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Procedia Computer Science 00 (2017) 000–000
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Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
Procedia Computer Science 00 (2017) 000–000
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia
ScienceDirect
Procedia Computer Science 121 (2017) 732–739

CENTERIS - International Conference on ENTERprise Information Systems / ProjMAN -

International Conference on Project MANagement / HCist - International Conference on Health
CENTERIS - International Conference on ENTERprise Information Systems / ProjMAN -
and Social Care Information Systems and Technologies, CENTERIS / ProjMAN / HCist 2017,
International Conference on Project MANagement / HCist - International Conference on Health
8-10 November 2017, Barcelona, Spain
and Social Care Information Systems and Technologies, CENTERIS / ProjMAN / HCist 2017,
Investigating Schedule 8-10Deviation in Construction
November 2017, Projects through Root
Barcelona, Spain
Cause Analysis
Investigating Schedule Deviation in Construction Projects through Root
Cause
Pei-Yuan Hsua,*, Marco Analysis
Aurisicchio a
, Panagiotis Angeloudisb
a, a Kensington, London SW7 2AZ,bUK
Pei-Yuan Hsu *, Marco Aurisicchio , Panagiotis Angeloudis
Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London,South
a

b
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London,South Kensington, London SW7 2AZ, UK
a
Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London,South Kensington, London SW7 2AZ, UK
b
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London,South Kensington, London SW7 2AZ, UK
Abstract

In construction projects delays are not only disruptive but also expensive. Thus, the reasons for schedule deviation need to be
Abstract
identified. The delay factors determined in previous research were predominantly studied through surveys. In these studies, the
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was applied stakeholders.
a modular construction project that experienced significant delays. The analysis identified multiple delay
factors, and showed how they are linked from the primary causes to the ultimate event. The root of most delays was traced to the
inexperience of the project stakeholders.
© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
© 2017 The Authors.
Peer-review Published by
under responsibility of Elsevier B.V. committee of the CENTERIS - International Conference on ENTERprise
the scientific
Peer-review
Information under responsibility of the scientific committee of the CENTERIS - International Conference on ENTERprise
© 2017 The Systems
Authors. /Published
ProjMANby - International
Elsevier B.V.Conference on Project MANagement / HCist - International Conference on
Information Systems / ProjMAN - International Conference on Project MANagement / HCist - International Conference on
Health
Health and
and Social
Peer-review underCare
Social Information
responsibility
Care Information Systems
of the and
scientific
Systems Technologies.
and committee of the CENTERIS - International Conference on ENTERprise
Technologies.
Information Systems / ProjMAN - International Conference on Project MANagement / HCist - International Conference on
Keywords:
Health andConstruction
Social Caredelay, Delay factor,
Information Productivity,
Systems Prefabrication, Root-cause analysis
and Technologies.

Keywords: Construction delay, Delay factor, Productivity, Prefabrication, Root-cause analysis

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44(0)7761 770 155
E-mail address: p.hsu15@imperial.ac.uk
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44(0)7761 770 155
E-mail address:
1877-0509 © 2017 Thep.hsu15@imperial.ac.uk
Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the CENTERIS - International Conference on ENTERprise Information Systems /
ProjMAN
1877-0509-© International Conference
2017 The Authors. on Project
Published MANagement
by Elsevier B.V. / HCist - International Conference on Health and Social Care Information Systems
and Technologies.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the CENTERIS - International Conference on ENTERprise Information Systems /
ProjMAN - International Conference on Project MANagement / HCist - International Conference on Health and Social Care Information Systems
and Technologies.

1877-0509 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the CENTERIS - International Conference on ENTERprise Information
Systems / ProjMAN - International Conference on Project MANagement / HCist - International Conference on Health and Social
Care Information Systems and Technologies.
10.1016/j.procs.2017.11.095
2 Pei-Yuan Hsu et al. / Procedia Computer Science 00 (2017) 000–000
Pei-Yuan Hsu et al. / Procedia Computer Science 121 (2017) 732–739 733

