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CAUSATIVE FACTORS OF TIME OVERRUN IN CONSTRUTION PROJECTS OF

SINDH

Conference Paper · April 2016

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 CAUSATIVE FACTORS OF TIME OVERRUN IN CONSTRUTION PROJECTS OF
SINDH
Nafees Ahmed Memon*, Muhammad Akram*, Tauha Hussain Ali** and Aftab Hameed Memon***
*Professor, Civil Engineering Department, Mehran University of Engineering & Technology, Jamshoro,
Pakistan
nafees.memon@faculty.muet.edu.pk

*M.E Student, Construction Management Department, Mehran University of Engineering & Technology,
Jamshoro, Pakistan
akhund42@gmail.com

**Professor, Civil Engineering Department, Mehran University of Engineering & Technology, Jamshoro,
Pakistan
tauha.hussain@faculty.muet.edu.pk

***Assistant Professor, Civil Engineering Department, Quaid-e-Awam University of Science and Technology,
Nawabshah, Pakistan)
aftabm78@hotmail.com

ABSTRACT
Pakistan is a developing country, where the construction industry is facing serious problems of time overrun.
However, this study reveals that hardly few projects are completed within the stipulated time. This research
focuses on identifying the causative factors of time overrun in construction projects of Sindh. Questionnaire
survey was carried out in Sindh, including the respondents categorizing in the groups of consultants, contractors
and clients. The response of questionnaire was received from 80 respondents out of 170 questionnaires was sent
to them. The response of received questionnaires was analyzed by statistical software SPSS version.20, which
showed that Changes to design during construction, High level of quality requirement, Incomplete drawing,
Incomplete project information, Contract modification, Obstructions due to Government, Working relationship
between the client and the contractor, Late delivery of materials, Project location, Unclear specification are most
responsible factors of time overrun. The researcher suggests that the problem of time overrun in construction
projects of Sindh can be controlled through some remedial measures like minimizing the changes in designs,
projects are awarded to the lowest bidder, proper and complete drawings should be issued by the authorities,
communicate effectively through the documentations, avoid to take new decisions after the execution of projects
and supplier should supply his materials on time.

Keywords
Time Overrun, Significant Factors and Construction projects of Sindh.

INTRODUCTION
In this period of development, Construction industry of Sindh is key role player for economic and social
Development of the country. But this industry is continuously facing severe problem of time overrun. It has
become a necessary need that effort be taken to lessen these overruns in time despite amplified uncertainties and
complexities [1]. Currently, construction sector is considered as one of the riskiest, dynamic and challenging
sector. This sector faced disaster between year 1997 and 2000 during the ASEAN economy crisis, but then is
getting better gradually [2]. However, the schedule delay is a commonly faced criteria in the construction project
due to poor risk management applications. In construction industry of Pakistan, time overrun is one of the
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obligatory problems in construction. Naeem Aijaz et al. (2013) stated that, time overrun frequently causes
disorder in workflow and reduces of productivity [3]. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to determine the
most important causative factors of time overrun in building construction projects in Sindh. This paper identifies
the causes from the points of view of the main project parties: client, contractor, and consultant.

