Why are the Frequently Reported Delay Factors in Construction Projects Recurring?: A Qualitative Study

The construction industry has a dynamic and complex environment. The successful completion of a construction project depends on various factors. Accordingly, construction delay is observed to happen in construction projects. It is highly affecting the construction sector and the economy of the country too. Although previous research studies identified the causes, effects, and mitigation methods separately, this study adopts a linked approach and directs to identify the effective applicable mitigation methods and their practices on each significant cause of delay in construction projects. Moreover, contractors are noted as one of the main sources of construction delay from the previous studies. Hence, this research aims to develop a framework to determine the applicable mitigation strategies and the practices of each mitigation strategy for each significant cause of contractor’s delays in construction projects in Sri Lanka. A mixed research approach was adopted to generate the research process. A literature review was conducted on construction delays, organizational and project management factors, and professional competency, mitigation strategies in delay management. The significant causes of delays and effective mitigation strategies were ranked through a questionnaire survey using a Likert scale. Project Managers and Quantity Surveyors in the Sri Lankan construction industry were selected in the ratio of 1:3 respectively for the interview as they are mostly engaged with delay management. Also, the respondents were limited to 68 and the collected data were analysed through the Relative Important Index (RII) method, to rank the significant causes and mitigation strategies. Then techniques and possible mitigation strategies were found through interviews and content analysis was used to analyse the data. The findings indicated that most of the contractor’s delays can be mitigated through applying proper mitigation strategies as effective management approaches in the construction projects such as effective project planning and schedules of construction works, maintain positive financial stability and well qualified and experienced professionals and staff, effective strategic planning, risk analysis, and management, selection of suitable sub-contractor and management and effective site management and supervision. In addition to that, inaccurate planning and scheduling of the project, financial dishonesty, poor procurement of construction materials, ineffective time management of contractors, and incompetence of management professionals and staffs were identified as the most significant contractor’s causes of delays in construction management.
 Keywords: Delays, Significant Causes, Mitigation, Construction Management, Construction Projects.

Time overruns occur when construction projects take longer than anticipated to complete, significantly affecting costs, stakeholder satisfaction, and project success. This research aims to identify and rank the primary reasons for construction project delays, providing context for each factor''s relative significance and recommending corrective actions. To achieve this goal, a detailed list of probable delay causes was established through a review of the literature and discussions with professionals in the construction management field, creating a statistically acceptable sample. The study identified seventy-two (72) delay factors classified into eleven primary categories for consideration in the questionnaire. A survey was conducted with expert engineers from municipal, state, and private general construction companies. Data analysis employed the Relative Importance Index (RII), ranking, and easy-to-understand percentages. The sequencing of variables and categories reflected their significance, especially post-2013. The study investigated typical reasons for project-related delays and provided advice on how to manage and minimize delays in building projects. Based on the results, projects suffer from delays primarily due to financial-related factors, with the highest RII being 0.7539. Additionally, respondents agreed that projects failed to finish on time due to delays in progress payments by the owner, with overdue payments having the highest RII of 0.8031. This article serves as a reference for all stakeholders engaged in the construction sector, promoting efficient project management, maintaining competitive quality standards, and reducing costs. It is recognized that project time and costs are directly correlated.

Delays are a pervasive challenge in the global construction industry, requiring more consideration to address project failure. This research proposes an improved methodology for analysing delays in the construction industry. Through a literature review, a set of 85 delay factors was identified and classified into five categories aligned with the various project phases: initiation, design, procurement, execution, and closeout. A method based on the Z-number theory was developed for the evaluation and prioritization of delay factors in the context of Pakistan. This approach incorporates expert judgment, confidence level, and experience to enhance the reliability of the evaluation. The research findings underscore the substantial influence of several critical factors on project delays. Specifically, factors such as cost inflation, contractor financial issues, inadequate project supervision and management, adverse weather conditions, insufficient skilled labour, delays in government document approvals, and unforeseen cost escalations during construction emerged as the foremost contributors to project delays.

