Delay Mitigation Strategies and the Implication on the Construction Industry: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Every project’s goal has always been to be successful. Failure to complete projects on time has become a major problem in the last few decades. Construction delays are a common and serious problem that needs to be investigated further. This issue has implications for the construction industry and the economy’s growth, as well as the long-term development of countries. Many studies have not highlighted the strategies implemented by organisations to lessen the impact of project delays. As such, a systematic literature analysis (SLR) was performed in this study by selecting publications of articles from indexed journals on the Web of Science and Scopus to identify the efficacy of strategies utilised when mitigating problems that postpone the overall construction. The method applied for this SLR is using the Reporting Standards for Systematic Evidence Syntheses (ROSES) analysis protocol. Through this protocol, several steps need to be followed accordingly to acquire an accurate number of articles that have to be reviewed. The findings identified five leading aspects of strategies that should be adopted to reduce construction project delays, namely: communication; management; information systems and technology; enforcement of law and order; and financials. The implications of these strategies are also discussed in this research.