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While this website is poor quality and unprofessional, this source does a good job at showing the effects of delays in construction with real events that have happened in the past. For example, the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge was under construction to make it able to withstand earthquakes. The project encountered welding issues, political battles over its design, and dozens of bolt failures. This results in the project going over its initial budget of $1.1 billion by over $5 million and taking over five years longer than planned to finish. The source explains similar scenarios with the other projects mentioned as well. It helps make the issue more real in the eyes of the reader and gives a reason to plans projects properly and try to minimize delays.

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This source goes over 10 different major construction projects that have been carried out across the world. Some of the structures mentioned include the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, Sydney Opera House and Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant. Each construction project has its own picture (or missing picture) and a paragraph or two under it explaining what happened during the project to cause the delays, what the extent of the delays were, as well as the repercussions of it.

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This is a popular source. The page is riddled with pop-up ads and it is kind of difficult to navigate between the different pages of the article without clicking on one. The writer has other stories on the website, but none of them are related to the same topic, they are all about unique subjects. She is by no means a professional in the field. The story seems like something that is meant to read as entertainment, not for doing business research.

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10 Construction Projects that Just Wouldn't End, by Laura Kiniry, Popular source

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This source is pretty average. It doesn't have bad information, it's just kind of broad. It answers my research question by listing a few broad categories of effects of delays in construction, but it goes into more depth about the types and causes of delays. It did give me new information about critical and non-critical delays, but that information might have been more helpful with answering a different research question. There are no charts or graphs, there are a few visuals, but they are more eye-appealing than helpful towards the understanding of the content.

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The article starts of giving basic information about construction and then starts to go into detail about delays in the industry. It explains that delays have negative effects for clients, contractors, consultants, and anyone else involved. Some points identified in the introduction were negative effects on growth in adversarial relationships, mistrust, litigation, and cash-flow problems, etc. It goes through the types of delays, excusable and non-excusable, which I have already talked about in multiple other source summaries/responses. It also introduces critical and non-critical delays. Critical delays are classified as any type of delay that extends the projects duration. A non-critical delay is not the cause of extended project duration but can have effects on cost and other factors.

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This source is a trade source. It doesn't have any references or an author, and the page has a few advertisements on it. However, the article is posted to a construction blog-type of website. The information contained also seems to be on par with some of the other sources I have looked into.

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Delays in Construction Projects, Its Types, Effects and Management, no visible author, Trade source

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A construction project is basically a temporary endeavor with specified time & cost, initiated to create a unique product, service or result, tend to be limited edition. The project-team comes together to create that unique development on a particular site under circumstances that will never be repeated. They may be complex, demanding high level of co-ordination of permissions, people, goods, plant and materials and construction can begin despite many uncertainties, and as a consequence, delays are common. Furthermore, the involvement of advanced technologies and owner-desired-changes makes it even more difficult to keep a project on the scheduled track. Coupled with this state are innate uncertainties and sophistication in the physical, financial, and economic environment in which most projects are performed.

Such conditions have made completing projects on schedule and on budget a difficult task to accomplish, often leading to claims on cost compensations and time extensions. Construction delays are considered as time lag in completion of activities from its specified time as per contract or can be defined as late completion or late start of activities to the baseline schedule, directly affecting specified cost. As a result, there will be extensions of time required which will further result in fine, increased cost due to inflation, termination of contract, court cases etc. or combinations of above stated factors, resulting in delay damages.

Construction delays are often result of a mismanaged event/s and can be seen as a risk for the projects, which if identified, analyzed and managed in a systematic process at inception, could be managed, minimized, shared, mitigated or accepted to give some good results and minimize chances of further delay. Delay in construction project has a negative effect on clients, contractors, and consultants in terms of growth in adversarial relationships, mistrust, litigation, arbitration, and cash-flow problems. A construction project may be regarded as a successful endeavor until it satisfies the cost, time, and quality limitations applied to it. However, it is not uncommon to see a construction project failing to achieve its goal within the specified cost, time, and quality. In order to counter the unforeseen delays beforehand the realm of "Project management" is resorted to which helps mitigating the delays. Project management is the application of knowledge, skill, tools and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirement and requires the effective management of the project management processes.