Aims: This study aims to identify the major causes of delays in construction projects in the Makkah region of Saudi Arabia. It investigates the opinions of different stakeholders separately to ensure partiality and objectivity. Background: Saudi Arabia's construction industry is experiencing rapid expansion, with no shortage of contracts in any sector, either from housing or utilities to transport infrastructure. Public spending is driving the contracting industry forward [Oxford]. The construction industry contributed between 30% to 40% of the non-oil productive sectors at the end of each National Development Plan from 1980 to 2000. Makkah receives around two million pilgrims during the annual Hajj and more than 20 million visitors for performing Umrah (Al-Emad). Substantial public funds have been spent on construction projects to develop Makkah during recent years. Real estate, infrastructure, hospitals, and retail sectors are among those most likely to benefit. Most of these projects suffered delays and their consequences. The Saudi Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs (MOMRA) and the Ministry of Transportation acknowledged public construction project delays. They reported that approximately 75% of them exceeded their scheduled time. This is one of the main reasons to conduct this study. Methods: In this study, a comprehensive questionnaire has been developed, consisting of seventy-three causes of delay. The questionnaire was organized in the form of an importance scale. Respondents were asked to indicate their responses by ticking a column of the impact and frequency of each of the causes and construction delay in terms of 5 = very important, 4 = important, 3 = somewhat important, 2 = less important, and 1 = not important. A hundred fifty questionnaires were distributed by hand to the contractor, the consultant, and the owner in the Makkah region of Saudi Arabia. Ninety-seven forms were filled, received, and processed. The survey data were grouped into eight significant categories: owner, consultant designer, supervisor, contractor, material, labor, site, and external factors. A ninth group is left for the participants to add whatever they think of furtherer causes of delay. Results: The evaluation of the three separate surveys conducted on the responses of the owner, the contractors, and the consultant supervisor, show that the contractor is mainly responsible for the delay. Around 47% of the top ten delay factors fall in the contractor delay factors followed by laborers and owners. Three categories have not been mentioned in the top ten as delay category, including supervisors, materials, and external factors. Only one delay factor was found to be shared among the three-survey group, which is related to the labor category, that is, low productivity of labor. Conclusion: Three separate surveys have been conducted to investigate the delay in the construction industry in the Makkah region of Saudi Arabia. The surveys contain a questionnaire of seventy-three possible delay factors investigating the opinions of the three main stakeholders in the construction industry: the owners, the contractors, and the consultants. The evaluation of the survey impacts shows that the contractor is mainly responsible for the delay, followed by laborers and then the owners. One common delay factor was found among the three surveyed groups related to the labor category; that is, low productivity of labor. In frequency, the contractor category also occupied the highest percentage of the total delay contributors. Another common delay factor was found among the three surveyed groups, also related to the contractor category, that being the lack of risk evaluation by the contractor.

PurposeConstruction delay always causes massive damage to the advancing construction industries, which is no different in the case of Bangladeshi construction industries. This paper aims to investigate the major delay factors causing construction delays in public-funded, mixed and private-funded construction projects of Bangladesh. Also, it offers preventive suggestions from expert stakeholders to reduce the recurrence of delays.Design/methodology/approachAt first, an extensive literature review was conducted to identify the thirty-seven major delay factors categorized under seven groups. A questionnaire was then developed for survey at ongoing construction projects at a different division of Bangladesh. Next, data from 110 respondents were collected, and the delay factors were ranked based on the Relative Importance Index (RII); lastly, probable solutions were suggested for top-ranked delay factors based on opinions from expert stakeholders in the construction sector of Bangladesh.FindingsThe overall RII ranking of the 37 delay factors showed “Construction mistakes and defective work,” “Contract modifications by the client” and “Adverse weather condition” as the top three factors causing the delay. For public-funded projects, “Construction mistakes and defective work” and “Slow decision making by a consultant” are the top delay factors. For mixed projects, “Slow decision making of the client” and “Construction mistakes and defective work ranked top, and for private-funded projects, “Financial problems and payment delay of the client” and “Adverse weather condition” ranked top. These nuances of ranking in individual project types ascertain that the causes of delay vary in terms of project features.Practical implicationsThe outcome of this project will help identify the significant delay factors based on their severity of effectiveness associated with public-funded, mixed and private-funded projects in Bangladesh. The suggestions regarding preventing these delay factors obtained through the opinions of expert stakeholders can help reduce the effect of these delays in the context of Bangladesh and in countries where the similarity in construction environment prevails.Originality/valuePreviously, studies on construction delays in Bangladesh focused mainly on identifying the delays using qualitative analysis techniques. This study is based on a unique methodology of integrating quantitative research on delay factor identification and qualitative research on preventive measures following the opinions gathered from expert stakeholders in the construction sector.

