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Looks at the construction industry’s approach to quality management by focusing on the sector of civil and structural engineering consulting, with an in‐depth study of one company in particular. Examines the premiss that the industry does not really understand total quality management, but merely considers the management of quality to be the gaining of BS 5750 registration. The study was carried out on a literature review and interview basis in six offices of a multi‐disciplinary firm of consulting engineers. Comparison of the case study findings with Oakland’s model for TQM and the literature review provide a résumé of the current status of understanding and management of quality in construction.

Describes an investigation, in different types of services, of relationships between customers’ perception of service quality, and the importance which customers attach to elements of the service package. The scale for measuring service quality, SERVQUAL, which was discussed in Part 2 of this series, was used to assess both the quality and the importance of each of the dimensions: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. The attributes of service operations (labour intensity, contact, interaction, customization, service recipient and nature of the service), which were defined in Part 1 of this series, were used to classify the sample. The influence of each of these attributes on quality perceptions was also assessed. The investigation was designed to answer two broad questions: the first about the differences in consumers’ quality perceptions between services, and the second dealing with the different relative importance which dimensions of services have in formulation of consumers’ perceptions of service quality. The survey analyses support a number of conclusions. Many corroborate the concepts and principles raised in earlier work and which were discussed earlier in this series. Some other tentative conclusions, which have not been expressly stated in other work, provide potential areas for further study and for possible verification.

The work described in this article concerns the practice of quality management in the UK textile industry. This part describes the detailed in‐company work, the results of assessments to BS 5750 Part 2 (ISO 9002), and the quantification of a system audit, using conjoint analysis. There was found a distinct lack of good quality management practices in the industry. A technique for rating quality systems was established.

The first stage of a research project concerned with an examination of the practice of quality management in the textile industry is described. It deals with the results of a postal questionnaire survey, which indicate that in some areas quality management in this industry is less well developed than in others. The findings confirm that the implementation of documented quality systems influences performance in other areas of quality management. As might be expected, the larger textile factories and/or companies have the best quality assurance and suggestions are made regarding the improvements necessary in smaller companies.

In this article are presented the basic strategies which should be adopted by manufacturing for trouble shooting and process improvement studies. Much work is needed to encourage the usage of these techniques and it is here that the quality assurance professional may be able to exert strong influence and to assist in the training and educational programme which will be required.