PREVOIUS STUDIES ON TIME OVERRUN

Generally a time overrun (delay) is a condition the actual work does not complete in an estimated time period.
Numerous construction projects experience from time overrun. Delay is the process in which the construction
project slows down without stopping it entirely while suppression is the stoppage of the project directed from the
clients to the contractor.
Many researchers have examined the main causes of construction delay in various types of construction project.
In Egypt a study conducted by Gündüz, et. al., [4] in which he indicate that in the construction industry, The
contractors increased their market share for achieving the maximum profit. To achieve this plan, the contractors
examined the factors which are responsible for estimated impacts for the success of project before the bidding
stage. These projects may differ in size, range, objectivity, ambiguity, complexity, deadlines, etc. Delay means is
a situation where the actual work does not complete in an estimated time period which is agreed by the
contractor.
In Saudi Arabia, Assaf et al. [5] conducted a research about time overrun (delay) in different kinds of
construction project in the state. It was summarized that only 30% of construction projects were complete within
the time while 70% of construction projects experience time overrun. This survey was investigated by 23
contractors, 19 consultant and 15 owners. In this researcher 73 factors of delays were identified and these factors
were grouped into 9 categories. It was concluded in survey that all factors related to the labour, contractor,
project, owner and consultant are on the highest rank and all three parties agreed to change order.
Sambasivan and Soon [6] has surveyed the causes of time overrun in Malaysian construction projects by
surveying about 150 respondents. In this study he examined those 10 most important causes out of 28 different
causes of delay. The ten most important causes were as bellow: Lack of communication between parties,
Improper planning, Poor site management, Inadequate contractor experience, Inadequate client’s finance and
Payments for completed work, Problems with subcontractors, Shortage in material, Labor supply, Equipment
availability and Failure and Mistakes during the construction stage.
In this research Abdullah et. al., [7] classify the dominant causes of delay in large MARA (Majlis Amanah
Rakyat) construction project from the viewpoint of project management consultant (PMC). The method used is
questionnaires surveys which are 12 large MARA construction project were selected for the survey. The data
collected was analyzed by using SPSS software. The result shown the five most significant cause of construction
delay are (1) Cash flow and financial difficulties by contractors, (2) Contractor's poor site management, (3)
Inadequate contractor experience, (4) Shortage of site workers and (5) Ineffective planning and scheduling by
contractors.
Chan and Kumaraswamy [8] conducted a research survey in Hong Kong to evaluate and established the relative
importance of significant factors which were responsible for delays in construction projects. They evaluated and
listed the main causes of delays in two categories (a) the role of the clients, consultants and contractor in the
local construction project and (b) projects type. This research concluded that there were five main causes for
delay in construction projects were: poor site management and supervision, unforeseen ground conditions, low
speed of decision making involving all project teams, client initiated variations and necessary variations of
works.
In Lebanon Mezher [9] took a survey from the owners, contractors, and architectural/engineering firms to find
out the causes of delays in construction project. It was analyzed that economical issues were most concerned

2
with owners and contractors give more importance to contractual relationships and consultants give priority to
the project management issues.
Frimpong et al., [10] conducted a research survey in Ghana to evaluate and established the relative importance of
significant factors which were responsible for delays in ground water construction projects. A research of 26
factors on ground water drilling projects in Ghana through questionnaire was setup from the preliminary
investigations conducted 1970 and 1999. The questionnaire was conducted from the three groups working in
ground water projects were contractors, owners and consultants. The questionnaire was distributed in 125
respondents randomly out of which 55repondants were owners, 40respondants were contractors and
30respondants were consultants. The outcome of survey revealed the main factors of delays in ground water
construction projects were monthly payment difficulties from agencies; poor contractor management; material
procurement; poor technical performance; and inflation of material prices.
In Jordan, a quantitative study carried out by Al-Momani [11] for identifying the delay causes in construction
projects. It was summarized that there were 7 main causes of construction delay were the designers, user
changes, climatic changes, and site conditions, late deliveries of material, economic conditions and increase in
quantity.
Similarly, Odeh and Battaineh [12] also surveyed from the construction contractors and consultants to sort out
main causes of delays in construction projects. It was concluded that the contractors and consultant indicated that
the top ten most important factors were owner interference, inadequate contractor experience, financing and
payments, labor productivity, slow decision making, improper planning, and subcontractors.
In order to identify the factors of waste construction, a broad literature review was carried, and 44 common
factors of time overrun occurring worldwide were identified