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the risk factors in construction projects in oil and gas processing facilities in Yemen and serves as a case study for developing countries.Design/methodology/approachBy using a questionnaire, data were collected from 201 project managers and engineers employed in different sectors in the oil and gas industry in Yemen.FindingsThe survey analysis based on Kruskal–Wallis test method shows a high degree of agreement on the perceptions of risk factors depending on categories of companies. In other words, the tested risk factors exist in all sectors of oil companies in Yemen and are valid as a measure of risk factors in construction projects in oil and gas organizations in general. Although no evidence suggests that the risk factors differ significantly according to job title, the result of identifiable risk factors according to experience shows a statistically significant difference among participants in terms of their experience. The relative importance of the ranking of risk factors was obtained by the statistical analysis of responses on the impact and likelihood of occurrence of these risks. Findings show that internal risks are the greatest influential factors in construction projects in the oil and gas sector, followed by changes during construction project, government instability, incorrect project cost estimation, government delay in decision making, incorrect project schedule estimation, and political situation and war in the country.Originality/valueThese findings are valuable to organizations that are planning to conduct construction projects for oil and gas processing facilities in Yemen and other nations with similar environments, such as developing countries.

Time delay in the construction industry is a global problem and considered as one of the most significant problems worldwide. Libyan construction industry is also no exception to it, and it is known that to consider the project successful is complete on time within predicted costt. As a result of many reasons, this is more noticeably in developing countries as time delay is a normal result of poor project performance. In Libyan construction industry, budget overrun and time extension are the main problems facing all project parties including clients, contractors, subcontractors and suppliers. This research aims to determine the main causes that result in construction delays in Libya according to the owners, contractors and consultants participated in the questionnaire. The outcome of this study is that the main significant elements that often lead to time delay in Libyan construction projects are: delay in payment by client, financial difficulties by contractors, corruption, security issues, market inflation and frequent change by client during construction projects implementation.

Critical Delay Factors in Construction Projects and Their Proposed Solutions from the Perspective of Total Quality Management

Influencing factors that indicate the time delay vary from project to project and firm to firm. The aim of current study is to examine the impact of firm size and industry experience on influencing factors that indicate the time delay in the Pakistani construction contracting firms having varied sizes and industrial experiences. The data are collected through dissemination of the questionnaires in the targeted construction firms. A comparative analysis of these data is undertaken for firms of varied sizes and experiences by using Mann–Whitney U test. The results show that firms of varied sizes do not concur over several skilled labour and site operation related influencing factors, whereas firms of varied experiences are in disagreement over several financial management related influencing factors. Small firms need to overcome their weakness in site operation related issues, especially poor site supervision and management, and countering the weather conditions. Young firms need to overcome financial management weakness, including inaccurate estimation of time, variations in material prices, lack of cost planning and monitoring during pre-contract and post-contract phases. Government support is needed to retain the skilled labour in the country, particularly for younger and smaller firms that are more vulnerable to time delay due to lack of availability of skilled labours in market.

The study investigates the causes of delays in construction projects in the Makkah region of Saudi Arabia. The objective is to determine the most significant factors from the consultant designer and supervisor’s perspectives. This study is part of a series designed to explore the causes of delays from the perspective of different stakeholders in the construction industry. A comprehensive survey of 69 questions has explored various possible delay factors. All factors are grouped into eight categories based on their relevance and orientation. The factors were recorded and ranked by their relative importance index concerning their impact and frequency. The top three factors in their impacts are found to be (1) difficulties in financing the project, (2) poor management of the site and lack of distribution of tasks (3) low productivity of labor. The first two are delay factors related to the contractor group, and the third is related to the labor group. The highest in frequency relative importance index is (1) delays related to sub-contractor’s work, (2) lack of experience of the owner in the approval of the supervision team and (3) inadequate estimate of task duration and scheduling, inadequate training, and adopting new techniques. In the overall average of the impact index of all groups, the highest was the delays due to the contractor group, followed by delays due to the designer group, and finally, delays related to the labor group. The overall average of the frequency index of the whole group seems relatively low. The study’s novelty lies in the large number of delay factors that have been investigated, by collecting and analyzing actual data, focusing separately on the opinions of all stakeholders, and then comparing them to find objective results related to delays in construction projects in the Makkah region.

Construction delays are recurrent worldwide, regardless of the type of work, and can result in severe impacts, such as time and cost overruns and conflicts. This work aims to present a methodology to develop mitigation measures for the causes of Delays in Construction Projects (DCPs). Prior works have explored strategies to develop these measures but systematically failed to consider that the interrelationships among causes affect the significance of the impact of each cause. The methodology proposed combines the Interpretative Structural Modelling (ISM) and Matrix Cross Impact Matrix Multiplication (MICMAC) analyses approaches and is grounded on the opinions of construction experts collected during Focus Group Interviews (FGI). First, the critical causes of DCPs are identified. Second, the ISM model is built, representing the interrelationships between the causes and their hierarchy. Third, the MICMAC analysis is performed, revealing the strengths of the relationships among the influencing causes. Fourth, mitigation measures are developed to address the root causes identified in the previous steps, but they are designed to target and mitigate other causes, given their hierarchical relationships, driving power, and levels of dependence. Applying this methodology to the Portuguese context revealed 16 critical causes, which were then hierarchized into six levels of influence. Inadequate bidding and contract award processes and deficient communication between parties were deemed root causes, and 23 measures were put forward to mitigate DCPs. Therefore, this study contributes to the body of knowledge by designing an innovative and practitioner-wise methodology to develop mitigation measures in relation to DCPs and revealing some measures for the Portuguese context.

