Abstracto

Root Delay Causes for Construction Projects

Iehab Soliman Moursi

Many research works were conducted worldwide to measure the sources of construction project delays. Most of these research works dealt with the actual delays or the occurred delays that actually recorded or noticed on completed or in-progress construction projects but there is limited research was conducted to search for the root of delay causes in construction projects. The presented research in this paper aims at extracting the root delay causes of construction projects. Design/methodology/approach: Fifty-three delay causes were gathered from previous research work conducted globally, then using cause-effect analysis to extract root delay causes. The resulted root delay causes were verified using a field interview questionnaire with thirty experts in the construction industry. Statistical analysis contains descriptive, factor analysis and check of independency to check the legitimacy of the resulted root delay causes. Findings: Fourteen root delay causes were resulted from cause-effect technique analysis. These root delay causes include project parties’ management efficiency, inter-relationship work environment and specific project characteristic. Originality/value: Although construction delays have been globally investigated in previous studies relating to construction management, few have attempted to analyze and search for the root delay causes. The existing research is aiming to analyze in deep the recorded delays and attempting to get their root causes. These root delay causes are the underpinning of project delay, so prior evaluation of these root delay causes before project starts can predict the prone of project to delay. The evaluation of these root delay causes can help project planners to put in their mined the possibility of project delays and the areas to be focused to mitigate the effect of proposed delays in case of occurrence. This step can be used a step of project risk analysis to enhance the delay management mitigation strategy.