DATA COLLECTION AND ANLYSIS

A quantitative method is using for conducting questionnaires with experienced personnel involved in
construction projects. On the basis of identified factors, the respondents were asked about the level of
significance of these factors in relation to Pakistan’s construction industries. Level of significance of these
factors was measured on the ordinal scale. A five Likert scale was adopted as 1 = Not Significant (NS); 2 =
Slightly Significant (SS); 3 = Moderately Significant (MS); 4 = Very Significant (VS); 5 = Extremely Significant
(ES). Level of significance were assessed with Statistical Software Package SPSS using frequency and Average
Index (AI) method calculated with formula adopted [13]. AI is calculated by using the following formula;

AI = (1X1 + 2X2 + 3X3 + 4X4 + 5X5)

 (X1 + X2 + X3 + X4 + X5)
Where;
X1 = Number of respondents for scale 1
X2 = Number of respondents for scale 2
X3 = Number of respondents for scale 3
X4 = Number of respondents for scale 4
X5 = Number of respondents for scale 5
Evaluation ranges to assess significant level was used in this study as follows:
1.00 < AI < 1.50 : Not Significant (NS);
1.50 < AI < 2.50 : Slightly Significant (SS);
2.50 < AI < 3.50 : Moderately significant (MS);
3.50 < AI < 4.50 : Very Significant (VS);
4.50 < AI < 5.00 : Extremely Significant (ES).

3
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Questionnaires was distributed to almost 170 professionals in construction sector. Out of 70 respondents gave
positive response. The main population of respondents includes; Contractors, Consultants and Clients. The
percentage of clients, consultants, contractors in figure 1. The collected data was analyzed to find out the
significance factors causing construction. Average index (AI) value of each factor of construction waste and rank
is shown in table 1:

34%
42% Client
Conractor
Consultant

24%

Figure 1: Types of Organization of Respondents

Table: 1 Average Index Value and Rank of Each Factor Causative Factor of Time Overrun
No. Factors of Time Overrun Average Rank
Index
1 Changes to design during construction 3.75 1
2 High level of quality requirement 3.48 2
3 Incomplete drawing 3.30 3
4 Incomplete project information 3.30 3
5 Contract modification 3.27 4
6 Obstructions due to Government 3.09 5
7 Working relationship between the client and the contractor 3.05 6
8 Late delivery of materials 2.93 7
9 Project location 2.93 7
10 Unclear specification 2.89 8
11 Delays in decision making 2.89 8
12 Material market rate 2.84 9
13 Poor documentation and no detailed written procedure 2.84 9
14 Errors & Blenders in design 2.82 10

4
15 Delayed progress payments 2.55 11
16 Shortage of finance/funds 2.55 11
17 Owners delay in freeing the contractor financial payment 2.50 12
18 Mistakes during erection(construction) 2.45 13
19 Often changing sub –contractor’s company 2.41 14
20 Poor site management & supervision 2.36 15
21 Lack of communication(coordination) b/w parties 2.36 15
22 Inadequate planning and scheduling 2.34 16
23 Shortage of experienced staff and labour 2.32 17
24 Timeliness of project information 2.30 18
25 Shortage of materials 2.25 19
26 Equipment shortage 2.20 20
27 Underestimation of project cost 2.20 20
28 Communication between the client and the contractor 2.18 21
29 Labour/contractor absenteeism(in public projects) 2.14 22
30 Schedule delay 2.11 23
31 Inadequate monitoring & control 2.09 24
32 Lack of experience in similar projects(lack of experience) 2.07 25
33 Labour strike(other strikes) 2.05 26
34 Extension of time with cost claims 2.05 26
35 Lack of technical skill (incompetency) 2.02 27
36 Poor scheduling of labour and material for work 2.02 27
37 Poor productivity of material and labour 1.93 28
38 Change in scope of project 1.84 29
39 Inclement(change in) weather conditions 1.82 30
40 Rework of bad quality performance 1.80 31
41 Shortage of site workers 1.73 32
42 Depend on the fresher’s to bear the whole responsibility 1.64 33
43 Lack of sub-contractors skill 1.64 33
44 Unavailability of HRM(human resource management) 1.64 33

The results in table 1: shows that, “Changes to design during construction” is most significant factor of time
overrun with an average index value of 3.75. High level of quality requirement, Incomplete drawing, Incomplete
project information, Contract modification, Obstructions due to Government, Working relationship between the
client and the contractor, Late delivery of materials, Project location and Unclear specification. The proportional
average index values of main causative factors are exposed in figure 2.

