Delay analysis methods in construction projects

Abstract

Construction industry is recognised to be one of the leading contributors to the economic development. But this industry has a very poor reputation globally associated with coping with delays. Construction projects commonly suffer from schedule delays due to varying reasons, which may cause unresolved debates till end of the project and even costly disputes between different stakeholders of the project. Thus, delay analysis becomes an essential instrument to address problems resulting from delay in a construction project. This research primarily targets to determine in what extent existing delay analysis methods are able to cope with general problematic issues in delay analysis applications. Within this purpose, firstly main causes of delay in construction projects were identified by investigating early studies in the literature. Then the delay in construction projects was identified and categorized based on liabilities of parties in a project through an extensive literature survey. Since most of the studies in the literature - so far as to compare delay analysis methods or how to select one of them or to present opinion regarding their features are concerned – have based on fictional scenarios rather than actual project records. Therefore, a case study approach based on a real project has been adopted. Time slice analysis method was selected as the most appropriate delay analysis technique for the case project and it was carried out to measure delay in the project and allocate liabilities. Moreover, the other retrospective delay analysis methods were also performed to compare results of different techniques. Capabilities of each technique when dealing with problematic issues and application procedure of each technique were presented as findings of this study in light of application of each method on the case study. Time slice analysis method and as-planned vs as-built window analysis were found to be most capable techniques in identification occurrence/period of influence, cause and extent of critical delay to that critical path. Time slice analysis method requires reliable series of updated programmes, on the other hand as-planned vs as-built window analysis requires reliable project record to create the actual critical path in absence of reliable series of updated programmes. Finally, this study targets to be an example for practitioners and academics regarding applications of retrospective delay analysis methods on a real project.