STUDY OF DELAY FACTORS IN CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

Abstract: Construction Industry plays an important role in socio-economy development of any developing country. Construction time serves as a benchmark for assessing the performance of any project. Due to unexpected problems encountered during Conception, designing & construction phase often led to unwanted delay in project completion. A survey was conducted in Saudi Arabia to determine exact factors responsible for project delay. This was achieved by carrying a critical analysis of the literature and carrying out a questionnaires survey among consultants, project managers and engineers involved in construction projects and collecting their responses. The importance of Project owner's role, contractor related, Financing related, Materials related, Design documents have been cited as main delay factors. Causes of time and cost overruns comparison was done with various past researches done in Asia and Africa, which yielded 7 delay factors: Slowness and Lack of constraint; Incompetence; Design; Market and Estimate; Financial capability; Government; and Worker.

Keywords: Construction Industry, Construction time, Saudi Arabia, Project delay.