1. Introduction
A construction project is considered to be successful when it is completed on time, within budget and all the
stakeholders are satisfied with its quality (Gündüz et al. 2013). Completing projects within the contract time is often
regarded as an indicator of efficiency (Chan and Kumaraswamy 1997). However, unique features of construction
projects, such as long execution period, complicated processes, high sensitivity to environmental influences, the
diverse interests of the different stakeholders and the dynamic structure of project teams, often make the delivery of
projects on time very challenging (Zou et al. 2007). Indeed, the construction industry generally regards delays to be
inevitable (Aibinu and Odeyinka 2006).
In order to control or eliminate the obstacles to complete a project on time, the reasons for construction delays
have to be understood. Many studies have been carried out for this purpose, and the methods typically applied are
surveys conducted using interviews or questionnaires (e.g. Assaf et al. 1995; Gündüz et al. 2013), and reviews of
existing literature (e.g. Chan and Kumaraswamy 1997; Aibinu and Odeyinka 2006; Pethkar and Birajdar 2015). These
studies have generally regarded all the causes of non-conformance in construction schedules to be at the same level.
In other words, the cause-effect relationships between delay factors are missing. Furthermore, the importance of a
delay factor is generally assigned subjectively by the participants to a study based on personal experience. Thus, there
is no systematic and objective way of judging how significant a delay factor is.
In reality, lateness in construction schedules results from a chain or sequence of events. Any undesired delay
event must be triggered by intermediate events and these in turn are caused by primary events which should be
identified, understood and blamed for. Hence, all the delay factors in a construction project are connected not only
chronologically but also logically. This is because all the stakeholders in a construction project are interacting
dynamically with each other during the whole execution period. Thus, in order to effectively reveal the primary delay
causes, a new paradigm has to be implemented.
The aim of this research is to investigate the factors causing schedule deviation in construction projects and
understand the casual relationships between the events leading to delays. The research is based on the analysis of a
modular construction project. Fault Tree Analysis was used to identify the delay factors and reveal the cause-effect
relationships between them.

2. Background

2.1. Identifying delays in the construction industry

Many studies have analysed the reasons for schedule deviation in stick-built construction projects. These
investigations were carried out in different countries and on different types of construction projects. Gündüz et al.
(2013), investigating the factors causing construction delays in Turkey by literature review and interviews with
experts, identified a total of 83 delay factors and categorised them into 9 major groups. Assaf et al. (1995) identified
56 delay factors in large building projects using a survey and a literature review. They then asked the participants to
the questionnaire ranking the delay factors based on their severity and frequency. Sweis et al. (2008), evaluating the
late delivery of residential projects in Jordan through data collected from published literature and interviews, identified
40 delay factors. In their study, financial difficulties faced by contractors and frequent change orders by owners were
found to be the leading causes. Chan and Kumaraswamy (1997) reported 36 delay factors for building projects in
Hong Kong by looking into previous studies regarding construction delays. Aibinu and Odeyinka (2006) identified
39 delay factors in construction projects in Nigeria using a literature survey and a postal questionnaire. A literature
review and a survey have also been carried out by Sambasivan and Soon (2007) to reveal the delay factors in
construction projects in Malaysia. In the same way Zou et al. (2007), Abd El-Razek et al. (2008), El-Sayegh (2008)
and Doloi et al. (2012) performed literature reviews to collect common construction delay factors in China, Egypt,
United Arab Emirates and India, respectively. Overall it appears that the prevalent methods of studying delay factors
are surveys conducted using interviews or questionnaires and reviews of published studies.
Compiling a list of delay factors and categorizing them is one approach to developing understanding of
schedule deviation. However, it is important to acknowledge that almost every problem or incident must be caused by
another event, especially in an industrial sector such as construction, which is known for its complex and dynamic
processes, and long execution time. Thus, a new approach is needed which can not only identify delay factors but it
also demonstrates their chronological and cause-effect relationships.
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Pei-Yuan Hsu et al. / Procedia Computer Science 00 (2017) 000–000 3

2.2. Root cause analysis

To this end, various methods have been developed to identify the causes of undesired events in a process or
product and to prevent them from reoccurring. Root-cause analysis (RCA) is one of the methods developed for
fulfilling these goals (Wilson et al. 1993; Aurisicchio et al. 2016). Andersen and Fagerhaug (2006) consider RCA as
a practice that looks deeply into the chain of events prior to an undesired event to identify its primary causes.
A widespread technique for RCA is fault tree analysis (FTA) which is used to carry out deductive
investigations of the facts embedded in the tree (Sklet 2004). The fault tree has become a common tool in RCA because
it can easily visualise all the details of the factors involved in an undesired event and their cause-effect relationships
(Rausand and Hoyland 2004). Furthermore, the fault tree can efficiently direct the analysts to consider only the
primary causes that contribute to the undesired events or system failure through the application of logical gates. (Lee
et al. 1985).
There have been a few studies on the application of RCA in the field of construction. Rosenfeld (2013)
implemented the expand and focus method for RCA in order to understand the primary causes of construction cost
overrun. In the expand stage, the author gathered 146 potential causes from international literature and from local
construction experts. Then in the focus stage, the causes were carefully examined and those with similar contents were
combined. As a result, 15 independent universal primary causes for construction cost overrun were determined.
Battikha (2008) used RCA to identify the causes of collapse in construction projects. RCA was carried out by treating
collapse as the ultimate event and connect it with all the non-conformance in structural quality observed by the experts,
which were further lined to the possible reasons that caused them. Under this context, the cause-effect relationship
between the collapse disaster and core reasons was established. However, in these studies, how various causes are
connected logically and in time was not studied. In addition, the primary roots of the causes were not pursued.