Processes in Construction Project Management

Project management processes are grouped into five categories known as Project Management Process Groups. 1. Project Initiating 2. Project Planning 3. Project Execution 4. Project Monitoring & Control 5. Project Closing Identification and study of delays come under Project Monitoring & Control. If done properly, delays can be minimized by: a. Teamwork b. Detailed investigations. c. Careful & regular monitoring and meetings. d. Effective management. e. Collaborative & effective working and coordination. f. Careful scheduling.

Types of Delays in Construction Projects

However, it is important to understand the types or categories which a delay falls into before analyzing construction delays. To initiate the further mitigation efforts and to convert it into a merit, a clear understanding of types of delays is necessary. The delays are classified or categorized into four basic ways: A) Critical or non-critical delays B) Excusable or non-excusable delays C) Concurrent delays D) Compensable or non-compensable delays There is also a need to understand the assimilation between the categories before determining the impact of delays on the project.

One must determine whether the delay is critical or non-critical.

Additionally, all delays are either excusable or non-excusable.

Both excusable and non-excusable delays can be defined as either concurrent or non-concurrent.

Delays can be further broken down into compensable or non-compensable delays.

Economic historian Robert E. Wright argues that construction delays are caused by bid gaming, change order artistry, asymmetric information, and post contractual market power. Until those fundamental issues are confronted and resolved, many custom construction projects will continue to come in over budget, past due, or below contract specifications. The types of delays further described in brief as below;
A) Critical or non-critical Delays:

A delay that is responsible for extending project duration is a critical delay. Few results are mentioned below:

Extended Field Overhead

Unabsorbed home office overhead

Liquidated Damage

Idle labor & equipment cost

Labor & Material Cost Escalation and many more.

A delay that is not the cause of extended project duration is a non-critical delay; however, it will have an effect in terms of activities getting completed late than scheduled completion. These activities will also affect project cost estimates as reiterated below; a) Idle labor & equipment cost b) Labor & Material Cost Escalation and many more.
B) Excusable & non-excusable Delay

A delay where the contractor is entitled for extension of time or compensation or both, under the terms & conditions of contract is excusable delay. In this case, contractor does not have any control on the activity getting delayed. The causes may be;

1. Force Measure Clause

2. Natural Calamities

3. Political/Social Unrest

4. Terrorist Attacks

5. Delay from Client (Approvals, Decisions, etc.), etc.

A delay where the contractor is fully responsible for the activities getting delayed and resulted in extending project duration (responsible for critical delays) are non-excusable delays. In this case, the contractor has to bear the risk of cost consequences including the liability to pay damages for itself but possibly for the other parties as well. The causes may be:

Delayed Mobilization

Delayed Procurement

Delayed submission of important documents

Planning & Scheduling

Critical events that were not highlighted to client on right time, etc.

C) Concurrent Delays in Construction Projects

A situation where more than one delay event occurs at the same time affecting multiple activities simultaneously/independently affecting the completion is a concurrent delay. However, not all those events enable the contractor to be entitled for extension of time & cost claim. Importantly, it is the causes of delay rather the delay themselves, that must overlap.

D) Compensable or non-compensable Delays in in Construction Projects

Scenario where contractor is liable for Time Extension & Cost compensation is compensable delays. All compensable delays fall under excusable delays-Whereas, if the contractor is solely at fault for a delay event, it is termed as non-compensable delay. However, non-compensable may fall under critical, non-critical, excusable or non-excusable; depending upon the situation it has created and conditions of contract.

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Delays in Construction Projects, Its Types, Effects and Management - The Constructor

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A construction project is basically a temporary endeavor with specified time & cost, initiated to create a unique product, service or result, tend to be limited edition. The project-team comes together to create that unique development on a particular site under circumstances that will never be repeated.

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What negative effects can delays have on construction projects.

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What negative effects can delays have on construction projects.

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This source has a section labeled "Effective Methods of Minimizing Non-Excusable Delays" which has the exact information that I was looking for to answer the question "What are the best ways to reduce non-excusable delays on the job?" It gives a table of 15 different methods of reducing delays on the job, all ranked for effectiveness. The top five are ensuring adequate and available sources of finance, competent project manager, availability of resources, frequent progress meetings, and awarding bids to the right/experienced consultant and contractor. Even with all of these strategies, the construction industry is known for being poor at coping with delays, according to the source, which I have actually noticed and experienced firsthand while working in construction.

