Construction project delays in eastern province of Sri Lanka: perspectives of contractors and consultants

Abstract

The delay is considered as a major misfortune in construction industry. It has been discovered that Sri Lankan construction industry faces a significant degree of delays in project delivery. The purpose of the research was to identify the most significant causes of delays in construction projects and propose apposite measures to diminish delays. Following a thorough review of literature from various angles, the causes of delays were first identified. These identified causes were presented to the key players in the construction industry consisting senior project managers, senior engineers, senior quantity surveyors and senior architects through a conduit of structured questionnaire. They were requested to put across their view on the level of significance on each cause and the results were statistically summarized. It was found that there are ten most significant causes of delays such as poor planning and scheduling, delay in obtaining permits and permissions, poor site management, design efficiencies, suspension of work by client, contractor’s financial difficulties, variations, poor procurement methods of the contractor, slow decision making by client and lack of familiarity of local construction industry. Out of these ten major causes, poor planning and scheduling found as extremely significant and all other nine causes as very significant. The findings of this research were slightly different from previous studies of similar nature.