ISO Certification for Construction Industry

The Construction industry is one of the most important industries globally for economic growth. However, the industry always facing challenges and obstacles from many aspects such as maintain the quality of the project, safety of employees, labor competency, environmental impacts, rules and regulation, and technology that can affect the project objectives.  

Due to the rapid growth of the population and the technologies, it has brought an increasing demand on the quality, safety, and environment friendly. In the Sector of building and construction, ISO standards help to define the international best practice and technical requirements to ensure buildings and other structures are quality, safe, and fit for purpose.

These ISO standards for construction are developed with input from all stakeholders involved, including architects, designers, engineers, contractors, owners, product manufacturers, regulators, policymakers, and consumers.

ISO Certification can help the construction industry to grow and increase the opportunity, expand the business globally, improve the process effectiveness and efficiency. ISO certification also helps the construction industry to comply with the rules and regulations from the authorities such as CIDB, DOSH, and DOE. 

In Malaysia, CIDB is the Contractor Industry Development Board. It was formed in 1994 to regulate, develop, and facilitate the construction industry’s global competitiveness by instilling professionalism in the delivery of a high-quality, efficient, and sustainable environment. 

The benefit of ISO 9001 for Construction

Quality Management System or ISO 9001 is focused on provided a quality product/service to meet the customer expectation. CIDB’s mission for the construction industry to deliver a quality product can be achieved if the construction industry applies ISO 9001 into its management system. Other than that, CIDB also requires the G7 Grade contractor to have at least implement ISO 9001 in the organization. With ISO 9001, the organization is required to determine and monitor the interested party and their requirements. Besides, the organization needs to establish the quality policy and objective and ensure the company is work towards the quality objectives and promoting improvement. The Construction company in compliance with ISO 9001, has a minimum set of international standards quality management system in the organization to save guard the products/services quality. This able to bring new business opportunities and increase the project tender success rate. In ISO 9001, customer satisfaction is a key element. Customer complaints and feedback need to be recorded for evaluation for improvement. To know more about ISO 9001 requirements, click here.

The benefit of ISO 45001 for Construction

Construction is a high-risk industry. So, safety in the work area is important to protect worker safety. The construction industry also considers a high labor usage industry, the work progress is highly dependent on humans. Imagine, If an accident always happened in the work area, this will be delaying the project progress. This might lead to penalties and delays in payment. Besides, a poor employee’s safety report can also damage the company’s image and reputation and indirectly impacts the industry. ISO 45001 is an international standard design to manage occupational health and safety issues. It provides a framework for the organization to reduce their workers’ work risk and improve employees’ safety. With ISO 45001, it can help manage the work area safety, reduce accidents happened and cost-saving. In ISO 45001, the organization is required to establish the health and safety policy, identify and address the risk and opportunity, identify hazards in the work area and action to reduce/improve it, etc.

The benefit of ISO 14001 for construction

In the construction industry, the environment is a very important factor. No matter how, any of the project types like a rebuild, refurbish, renovate or new land build can possibly damage the environment, surroundings, and the place where the new project will be located in the environment factor didn’t take into consideration. Without consideration of environmental factors, it might cause environmental issues such as pollution, emission, landslide, flood, or degradation of the environment. This can be avoided by having correct planning, and identification of possible risks.

ISO 14001 is an Environment Management System (EMS) that can help the construction industry to manage environmental impacts and better management of waste. The organization is required to establish the environmental policy, identification of environmental impacts, define the environmental objectives, and planning on the improvement of the environmental behavior and performance of the organizations. It helps the construction company to control and identify the significant environmental impacts, the legal requirements that apply, the mandatory resources, define the processes, procedures for continuous improvement. Besides, with ISO 14001, organizations need to take into consideration the local authority’s legal requirements. This helps the organization to prevent the penalty and fine from the local authority like the Department of Environmental (DOE). The organization does benefit from improving the image of the organization and raise awareness among employees too.