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This source identifies factors of non-excusable delays, their effects, and means of minimizing them. They surveyed consultants and contractors to collect their data. The study identified twenty major causes of delays in construction. The major effects of these delays are time overrun, cost overrun, and disputes. The source explains that some of the most important things to think about for minimizing delays are making all necessary resources available, ensuring a good financial source, and hiring competent project management and labor. There are plenty of tables in this source that rank causes of delays, negative effects of delays, and information about the people surveyed and percentage of responses. They also mention some other causes of delays that are not contractor related. They include a section about furthering their research as well as a list of refrences.

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This source is a scholarly source because it is set up as a study. It has an abstract, introduction, and then goes through the causes and effects of delays, and even how to minimize them. The source is extremely long and has plenty of tables that include the information and data from the study. This source also includes plenty of relevant references.

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Analysis of Non-Excusable Delay Factors Influencing Contractors' Performance in Lagos State, Nigeria by Olajide Timothy Ibironke, Timo Olugbenga Oladinrin, Onaopepo Adeniyi and Idowu Victor Eboreinme, Scholarly source
analysis_of_non-excuse_delay-libre.pdf (d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net)

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What are the best ways to reduce non-excusable delays on the job?

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What are the best ways to reduce non-excusable delays on the job?

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This source doesn't do much to further the discussion, but it adequately answers the question "How can contractors be the ones who cause themselves delays?" It gives a broad term for contractor errors (non-excusable delays) and lists over 25 different causes of contractor-caused delays. It ranks them from most often to least often occurrences of that specific factor of delay. This source does a much better job than the other source attached to this question because it is much more credible. It includes references of many scholarly articles, so I am able to trust the information in the paper, unlike the other source. One thing that is lacking from this source is any suggestions to further the conversations. I would have liked to see suggestions for minimalizing these types of delays on the job.

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This paper investigates the main factors of non-excusable delays, or delays caused by the contractor. They use public records that include charts, graphs and diagrams about project delays and overruns. It concludes that the 5 main causes of contractor delays are material related delays, labor related delays, equipment-related delays, financial delays, and improper planning. A different table from one of their studies ranks the factors as well, but a little differently. The tables top 5 factors of delays are late deliveries or slow mobilization, damaged materials, poor planning, equipment breakdown, and improper equipment. The source talks a lot about how they came to conclusions for the ranks, but not at all about how to combat these issues.

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This source is clearly a scholarly source because of its organization and concepts. There is no background on the authors, so we cannot be sure what their qualifications are. However, they include an abstract, introduction, multiple subsections about the factors of delays from contractors. They also include a multitude of graphs, tables, and diagrams. Many of them show different ways of explaining the factors of non-excusable delays. I also found this source on Google Scholar, and it has over 25 sources citing where the information and facts came from.

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Factors of Non-Excusable Delays That Influence Contractors' Performance by M. Z. Abd. Majid and Ronald McCaffer, Scholarly source
Factors_of_non_excusable_delays_that_influence_contractors_performance-libre.pdf (d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net)

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Overall, I think this source gives off good suggestions for causes of delays by contractors, but it doesn't do a good job at backing up claims. There are no sources cited; the numbers that they try to use are percentages, but they add up way over 100% and don't ever specify what they are percentages of. The whole article would be seen as non-credible, because they have no evidence to back their findings. The suggestions for why contractors cause delays seem alright, but I cannot confirm their truthfulness.

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This article gives three main points for what causes delays in construction: contractor, owner, and external factors. For each section, it gives a small blurb and a graph with the supposed evidence from the 17 studies. I was most interested in the section about contractor delays though. According to the graph, some of the main types of contractor delays are due to poor scheduling and planning, labor, equipment, and financial issues. There are percentages by each category, but there is nothing to say what that is a percentage of.

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I believe this source is a popular source. For starters, I was not able to find an author, only a publisher. The article says that they will be sharing the findings of 17 different studies conducted in 15 countries, but it has no references or works cited page whatsoever. The article is also posted on a journal website.

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Common Causes of Construction Project Delays, VERTEX, Popular source

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"Delay always breeds danger," said Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, one of the greatest writers of all time. This statement made in the 16th century still holds true today, especially in the construction industry.

It is very seldom that a construction project is not impacted by delays. Many research studies have been conducted over the years to determine the causes and effects of construction delays. Despite the vast body of knowledge available on construction delays, the failure of many projects to finish on time remains problematic around the world.

What are the predominant causes of delay in construction projects? Is there some commonality in the causes of delay in different countries?

