Quality assurance as a key factor for the competitiveness of local construction companies

Construction projects, particularly housing construction, will continue to grow as Indonesia's national development progresses. The high demand for this house has led to the emergence of new contractors on a local scale in the Pamekasan region with unstable quality of products and services, so the contractors have low competitiveness. This research aims to identify and analyze the variables influencing quality assurance (QA) on the competitiveness of local contractors in housing construction projects. The analysis is grounded in three primary frameworks: ISO 9001:2015 (Quality Management Systems), PMBOK 6th Edition (Project Management Body of Knowledge), and Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing Regulation No. 4 of 2009. The research design employed a combination of correlation and influence tests, the Relative Importance Index (RII), and the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to identify key variables. The findings revealed that among the nine QA variables, the top three ranked in terms of their influence on the competitiveness of contractor companies in Pamekasan were leadership commitment, resources, and quality documents. Optimization solutions that contractors can adopt include enhancing "delivered quality," "customer retention," and "project cycle" as guidelines for decision-making.