Construction delays are occurring in every phase of a construction project and are common problems in construction projects in Ethiopia. Moreover, it is well known that the delays in construction projects are the major causes of project failure. If the delay is not identified and the corrective project management decision is not taken in time a project may incur extra cost and extension of project time, which gives rise to dissatisfaction to all the parties involved and nowadays it’s becoming a major obstruction for their development for developing countries like Ethiopia. This research first identified 88 key factors causing delay in Ethiopian construction industries, and then the most common and critical causes of construction delay were evaluated by using both the data collected in a survey of construction managers, resident engineers, contractors, and clients, and interviews with senior professionals in the field. The findings show that the main critical factors that cause construction delays in Ethiopia are: (1) Difficulties in financing project by a contractor; (2) Escalation of the materials price; (3) Infective project planning; (4) Scheduling or resource management; (5) Delay in progress payments for completed works, (6) Lack of skilled professionals in the field of construction management in the organization, and (7) Fluctuating labor availability season to season /Seasonal labors availability. This study shows that in Ethiopia only 8.25% projects have been finished to the original targeted completion date. The remaining 91.75% delayed 352% of its contractual time. This paper finally came up with solutions towards reducing the impact of delays on construction projects in Ethiopia.

Construction projects in Afghanistan are often challenged by significant delays, posing severe challenges to their successful completion. This study aims to comprehensively assess the impact of various delay factors using the 4M1E framework Man, Machine, Material, Method, and Environment within the Afghan construction sector. By employing a validated Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach, the research investigates both direct and indirect effects of these factors on project delays. The analysis reveals that environmental and material factors are particularly influential, with environmental changes often exacerbating delays across other dimensions. The findings underscore the complex interdependencies among the 4M1E factors, highlighting the need for targeted strategies to manage the delay effectively. Practical recommendations are provided to enhance project management practices, with implications that extend beyond Afghanistan to other developing countries facing similar challenges. This study contributes to the academic discourse on construction delays, offering actionable insights for practitioners, policymakers, and stakeholders in the construction industry.

A construction project is deemed successful if it is finished within the timeframe provided. A variety of variables lead to project major failure. Construction delays and cost overruns are two of them. Project delays impede growth in all other connected disciplines. A project delays study was conducted to examine the delay causes, the impact of delays, and techniques for decreasing construction delays. Poor performance measure is a typical concern in building projects, with few projects finishing on time and within budget. According to previous studies (publications), around 90% of construction projects have delays and cost overruns ranging from 5% to 200%. The research includes a literature review as well as a questionnaire survey. A detailed questionnaire survey was used to collect data for this investigation. The building of the urban development project is significantly more challenging due to the large number of players involved. These parties include the client, contractors, architect, suppliers, consultants, and labours. It is essential to figure out whether delay is crucial or not, as identifying the critical delays aids in the implementation of relevant actions at the proper time. The purpose of this research is to assess the various forms of delays as well as the reasons of those delays that are hurting projects in India's Surat area. 8 main groups were responsible for construction delays. The weights of the delay factors and groups were computed and evaluated. An examination of the literature revealed 45 variables that influence delays. The questionnaire was distributed to construction projects. Keywords: Construction, Project, Delay, Cost overrun, Time, Process, Factors, Management, client, contractor, designer, suppliers, consultant and labours, India.

A construction project delay can result in financial losses to various parties involved both to the Contractor, Client and Project Management Consultant (PMC). This paper presents the results of a survey questionnaire conducted among Contractors, Clients and PMC. Data was analyzed with statistical tools to rank factors that influenced construction delays. From the results of the analysis there were 58 project delay factors that affected the delay of construction projects based on previous research. The project delay factors ranked so as to produce a project delay ranking sequence. Project delay factors will be grouped based on the perception of the Contractor, Client and PMC. Each project delay factor will be analyzed based on the type of delay factor, namely: Finance; Technical; and Coordination. It is concluded that the type of delay factor "finance" is a problem causing the project delay according to the perception of the "Client". While the type of "Technical" delay factor is the dominant cause of involvement according to the Contractor and PMC. For the type of delay factor "Coordination" is the main consideration for the cause of the project delay for the Contractor.