3. Methodology
The following sections introduce the case study upon which the research is based, the data collected and the
modelling technique used to analyse delays.

3.1 Background to the case study

A modular construction project to develop a large public infrastructure was studied to understand the reasons
for the delays that occurred during its execution. The infrastructure is mainly composed of precast concrete structural
components (e.g. beams and walkways). Each component is about 10-meter long and weighs more than 8 tons. The
scheduled construction duration was 53 weeks. During the execution of the project, different delays were experienced.
The most severe delay, totalling 17 weeks, occurred at the stage of manufacturing the building components.
The project involved collaboration between five main companies. The design and build of the public
infrastructure was awarded to a large construction company (company A) which subcontracted various design work
and operations to other partners. In particular, the design of the main structural components was subcontracted to a
design and consultancy company (company B). The detail design of the structural components was assigned to a
specialist company in CAD (computer aided design) modelling (company C). The design of the moulds was
undertaken by a small design company (company D). Finally some operations were outsourced to a manufacturing
company with expertise in precast concrete (company E).
A modular construction project was selected because the building sector is currently undergoing a shift from
stick-built to modular building systems. Under this context, there is a need to understand construction as
manufacturing. Figure 1 shows the difference in construction stages between the two methods. Modular construction
produces building components in a factory environment, and the manufacturing generally takes place simultaneously
with the site preparation and foundation works resulting in a reduced project duration. Thus, modular construction
projects not only could have a different set of prevailing delay factors, but they could also be delayed by new causes
owing to different logistic configurations and construction techniques. To our knowledge, despite many studies in
stick-built construction, there is no study focused on the reasons for causing schedule delay in modular construction
projects.

3.2 Data collection methods

The data about the project studied in this research was obtained from a construction company and includes
written records, i.e. a problem report and event logs, and an interview with the project manager.
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4 Pei-Yuan Hsu et al. / Procedia Computer Science 00 (2017) 000–000

Fig. 1. A comparison of the time lines of stick built and modular construction.

3.3 Modelling method: Fault tree analysis

The fault tree analysis tool was adopted to model the chain of events in the construction project studied and
deduce the primary causes for delays. FTA was selected among other RCA tools because of its widespread use in
industry. The purpose of constructing a fault tree is to establish a thorough understanding of the logic leading to the
top undesired event via a tangible record of systematic analysis. A fault tree is generally composed of multiple tiers.
As shown in the example in Figure 2, the undesired event is at the top of the tree. The intermediate events that trigger
the undesired event are located in the middle part of the tree, and in the bottom of the tree there are the primary events.
In addition, the logical relationships between events are indicated by specific logical gate symbols. The AND logical
gate indicates that the event in the tier above would be triggered when all events in the tier below happen. Differently,
the logical OR-gates means that if any one of the events in the tire below happens, the event in the tire above will be
triggered.

Fig. 2. The structure of a fault tree. The logical symbols are AND and OR-gates
The first step of the FTA is to define the undesired event for which causes are to be identified. In this study
the undesired event is “the construction project cannot be completed by the contract calendar date”. The boundary of
the FTA was defined by the stakeholders and places involved in the construction project under study. The second step
is to determine the immediate necessary and sufficient events that result in the top event and draw the logical symbols
which best describes the relationship between them. Once the undesired event is resolved into its immediate causes,
the next step is to treat each intermediate event as an intermediate level top event, and determine its immediate,
necessary and sufficient causes. This will be repeated until the primary causes are identified.

