remains open. 

5. How Does Construction Quality Management Support Commissioning and Facility Turnover? 

Construction quality does not end at substantial completion. A contractor's quality program should help ensure that building systems function as intended, and that facility teams have the information, training, and support needed for long-term operations. 

Owners should ask: 

• How will the contractor engage the people who will use and operate the facility? 
• How will systems be tested under real operating conditions? 
• When will commissioning and turnover planning begin? 
• What documentation, training, warranties, and digital as-builts will the owner receive? 
• How will open items be tracked and resolved after turnover? 

Often, the planning for commissioning and turnover training is identified late in the project where project teams are forced to scramble to execute these critical steps.  A contractor should emphasize early involvement with clinicians, facilities staff, security teams, operators, tenants, and other end users. Mock-ups, virtual reality, user reviews, performance testing, and commissioning help validate that spaces and systems work in real life—not just on paper. 

Quality is the owner’s outcome 

The strongest quality program is not the one with the most paperwork or longest checklist. It's the one that helps the team make better decisions, prevents predictable problems, and gives the owner confidence that the facility will perform as intended. 

Before awarding a project, owners should look for a contractor that can demonstrate integrated delivery, practical field knowledge, disciplined verification, digital visibility, and shared accountability. They should ask to see how the program works — not only what it is called. 

Quality is the owner’s outcome: confidence that the project will support its mission, protect its investment, and continue to deliver value long after the ribbon is cut. 

Learn more about McCarthy's quality expertise.

About the Author 

Mike O’Brien is Senior Quality Operations Director at McCarthy. In this role, he supports McCarthy’s focus on operational excellence and consistent quality process implementation throughout the project life cycle.