Masonry Magazine December 2000 Page. 23
CERTIFYING QUALITY:
Will Our Customers Buy It?
By Michael Adelizzi and Jeff Buczkiewicz
Those of you with more than one child at home understand all too well the concept of "I didn't do it." Something breaks in your house, some item is lost, lights are left on, the last piece of pie disappears from the refrigerator or juice is spilled on your carpeting. When you ask who did it...you always hear, "not me!" But yet we know someone had to do it. And if it wasn't me, then who was it? Was it you? No, it wasn't me. It had to be you if it wasn't me! It couldn't possibly be me! Don't even think of looking at me. You're looking at me only because I look guilty, but I'm not, I just always have this stupid look on my face, it's inherited.
In our industry, we face the responsibility of delivering total quality projects to our customers, on each and every project, every time. In fact, we try to exceed our customers expectations every single time. I know we all believe that we deliver a quality project and construction experience every single time to our customers. So, if that's so, then why is there a quality debate? Why are many of our customers less than enthusiastic with the finished product we deliver?
"...construction customers are starved for knowledge on how quality masonry is installed..."
None of us will fess up to delivering a less than quality project, yet when our customers lose confidence in building with masonry, who's to blame? Don't look at me, I didn't do it! It must have been someone else. It must be our customers fault. Yeah, they're always expecting too much. And they change their minds all the time. They're not willing to pay a fair price! They won't give us enough lead time to build a quality project! Shoot, they let the other trades fall way behind with the schedule and then they expect us to make up the difference and make the job look good on top of it. Heck, they have no idea what a quality masonry project is, so if they get a bad job they deserve it.
Don't blame us...right? Wrong! We are all to blame.
To be sure, our customers share the blame because they really don't know masonry and masonry systems. They don't understand all of the factors that go into building a quality project, factors such as proper installation of flashing and reinforcement, avoiding efflorescence and the overall general performance of our system. How can we expect the customer to know everything about masonry if everyone in our industry doesn't know all there is about delivering a quality project? If customers are to blame, inspectors are also at fault because they do not fully understand our systems either. To be fair, the design community does not totally understand our system very well either or the unique design features that set us apart from our competitors. And even some of our work force lacks our commitment to quality as well. So who is really at fault in the quality debate?
As an industry, we unfortunately seek a quick fix solution to solve the quality debate. Some in our industry are quick to seek certification of the contractor or our workforce as the