Construction Delay Analysis Techniques—A Review of Application Issues and Improvement Needs

Abstract

The time for performance of a project is usually of the essence to the employer and the contractor. This has made it quite imperative for contracting parties to analyse project delays for purposes of making right decisions on potential time and/or cost compensation claims. Over the years, existing delay analysis techniques (DATs) for aiding this decision-making have been helpful but have not succeeded in curbing the high incidence of disputes associated with delay claims resolutions. A major source of the disputes lies with the limitations and capabilities of the techniques in their practical use. Developing a good knowledge of these aspects of the techniques is of paramount importance in understanding the real problematic issues involved and their improvement needs. This paper seeks to develop such knowledge and understanding (as part of a wider research work) via: an evaluation of the most common DATs based on a case study, a review of the key relevant issues often not addressed by the techniques, and the necessary improvements needs. The evaluation confirmed that the various techniques yield different analysis results for the same delay claims scenario, mainly due to their unique application procedures. The issues that are often ignored in the analysis but would also affect delay analysis results are: functionality of the programming software employed for the analysis, resource loading and levelling requirements, resolving concurrent delays, and delay-pacing strategy. Improvement needs by way of incorporating these issues in the analysis and focusing on them in future research work are the key recommendations of the study

Deliverable Factors of Manpower Requirement Plan: An Evidence from Indian EPC Company

“…The reliability of the delay analysis results is validated by resource-loaded and levelled baseline programmes, these programmes provide reliable task duration, network logic, and realistic float values in non-critical activities as earlier researchers have done. While this case study uses a hypothetical project, the proposed claims scenarios largely reflect that of a typical construction delay claims settings, both in relevance and context and supports few investigation [13]. This study gets its strength, by conducting similar study being undertaken in future based on real life project data to validate the case study.…”

Claim Management-Impact Cost Calculation Methods in Project Management

“…(Hudon, 2015). These techniques are, however, rarely available within project management systems besides ignoring the resource constraints and the interdependencies between the causes of delays and the delays themselves (Braimah, 2013). The application of these methods also requires detailed records in order to establish the costs of the different activities of the work packages, especially the activities affected by the problem from the very beginning of the project (Nelson, 2011).…”

Activity Delay Quantum Method (Adqm).

“…[1] The Malmaison's Approach suggests that when concurrent delay occurs, one an owner risk event and the other a contractor risk event, only one of the delays is the dominant cause for the delay to the project and prevails over the other cause of delay. [2]. Such approach is described by the Editor of Keating as "the now excepted approach in resolving concurrency in the context of extension of time claims" [5] Another factor to consider is that total float values used to measure delays are a product of programme logic.…”