INTRODUCTION

Construction is a large, dynamic and complex industry. Construction refers to any project
that involves coming up with a design for a structure at a certain location. Some construction
projects are small renovations or repair jobs, where the owner may act as designer, paymaster
and laborer for the entire project. However, more complex or ambitious projects usually require
additional multi-disciplinary expertise and manpower, so the owner may commission one or
more specialist businesses to undertake detailed planning, design, construction and handover
of the work.

MTT ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR is committed in keeping abreast of latest trends in the

field of electrical construction and the use of new technologies and modern methods in
executing works.

This study aims to assess risks caused by variation orders in construction projects in MTT,
through studying the most important causes of the variation orders in construction projects. The
results of the study show that the most five risky causes of variation orders are "Change in
economic conditions", "Lack of coordination between the parties", "Bad subcontractor or
supplier by the contractor", "Impediment to prompt decision-making process by the owner of the
project" and "Contractor's financial difficulties".
Therefore, it is important to ensure these projects are being implemented successfully
without any major problems while minimizing the adverse impacts of variation orders on the
project outcome. Variation orders are issued to correct or modify the original scope of work
because changes during construction of projects are unavoidable. As the number of variation
orders on a project increases, so does the possibility of misunderstanding among the
contracting parties. Such a misunderstanding may occur because one or more of the parties
lacks full knowledge of the variation order process itself, the costs involved in implementing
changes, or the delays, conflicts, and interruption of the construction sequence and schedule
which can adversely impact project coordination.
The construction industry is face with enormous challenges in both engineering or technical and
management. These challenges faced by practitioners and other stakeholders in the industries
have pushed researchers to establish and develop research in construction, and
particularly in the procurement and management of construction projects as one way to
overcome the problems that may hinder the growth of the construction industry. "Construction"
implies designing and building facilities to meet specific needs. Most of the industry’s research
advances come from solving specific problems when encountered on new projects; often this
involves applied scientific and engineering research of a very high order (Paulson et al, 1975).
Paulson et al (1975) describe the construction industry as an industry with “a state of affairs with
seemingly contradictory qualities". The industry contributes greatly to the gross national product
of most countries, yet the vast majority of the stakeholders in the industry small are businesses.
Despite the intensive competition among construction companies in the free enterprise system,
technological and managerial advancement in the industry still remains trivial. There is need for
investment in research in the construction industry to seek practical and proper solutions to the
 increasing problems involve with increasingly large and complex projects in the future.
Construction is highly fragmented and sometimes with a lot of conflicting issues as it involves a
lot of different stakeholders and participants involving architects or designers, engineer,
constructors, regulators, suppliers contractors etc. with different skills in their specialised areas,
yet is still difficult to understand how these different people come to work together forcing
Paulson et al to say it is difficult to really define the construction industry. On the other hand the
department of national treasury of the republic of South Africa (2012) describe the construction
industry as a broad conglomeration of industries and sectors which add value in the creation
and maintenance of fixed assets within the built environment. Paulson et al stipulate that to
really understand the industry, one’s scope must be extend to include equipment
manufacturers, facilities designers and materials suppliers, public and private consumers of
construction services, many of whom have considerable construction expertise of their own. It
will be equally important for Government to implement as strong policies, employment practices,
fair trade, environmental health and safety. Despite the custom-oriented nature of the industry
with its large financial involvement, though without accurate data, one can predict that there is
very little of the industry’s gross revenues that are invested in research, most especially in the
developing countries. Even in developed nations, research in the construction industry is low
when compared to the other industries such as the automobile, electronics, software
engineering etc. This evidence can be seen in the number of sponsored research programmes
in UK universities which are sponsored by the automobile and IT companies. Most of these
sponsored research programmes which have industrial sponsors and are promoted by the UK's
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) are seen in the Engineering
Doctorate programmes in UK universities. This laxity in investing in research by construction
firms as compared to their counterparts in other industries may partly due to the fact that
advances in construction tend to result from innovations or better ideas which may come as a
result of experience. But Paulson et al (1975) argues that most of these cannot be protected
either by secrecy or patents and thus disseminate rapidly through the industry. Thus there is
little incentive for one firm to invest heavily in research that can soon be expected to equally
benefit its competitors. They suggest that if there is to be an increased research effort in
construction, incentives will most likely be provided through non-traditional means. Innovation
can leads to a successful project as it
may help to get work done on time and within budget and consequently satisfies the customers
need. We need to be innovative in order to maintain a vital industry as innovation is the life force
in the highly competitive international market place. Business and industrial engineering have
being showing interest in research in technological management. As compared to the past when
technology was seen as a means of improving operational efficiency which might lead to cost
reduction in production and improvement in productivity, there is a shift in such view now as
technology is changing towards more strategic implication as a competitive advantage. This is
more apparent in the manufacturing industry where they have seen innovation in technology as
contributing success factor. This is still to be fully recognised in the construction industry as a
very vital factor despite the need of highly innovative technologies needed in the execution of
big and challenging projects. Someya (1992) says one of such reason is the fact that those
innovative technologies are project – driven or market-driven which are not perceived as means
of creating new market opportunities. Construction firms only need those technologies on
 project by project basis and little efforts and investment are made to improve those
technologies. While some construction firms in well developed countries have been investing in
research and development to improve state-of-the-art technology because they have realised
that such technological development is needed to compete with others in the international
design and construction markets, many construction firms mostly those in the developing
nations are still to follow such example. Experience have shown that the construction industry is
faced with many challenges in both the technical and managerial aspect. In order to improve
productivity of the construction industry, there is a need to pay particular attention to sector skills
and procurement. The Cameroonian population and other developing nations today are talking
about vision 2035 as emerging nations. This can hardly be achieved without strong participation
and improvement in the construction industry or public works sector. To achieve such a goal or
vision, some of the skills that the construction industry must have is a more knowledgeable
client base that has better procurement skills, good coordination and forward planning of both
central and local government building programmes. There is also a need for research to better
understand how productivity can best be measured in relation to the various aspects of the
industry what are the best measures of industry productivity, company productivity, project
productivity and task productivity (BRANZ, 2013). Most of the academic research found in the
procurement and management of construction projects in particular and the construction
industry in general is mostly linked to the improvement of analytical tools and administrative aids
for management. These areas include the use of modern Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) to in the management of planning and scheduling, simulation, resource
analysis, management information systems, quality assurance, productivity analysis, cost
engineering, estimating, etc. Research needs to be to get more viable and long lasting
solutions to the problems and challenges plaguing the industry. The challenges are forcing the
construction industry to change its traditional approaches to design, construction, refurbishment,
and maintenance. These challenges are setting new targets and creating new scope for
designers, engineers, manufacturers, contractors, technologist, and researchers (Fairclough,
2002
 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The origin of variations refers to any of the project participants who directly initiates or
suggests variations to the project, or by reason of whose failure or inability to fulfill the
requirements for carrying out the project, causes a variation order to be issued. It also embraces
factors or conditions which though not directly linked to the participants, also cause an
instruction requiring a variation to be issued. The report of a study on Minimizing Impact of
Change Order to Projects Cost conducted by the Construction Engineering and Infrastructure
Management, (CEIM),indicated that change orders or variation orders are changes brought
about by the owner or changes due to site conditions, damages (sic) or weather. According to
Harbans (2003), variation orders may be initiated either by clients or by contractors. These
postulations on the origins of variation orders are shallow. They tend to suggest the exclusion of
project consultants as origin agents of variation orders. It is submitted that the intendment of the
Standard Forms of Building Contracts is to enable the consultant architect initiate variation
orders when he desires; and design consultants often initiate variations.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The study seeks to identify the Main source of delay. It aims to deliver project on time:

