Acceleration and Mitigation of Project Delays

Author(s):  
Christopher M. Burke ◽  
Michael J. Harris
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Thomas D. Fertitta ◽  
Anthony L. Nedinsky ◽  
Jeffrey G. Gilmore

2015 ◽  
Vol 170 ◽  
pp. 34-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Pfeifer ◽  
Kash Barker ◽  
Jose E. Ramirez-Marquez ◽  
Nazanin Morshedlou

Author(s):  
Pablo Ballesteros-Pérez ◽  
Kamel Mohamed Elamrousy

A significant proportion of projects across the construction industry fail to meet their planned completion dates, being this a recurrent topic in the project management literature. Multiples causes of project delays have been proposed, however, hardly any attention has been paid to the fact that the most celebrated project monitoring and control technique – the Earned Value Management (EVM) – may not be as fit for purpose as it seems. It is proposed that because EVM ignores activity duration variability it always results in optimistic completion dates which may be very difficult to meet in the real projects. This research offers a fresh and long overdue critique of EVM in its most common implementation (assuming deterministic activity durations and costs), while highlighting its shortcomings. Particularly, Monte Carlo simulations are implemented to exemplify how the merge event bias phenomenon is inadvertently impacting the schedule in both time and cost dimensions. A fictitious case study is used to demonstrate the connection between these shortcomings and what is then conceived as a delay in project completion.


Mega construction projects in general require a lot of planning in terms of land acquisition, estimating material cost, human resources, financials, safety and many more. It is a common scenario with delays occurring in such mega projects attributing to increased project costs, delays in work completion. It leads to creating a negative impact on the prospects of the effective utilization of the project output in terms of space, facility and resources to commence work at that location. This study aims to identify the factors that could potentially contribute to project delays and possible methods of resolving the conflicts that have aroused. A case study on Kuwait International Airport Cargo City was conducted quantitatively as well as qualitatively. It is learnt that management conflicts have a major impact on creating project delays, due to poor management, lack of effective communication and ineffective utilization of resources.


Conflict in management is a commonly occurring problem. In terms of construction projects, conflicts lead to problems such as increase in project costs, project delays, reduced productivity, loss of profit or damage in business relationships and internal/ external disputes. This paper aims to explain the different types of conflicts based on organization, human behaviour and their aftermath. In the later section of the paper, the discussions are about conflict sources in construction projects, stakeholders and concludes with functional and dysfunctional conflict phenomenon. The intention of this paper is to provide an overview of the different aspects for the project incharge to be able to assess conflicts/ challenges in a broader perspective and mitigate the risk efficiently


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-254
Author(s):  
Shehryar Idrees ◽  
Muhammad Tariq Shafiq

Abstract The construction industry in Pakistan is experiencing a surge in public sector projects due to major investments in infrastructure projects. Project delays and cost overrun are common features in public sector construction projects in Pakistan. Therefore, an understanding of the causes of time and cost overrun in public projects is essential. This paper investigates delay and cost overrun factors within the context of public sector projects in Pakistan. This study identifies 48 potential factors from existing literature and semi-structured interviews were used to refine the identified factors into ten categories. A questionnaire survey was used to establish a hierarchy of factors using descriptive statistics. The results showed that the major causes of time overruns in public projects were (1) legal issues, such as court stay orders, land acquisition, relocation of public facilities; (2) technical errors leading to low-quality drawings, rework, and errors at bidding stage; and (3) Poor project management. The findings of this research contribute to understanding the causes of project delays in public sector projects in Pakistan.


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