The research examined the widening of Hang Tuah Street between Airport Intersection and Batu Besar Intersection in Batam City, Indonesia an infrastructure corridor that supports airport access, industrial activity, and regional logistics. The study matters beyond Batam because it addresses a persistent challenge in infrastructure development: how hidden construction risks turn into expensive project outcomes.
As governments and contractors continue investing in roads and public infrastructure, the ability to control costs without sacrificing quality has become increasingly important. Many construction projects still separate risk management from quality control, creating conditions where defects are discovered too late and corrective actions become expensive.
According to the authors, this fragmented approach often shifts spending away from prevention and toward repairing failures after work has already been completed.
The Batam case illustrates what happens when those systems are not fully integrated.
Why Road Quality Problems Become Cost Problems
Road infrastructure projects operate in environments filled with uncertainty. Traffic conditions, limited work areas, coordination between multiple stakeholders, and technical implementation challenges all increase the likelihood of construction risks.
The Hang Tuah widening project was carried out from September 27, 2023, to August 25, 2024. Because construction continued under active traffic conditions and involved multiple parties, the project represented a suitable case for examining how risk affects quality and how quality ultimately affects cost.
The researchers applied a retrospective case study design using project documentation, financial records, and experiences collected from project participants after construction had been completed.
To understand the relationship between risk and financial outcomes, the study combined:
- Qualitative case analysis of project practices and decision-making
- Risk prioritization analysis using Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA)
- Cost evaluation through Cost of Quality (CoQ) assessment
Rather than focusing only on numerical measurements, the study reconstructed how decisions and supervision practices influenced the final project outcome.
Risk Management Existed, But Not Systematically
The researchers found that quality control activities were present during construction but were not supported by a structured risk-based framework.
Several weaknesses appeared repeatedly across project implementation:
- No formal risk register existed before construction began
- No documented Quality Control Plan was developed based on identified risks
- Quality inspections were conducted without prioritizing high-risk work items
- Corrective action typically occurred after failures had already appeared
- Monitoring systems lacked early warning mechanisms
As a result, project supervision remained reactive rather than preventive.
The authors observed that quality risks were mostly identified through field experience and informal communication instead of structured analysis.
Nearly Rp1 Billion in Failure Costs
The strongest finding emerged from the financial analysis.
The total documented quality-related cost reached Rp2.53 billion, representing 3.70 percent of the final project contract value of Rp68.28 billion.
The researchers noted that this figure likely underestimates the real cost because prevention costs and internal failure costs were not recorded separately.
More importantly, the project generated External Failure Costs (EFC) of Rp980 million, equal to 63.3 percent of total supervision expenditure.
The breakdown revealed:
- Rp726.11 million (74.1%) resulted from nonconformities in K-350 rigid pavement quality
- Rp253.94 million (25.9%) resulted from deficiencies in work volume
These failures were detected late enough that financial consequences could no longer be fully prevented.
The researchers concluded that project costs did not increase suddenly. Instead, costs accumulated gradually as quality deviations passed through multiple stages of supervision without detection.
The Risk → Quality → Cost Chain
One of the central conclusions of the study is that risk, quality, and cost form a measurable causal sequence rather than independent project variables.
Ethically paraphrasing the authors’ interpretation, Martina Magdalena Tuulima and colleagues from Universitas 17 Agustus 1945 Surabaya argue that when risks are not identified early, quality deviations become more likely, and those deviations eventually transform into measurable financial losses.
The study describes this process as a Risk → Quality → Cost relationship.
In practical terms, investing earlier in prevention may cost less than paying for corrections after project completion.
To address this challenge, the research proposes implementation guidelines for Risk-Based Quality Management (RBQM), including:
- Developing a formal risk register before construction
- Prioritizing risks based on both quality and cost impact
- Designing inspection points around risk profiles
- Creating proactive escalation procedures
- Monitoring continuously with evaluative reporting rather than pass/fail records
According to the researchers, applying these steps could significantly reduce failure costs in future infrastructure projects.
Implications for Infrastructure Development
The findings extend beyond one road project in Batam.
For contractors, the study suggests that supervision budgets alone do not guarantee quality outcomes.
For project owners and policymakers, the findings support integrating risk-based thinking into procurement and construction governance.
For infrastructure managers, the evidence reinforces the value of preventive quality systems instead of relying on post-construction correction.
As infrastructure spending continues to increase across developing economies, the Batam case provides a measurable example that prevention is often cheaper than failure.
Author Profiles
Martina Magdalena Tuulima, Universitas 17 Agustus 1945 Surabaya.
Hanie Teki Tjendani, Universitas 17 Agustus 1945 Surabaya.
Bambang Trigunarsyah, Universitas 17 Agustus 1945 Surabaya.
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