Best quality-improvement strategy

The country's first government-initiated millennium village in Greenwich, south London, is well known for the bold and colourful design of its housing. But for the model scheme, its developer, a joint venture of Countryside Properties and Taylor Woodrow Capital Developments, is aiming to hit a demanding set of environmental, construction and build quality targets over the duration of the build programme. For all 1377 homes being built on the site, quality is rigorously measured and assessed as the developer moves towards its ultimate quality objective, the housebuilding industry Holy Grail of zero defects. Through this ongoing measurement, the developer has already reduced defects at completion by 40%. It has also learned that 45% of defects originate before or at first fix stage. A customer-care team with a computer-based records system is now operating on site, to record customer issues for analysis to inform the design and construction process further. At GMV the quality-improvement process is continuous.

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Stamford Homes

By the time a buyer gets the keys to their Stamford home, it should have been inspected by the sales staff and site manager three times, by the quality manager twice, and by the buyer themselves. In the first 12 months of occupation, the buyer will also get a further inspection by the sales staff, an official welcome call from the customer service manager and a cosmetic maintenance check. That kind of attention to detail in quality has seen the housebuilder's pre-completion defects reduced by 50%, while remedial costs per plot during the first two years of occupation have been reduced by about a third. The quality improvement is also pleasing customers as 87% say they would recommend the housebuilder to a friend.

they have set themselves extremely ambitious targets on a project of massive scale