In this article, I will share the findings of 17 independent studies on delay conducted in 15 countries, including the United States. The results provide some very interesting insights and may influence your approach to future projects.

To begin, there are several definitions for the term "delay" - to make something happen later than expected, to cause something to be performed later than planned, or to not act in a timely manner. The studies under review here specifically focused on construction delays, which can be defined as the completion of a construction project at a date later than the completion date specified in the contract, or beyond the date that the parties agreed upon for delivery of a project.

The studies summarized the reasons for delays in three main categories:

1. Contractor delays

2. Owner delays

3. External factors, where neither the contractor nor the client was directly responsible for the delay.

Let's take a closer look at each of these causes.

Delays Caused By Contractors

Site management/supervision issues, followed by general availability of labor, were the predominant causes of delay on the side of contractors. Planning and scheduling problems were another significant cause of delay.

Delays Caused By Owners

Change orders towered above all other causes of delay that owners were responsible for. Given the fast-track construction process followed in many modern construction projects, it was not surprising to learn that design quality, incomplete drawing and late provision of design information were also some of the more significant causes of delay.

Delays Caused By External Factors

Delays that fell outside the control of the owner or the contractor were included in this category. Shortage of construction material was by far the most significant cause of delay, with unforeseen site conditions and inclement weather also impacting a large percentage of these construction projects. The influence of agencies involved in issuing construction permits also had a significant impact on construction progress.

Reasons For Delay - By Country

In general, there was a high degree of commonality in the causes of delay in each of the countries that were studied, as identified in this table. It is difficult to pinpoint a single cause that can be viewed as the most significant in all countries under consideration, because the research methods differed. However, changes during construction and poor scheduling appear to be very significant across the board.

Conclusion And Best Practices

The research studies considered here were all concluded before COVID-19 impacted the execution of construction projects. It will be interesting to repeat the research to see how COVID-19 compares with the other predominant causes of delay identified in these studies.

In this line of work, we are often witness to the devastating effects of project delays, but what can be done to address this? A good strategy to minimize delays is to put risk-mitigating measures in place to address the most prevalent delays. It is also good practice to allocate risk management to the contracting party that is in the best position to mitigate their occurrence.

One common thread in many of the delays identified in these studies is insufficient planning and scheduling. The tremendous benefit of taking sufficient time to develop a detailed project schedule and to proactively manage and update the schedule during construction cannot be over- emphasized.
This article was originally published by Xpera Group which is now part of The Vertex Companies, Inc.

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Common Causes Of Construction Project Delays | VERTEX

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"Delay always breeds danger," said Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, one of the greatest writers of all time. This statement made in the 16th century still holds true today, especially in the construction industry. It is very seldom that a construction project is not impacted by delays.

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How can the contractors be the ones who cause themselves delays?

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How can the contractors be the ones who cause themselves delays?

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This source was well organized by sections. It was split up between an abstract, introduction, discussions, tests & results, limitation and suggestion for further research, and a conclusion. It made it easy to find the information I was looking for. There was quite a bit of math terminology, including equations and symbols, in the tests & results section that I didn't understand. This source gives me exact answers to the question "what are the main causes of delay on the job?" and even gives me data and evidence to back it up. It also gives exact numbers for multiple different situations of delays on the job taken from the study. This study was done in Jordan, though, I wonder if the results would be similar in different countries or if the whole world generally follows the same trends.

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This source used 130 construction projects in Jordan to examine what the biggest causes of delays are. They created this source for contractors to be able to see what might pose an issue to them while completing a project. The study found that the leading causes of delays on construction sites is due to designer errors, user changes, weather, site conditions, late deliveries, and economic conditions. The source also includes plenty of graphs, tables, and equations that relate to the types of delays and the types of projects. According to the study, the number one cause of delays was due to poor planning.

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This source is a scholarly source because the author is a professor, vice dean or engineering, and head of the chemical engineering department at Mu'tah University. He has many other qualifications from that university and has a PhD from Oklahoma State University. The other sources cited are also other scholarly article, written by professors and professionals in the field.

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Construction delay: a quantitative analysis, by Ayman H. Al-Momani, Scholarly source

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Author links open overlay panelAyman H.Al-Momani

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Construction delay: a quantitative analysis

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Avoiding construction claims and disputes requires an understanding of the contractual terms and causes of claims. The dual underlying theme of this p…

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What are the main causes of delays on the job?

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What are the main causes of delays on the job?