4. Root cause analysis: delays in the construction of a public infrastructure

The fault tree constructed as part of the case study is shown in Figure 3. It is composed of two main branches
and the primary causes are found in between the fourth and seventh tier below the top undesired event. The left branch
explains delays arising within the construction site and the right branch illustrates delays happening within the
manufacturing factory. The main left branch further breaks down into two sub-branches. The one on the left hand side
describes why the original construction schedule was incorrect, while the one on the right hand side presents the
reasons for not fulfilling the original construction schedule. The main right branch is composed of three sub-branches,
which depict, from left to right, why the moulds for the prefabricated components had to be sent back to the
manufacturer, why the production capacity in the factory was insufficient, and why the production quantity was below
target.
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Pei-Yuan Hsu et al. / Procedia Computer Science 00 (2017) 000–000 5

Fig. 3. Fault tree analysis for the delays in the construction of a public infrastructure. The primary delay factors are
circled by oval-shaped frames, and numbered.

For the two delay events presented in grey-shaded boxes in Figure 3, remedy measures were taken by the
construction company, which resulted in further delays. These are captured by two additional FTA branches presented
in Figure 4. The primary causes for the delays traced through the FTA are numbered in Figures 3 and 4 and listed in
Table 1.
As shown in the FTA, “Components were not delivered as expected” is the undesired event. The primary
causes of such event were found to be associated with lack of information and inexperience. This could be attributed
to the fact that many technologies and operations employed in modular construction are relatively new to the various
parties involved.
Lack of information and experience led, for example, to inaccurate scheduling of the module assembly
process, which then forced the assembly sequence to be changed twice (primary delay factor 1 and 2). Lack of
manufacturing experience and clear understanding of the client’s requirements by the designers resulted first in ill
design of the walkways and beams, and then in incorrect design of the moulds (primary delay factor 8 and 9). As a
result, the moulds had to be sent back to the manufacturer for revision. This seriously slowed down the production of
modular components. Furthermore, the design of the walkways and beams was not delivered on time, which further
delayed the mould design and the start of the components production, leaving insufficient time to make the amount of
components requested by the site.
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6 Pei-Yuan Hsu et al. / Procedia Computer Science 00 (2017) 000–000

Fig. 4. Fault tree analyses for the delays caused by the remedies to address the events presented in the grey-shaded
boxes in Figure 3. The primary delay factors identified are circled by oval-shaped frames, and numbered.
Table 1. The primary delay factors found in the case study
No. Primary Delay factors Responsible for
1 Lack of experience by schedule engineers A
2 Lack of information at scheduling time A
3 Inclement weather conditions Ex
4 Traffic congestion between factory and site Ex
5 No tag system built for identifying each component A
6 Lack of experience in making components in the factory by manuf. operators A
7 No effective quality check mechanism for finished components A
8 Requirements were not understood by designers B,C
9 Lack of experience in design for manufacturing by the designers B,C,D
10 Construction company changed the design A
11 Fluctuations in workers’ productivity A
12 Inadequate information exchanged between parties A,B,C,D,E
A: Company A ; B: Company B ; C: Company C ; D: Company D ; E: Company E ; Ex: External

In addition, the manufacturing operators lacked experience of making structural components in a factory
environment (primary delay factor 6). For instance, defects were found on the surfaces of many finished components,
reinforcements were not properly installed in some components, and other components were not produced in
accordance with the detail design drawings. When these faults were identified on the site, the non-compliant
components had to be sent back to recast. The inexperience of the manufacturing operators also led to fluctuations in
productivity (primary delay factor 11), resulting in production below the target quantity.
The delay was also caused by the lack of a systematic management plan. Without a strict quality check
mechanism for finished components, components with defects were sent to the site and got rejected, causing waste in
time and resources (primary delay factor 7). It is noteworthy that the defects identified were aesthetic rather than
structural and the rejection was unjustified. Furthermore, most structural components may look alike in appearance,
but they can actually have slight differences in size and shape. Without an effective tagging system for identifying
such differences wrong components were sent to the site on the wrong date (primary delay factor 5).
Other factors that contributed to the lateness of the project are strong winds which forced the crane to stop
operating (primary delay factor 3) and the traffic congestion between the factory and the site that made the delivery
on time rather challenging (primary delay factor 4).
Unfortunately, the attempts to correct the two delays (shown in the grey-shaded boxes in Figure 3) were
affected by the inexperience and insufficient communication between the parties. As shown in Figure 4, insufficient
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Pei-Yuan Hsu et al. / Procedia Computer Science 00 (2017) 000–000 7

