Study of Construction Contract Delay; Causes and Impacts: Fid-Bau Portal

Study of Construction Contract Delay; Causes and Impacts

C. N. Dawkins

This paper discusses and explores the most recent findings on construction delay. Construction delay touches on many areas of construction management practice and is worthy of in-depth study since it significantly affects costs borne by owners and construction contractors alike. The paper opens with a section on the causes of construction delay, followed by a section on its costs. These two sections discuss the most recent thoughts on the subject and prepare the reader for the following sections. The third section is a study of 48 recently completed public building contracts (totalling over $100 million), and their corresponding cost and schedule data. The study analyzes the cause of each contract change order, its corresponding time and cost impact, and a general study of the contracts and their actual completion times versus original planned completion. This section provides quantitative data which supports the first two sections. It also adds a field perspective to the paper's content. The fourth section discusses management solutions to construction delay based on the preceding three sections and other data gathered from field interviews and the latest professional literature on the subject. This section is followed by conclusions and an assessment of future research needs in this significant area of the construction industry. (Author).