Implementation of Total Quality Management for Sustainable Building Projects: A Review and Integrative Framework

Abstract

Sustainable building projects require quality management approaches beyond inspection, documentation, and technical compliance. Although Total Quality Management (TQM) is widely studied in construction and organizational performance contexts, its contribution to sustainable building delivery remains fragmented. This study synthesizes literature on TQM implementation in sustainable building projects and proposes a conceptual lifecycle framework. Following PRISMA guidelines, a systematic search was conducted in Web of Science and ScienceDirect. From 441 initially identified records, 105 studies were retained after duplicate removal, title and abstract screening, and full-text eligibility assessment. The studies were analyzed through descriptive analysis, bibliometric mapping, and critical thematic synthesis. Results show that empirical studies dominate the corpus (62.9%), with TQM performance (21.9%), barriers (14.3%), and processes/procedures (12.4%) as the most explicit categories; Industry 4.0 (4.8%) and Six Sigma (3.8%) remain comparatively limited. The synthesis identifies five interpretations of TQM: compliance and quality assurance system, project performance system, cultural and behavioral capability, sustainability-enabling system, and digital/data-driven quality system. The review clarifies the conceptual boundary of TQM in sustainable building projects and proposes a lifecycle TQM-sustainability architecture linking leadership, quality culture, stakeholder coordination, supplier integration, process control, digital traceability, continuous improvement, and lifecycle feedback with sustainable building performance. Bibliometric maps are interpreted descriptively and exploratorily rather than as inferential evidence; the proposed architecture and propositions are review-derived conceptual outputs that require empirical validation.