1.) Lack of communication

(1.1) Proper Scheduling

(1.2) Materials

(1.3) Civil Status

(1.4) Budget

(1.5) Number of Manpower

2 Consequences of Rework

(2.1) Redoing things takes time and might therefore lead to time
delay. Rework can definitely influence the project planning.
Time overrun might be a consequence of rework.

(2.2) A second indicator is labour overrun. If work has been

 completed incorrectly this can be seen as non-productive
time and rework takes attempt and thus results in labour
overrun. If additional hours (and thus added labour costs)
were needed to realize a project than estimated, it might be
due to rework.

(2.3) Rework often means that parts of a structure have to be

scrapped and new material is needed to rebuild it. Extra
material used might indicate rework as well. It is shown in
fig 1.

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

1. To identify cause of rework and to determine their

degree of severity on the performance in terms of
time and cost in construction projects.
2. To determine the impact of rework on
organizational project performance (cost and time),
through case studies.
3. To determine the measures for reducing the
incidence of rework in construction projects.
 SIGNIFICANT OF THE STUDY

One of the most important aspects of planning and scheduling is to develop baseline standards
of productivity and success. Without setting a specific plan in place with a specific desired
outcome defined by a completion date, you won't know if you are meeting goals.
Having a schedule guides you in determining what your priorities are so that you can spend the
right time on the right tasks. It also reminds you of any forthcoming deadlines. Knowing this, you
can block out sufficient time to meet them. In the Construction Industry it is important to have
these to minimize rework or backjob.

SCOPE AND DELIMITATIONS

This study is important to identifying and to evaluating the

main factors affecting the productivity of construction
projects and to improve the rework reducing condition for
the projects. The findings may help construction parties to
understand causes of rework which affect construction
project performance in terms of cost and time. The study
focuses on the analysis of the rework activities by identifying
the magnitude and its impact of Cost and Time in
Construction projects. Positive aspects and also negative
aspects of rework are highlighted and suggestion will be
given to reduce the rework in construction projects.

Theoretical and Conceptual Framework

Hypothesis

Definition of Terms