Consistent quality of workmanship is a method of operation as well as a value, as it is one of the ways in which we tie the company together into a coherent whole. Our employees take pride in their skills and the opportunity to demonstrate those skills in the buildings we construct.

The recent IIP report repeatedly noted the importance to our employees of producing high quality buildings:

"Site staff universally identified the strong commitment to quality as being the driving value that affects them."

We consider all our employees members of our quality management team, and believe the key to quality is a committed, employed labour force and experienced, motivated subcontractors. Our subcontractors are subject to formal review by our site managers as well as senior management, which enables the results of quality monitoring to be fed back into future jobs. Our employees believe they are the best. They hate their work being considered defective.

Senior managers are closely involved in the quality of the final product and are able to address issues by changing working practices. About three years ago, we identified that brickwork subcontractor standards were falling. We reacted by employing our own core of bricklayers with a commitment to producing a quality product. We recently made the same decision regarding decorating, where preparation seems to have become a lost art. We now have our own core of decorators and apprentices, and standards are back to a level we are happy with.

Quality issues are taken very seriously at Sandwood and continuous improvement is always at the forefront of our minds. We use both feedback from staff and subcontractors and performance throughout the defect period, to identify any products or systems that have underperformed or developed faults that could cause problems for our clients in the future.