Excessive warranty issues can swiftly turn a profitable construction project into a financial burden. Beyond the direct costs, warranty issues can also damage customer satisfaction and impose heavy penalties on your subcontractors tasked with making repairs.
If left unchecked, these issues can erode your company’s reputation and jeopardize future business opportunities. To manage and reduce these risks, here are four practical tips to help control and minimize warranty costs:
1. Create a Target List of Recurring Issues
Start by analyzing warranty claims from the past year and apply the 80/20 rule—often, 80% of problems come from 20% of causes. Identify the most costly and frequent issues. This targeted list should then be used to focus your team’s efforts on preventing these problems during the construction phase.
Raising awareness about these specific issues can significantly reduce their occurrence, saving costs associated with post-construction warranties.
2. Conduct Thorough Final QA Project Inspections
Many warranty issues can be caught before the customer ever notices them. The final QA inspection represents your last opportunity to catch and rectify problems. This critical step ensures that any lingering defects are addressed before they turn into costly warranty repairs. Regular and rigorous final inspections are key to delivering projects that meet both quality standards and customer expectations.
3. Implement Subcontractor Inspections
Often, the root of a specific warranty issue can be traced back to a particular specialty trade or subcontractor. It’s crucial to conduct detailed inspections of subcontractor work throughout the construction process.
By identifying and addressing errors early, you can prevent issues from becoming embedded in the finished project. This proactive approach not only improves the quality of construction but also helps build better relationships with subcontractors through clear expectations and feedback.
4. Upgrade Project Inspection and QAQC Processes
The level of chaos typically seen on job sites due to various construction issues is a predictor of potential warranty costs. Improving the inspection processes and overall quality assurance and quality control (QAQC) can have a substantial impact. Building it right the first time not only saves time and money during construction but also reduces the volume of post-construction defects. Enhanced QAQC processes ensure a smoother project flow and higher quality outcomes, significantly cutting down on warranty claims.
For more information on how FTQ360 digital inspection and QAQC best practices can help you reduce construction issues by half, year over year, visit the FTQ360 website.
Embracing these technologies not only helps in curtailing warranty costs but also boosts overall project efficiency and quality.
Learn how contractors are using FTQ360 tools to help reign in excessive construction warranty claims.