information was given to the outsourcing company, and much time was needed to provide explanations, slowing down
the production of the modular components (delay factor 12, the left path in Figure 4). Similarly, not enough
information for producing the drawings of the moulds was provided to the outsourcing company, causing delay in
receiving the detail drawings (primary delay factor 12, the right path in Figure 4).
4.1 Recommendations to address the primary delay factors
The lack of experience by the schedule engineers and the insufficient information for establishing the
construction schedule could be improved by using a more sophisticated scheduling method. For instance, the program
evaluation review technique generally applied for construction scheduling could be integrated with a discrete event
simulation (DES). In this context, the output of the DES would provide the probability that a pre-determined schedule
is realised in the future.
The schedule deviations due to unfavourable weather, lateness in transportation and productivity fluctuation
can be minimised by employing a detailed supply chain configuration between the factory and the site. The supply
chain could be modelled by mathematical programming (e.g. linear programming or stochastic programming)
considering uncertainties in both manufacturing and assembly.
A quality system should be implemented to make sure that all the finished components comply with the
detailed design and there are no unacceptable defects. In addition, the site manager should be involved in the quality
checking process to assure that the components are ready for assembly. Moreover, to reduce wrong and missing
deliveries, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags could be applied to finished components to identify when and
where they are located.
Given that the project involved multiple companies, a digital platform could be established to support the
communication between the parties and supplement periodical face to face meetings. Furthermore, minutes meetings
should be captured and a record preserved to clarify the responsibility of each party.
5. Evaluation
According to the problem report produced by the construction company, the schedule delay was caused by:
1) the late release of the design of the structural components, which was subcontracted to the design and consultancy
company; and 2) a misunderstanding of the design by the company responsible of producing the detail design of the
structural components. Schedule deviations were chronologically logged by the large construction company as events
in a spreadsheet. Delay factors can be inferred from the events but the cause effect relationships between the factors
is not made explicit. Using FTA this research mapped multiple delay factors which were traced all the way to their
primary causes as shown in Figure 3 and 4. This approach to modelling shows that some delay factors possess greater
significance than others.
6. Discussion
Most of previous studies on delay factors in the construction industry have compiled lists and categorised the
factors identified. However, recognizing an important delay factor does not provide substantial help in problem
solving. This is because all the delay factors in a construction project are connected both chronologically and logically.
The problem can only be effectively resolved by tracing a delay factor to its primary causes and removing them. For
example, late delivery of building materials at sites has been listed as a leading delay factor in many literatures.
Nevertheless late delivery can be triggered by many causes, and all can be tracked back to their primary causes as
demonstrated by our FTA. This study demonstrates that FTA is a powerful tool for analysing a complex network of
delay events in a construction project, and identify the roots of the delays.
Modular construction has several unique features that distinguish it from conventional stick-built
construction. As a result it owns a different set of prevailing delay factors. Since the production of modular
components in a factory is carried out concurrently with the construction work on site, the design must be finished at
a much earlier stage than that required in stick-built projects, making accuracy and timeliness the two most critical
requirements in modular construction projects. Actually, this has become one of the major reasons to constrain many
projects from adopting the modular construction method (Blismas et al. 2005; Alazzaz, F. & Whyte 2015). In our case
study, a large part of the delay factors is design related. The ill design and late-submission of the design drawings
seriously slowed down the project and made the correction of the design errors very time consuming. By the same
reason, design changes by the construction company could be especially problematic in modular construction.
It is also worth noting that off-site modular construction has both the characteristic of manufacturing and
construction, so it possesses some delay factors which are absent in stick-built construction. Among these there are,
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8 Pei-Yuan Hsu et al. / Procedia Computer Science 00 (2017) 000–000

for instance, the lack of a holistic quality management system for finished products in the manufacturing factory, and
the lack of tagging and tracking techniques implanted on modular components to prevent mistakes in the shipping
process. In addition, a specialised manufacturing factory, which often is located far away from construction sites, and
unusually bulky cargos, which have to be transported using specialised vehicles via specific routes, all make
transportation especially uncertain in modular construction.
7. Conclusion
Fault tree analysis was applied to identify the primary delay factors in a modular construction project. It
revealed that some delay events are more important than others, and clearly showed the cause-effect relationships
among them. This study of delays in modular construction found that lack of experience in the technologies and
operations employed in this new construction method is an important factor. Moreover, there are other unique delay
factors to modular construction such as the lack of a holistic quality management system and tagging and tracking
systems for finished products. Changes in design and uncertainty in the transportation of modular components are
other examples of critical delay factors.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the support of the Taiwan Top University Strategic Alliance-Imperial PhD scholarship.
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