5
 4

3.5

2.5

1.5

0.5

Figure 2: Causative Factors of Time Overrun

CONCLUSION
According to the client, contractor and consultant “Change to Design during Construction” was the most
important factor of time overrun in construction projects of Sindh. They agreed that High level of quality
requirement, Incomplete drawings, Incomplete project information, Contract modification, Obstruction due to
government, Working relationship between the client and the contractor, Late delivery material and Project
location were among the top ten most significant factor of time overrun. Based on the findings of the study,
authors recommend that clients, contractors and consultants are required;
 Minimizing the changes in designs, improve quality of design plans and to emphasize on meetings related
to project completion dates.
 Construction cannot be carried out without the presence of complete drawings.
 Communicated effectively through the documentations i.e: drawings and specifications. The quality of
the design and documentation should be provided along with its strict applications on construction
project.
 Take all necessary decisions before the execution of project and they must avoid to take new decisions
after the execution of projects.

6
 The results of this can help to understand the dynamic factors that caused the time overrun and thus, an
opportunity to develop some system to reduce the causes of time over run.

REFERENCES
1. Atkinson, R., Project management: cost, time and quality, two best guesses and a phenomenon, its time to
accept other success criteria. International journal of project management, 1999. 17(6): p. 337-342.

2. Abdul-Rahman, H., et al., Delay mitigation in the Malaysian construction industry. Journal of Construction
Engineering and Management, 2006. 132(2): p. 125-133.

3. Ejaz, N., I. Ali, and M.F. Tahir, Assessment of delays and cost overruns during construction projects in
Pakistan. 2013.

4. Gündüz, M., Y. Nielsen, and M. Özdemir, Quantification of Delay Factors Using the Relative Importance
Index Method for Construction Projects in Turkey. Journal of Management in Engineering, 2013. 29(2): p.
133-139.

5. Assaf, S.A. and S. Al-Hejji, Causes of delay in large construction projects. International Journal of Project
Management, 2006. 24(4): p. 349-357.

6. Sambasivan, M. and Y.W. Soon, Causes and effects of delays in Malaysian construction industry.
International Journal of Project Management, 2007. 25(5): p. 517-526.

7. Abdullah, M., A. Abdul Azis, and I. Abdul Rahman, Causes of delay and its effects in large MARA
construction project. International journal of Integrated Engineering (Issue on Mechanical, Materials and
Manufacturing Engineering), 2009.

8. Chan, D.W. and M.M. Kumaraswamy, A comparative study of causes of time overruns in Hong Kong
construction projects. International Journal of Project Management, 1997. 15(1): p. 55-63.

9. Mezher, T.M. and W. Tawil, Causes of delays in the construction industry in Lebanon. Engineering,
Construction and Architectural Management, 2006. 5(3): p. 252-260.

10. Frimpong, Y., J. Oluwoye, and L. Crawford, Causes of delay and cost overruns in construction of
groundwater projects in a developing countries; Ghana as a case study. International Journal of Project
Management, 2003. 21(5): p. 321-326.

11. Al-Momani, A.H., Construction delay: a quantitative analysis. International Journal of Project Management,
2000. 18(1): p. 51-59.

12. Odeh, A.M. and H.T. Battaineh, Causes of construction delay: traditional contracts. International Journal of
Project Management, 2002. 20(1): p. 67-73.

13. Memon, A.H., I.A. Rahman, and A.A.A. Azis, Time and Cost Performance in Construction Projects in
Southern and Central Regions of Peninsular Malaysia. International Journal of Advances in Applied Sciences,
2012. 1(1): p. 45-52.

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