The Root Causes of Construction Project Failure

Abstract

Abstract. Construction projects play an important role in the economic development of every country. Nevertheless, review of projects' documents indicates that, in most cases, the projects are not nished on assigned budget as scheduled, such that they sometimes loss their economic justi cation and simply fail. Consequently, devising suitable solutions is essential to the prevention of such failures. This is impossible without identifying the foremost causes of failure. In this study, rst, all factors of failure are identi ed using Fault Tree Analysis (FTA). FTA as a diagnostic tool allows us to e ciently isolate root causes of failure. To rank these factors, dedicated specialists are requested to assess the risk of each cause using linguistic terms; thereby, relevant calculations are carried out using the Linguistic Weighted Average (LWA). Undeniably, considering the complexity of construction projects and incomplete expert knowledge, judgments must not be made using crisp value conception. Hence, fuzzy theory is utilized to achieve more accurate results. Results indicate that the majority of problems in projects stem from nancial concerns and shortcomings of bidding process. In the last section, an actual case study is used to validate our results.

Major Project Risk Management: Reconciling Complexity during Delivery with the Inside View in Planning

“…Best practice risk management is seen as establishing performance norms, proactively identifying all possible sources of risk that threaten achievement of these norms, developing action plans and implementing them (Irimia-Diéguez et al, 2014). In pursuit of this agenda, a substantial body of delivery risk management research has developed detailed taxonomies of risk along with strategies to address them at all stages of the project life cycle -see for example (Al-Ahmad et al, 2009;Irimia-Diéguez et al, 2014;Kardes et al, 2013;Miller and Lessard, 2001;Shahhossein et al, 2017;Shehu and Akintoye, 2010;Whitney and Daniels, 2013).…”

Major Project Risk Management: Reconciling Complexity During Delivery with the Inside View in Planning

“…Best practice risk management is seen as establishing performance norms, proactively identifying all possible sources of risk that threaten achievement of these norms, developing action plans and implementing them (Irimia-Diéguez et al, 2014). In pursuit of this agenda, a substantial body of delivery risk management research has developed detailed taxonomies of risk along with strategies to address them at all stages of the project life cycle -see for example (Al-Ahmad et al, 2009;Irimia-Diéguez et al, 2014;Kardes et al, 2013;Miller and Lessard, 2001;Shahhossein et al, 2017;Shehu and Akintoye, 2010;Whitney and Daniels, 2013). In contrast to the taxonomical approach, scholars from the non-deterministic community identify their strand of delivery risk management research as pertaining to "root causes" of project delivery risk -and hence major project delivery failure.…”

Causes of Delay in Power Transmission Projects: An Empirical Study

“…Song [90] Financial capability of the contractor, financial difficulties of the owner, equipment availability of the contractor, slow payments for completed work, poor sub-contractor performance by the contractor 15 Manzur, A., N. Ganesan, and M. Vinay [91] Complexity in structural design of project, revisions to drawing during construction stage, slow site clearance, frequent rains, inadequate equipment, unqualified/unskilled laborers, quarry strike 16 Lindhard, S.M., et al [92] Unsettled or lack of project funding, delayed or long process times by other authorities, unsettled or lack of project planning, errors or omissions in construction work, lack of identification of needs Selection of the lowest bid, instead of best bid for the client, financial condition of the main contractor, delay in decision-making by the client, poor construction planning by the main contractor 19 Shahhossein, V., M.R. Afshar, and O. Amiri [75] Lack of timely financial allocation, payment delays to the contractor, changes and/or additional works 20 Angelidi, A. [76] Change in orders by client during construction, slow decision making by client, insufficient and unclear information and details in design documents, lack of knowledge and experience of design team, poor coordination/communication between owner and design engineer during design phase 21 Lo, T.Y., I.W.…”