Nov. 2011, Volume 5, No. 11 (Serial No. 48), pp.

1027-1034
Journal of Civil Engineering and Architecture, ISSN 1934-7359, USA

DAVID

PUBLISHING

Evaluation of Common Delay Causes of Construction

Projects in Singapore
Borvorn Israngkura Na Ayudhya
Department of Civil Engineering, Rajamangala University of Technology Krungthep, Bangkok 10120, Thailand
Abstract: The objectives of this paper were to identify and evaluating the common delay factors among owners, consultants and main
contractors in building projects in Singapore. The interview and questionnaire method were used in this research. Randomly distributed
questionnaire technique was applied to select samples of 74 various construction practitioners consisting of owners, consultants and
main contractors to evaluat the severity of the 35 identified delay factors. The project investigated in this study included residential
building and office building projects. The results found that delay in progress payment by owner, adverse weather conditions, main
contractor financial problems, evaluation of completed works and act of god factor caused mostly severe delay in building construction
project.
Key words: Construction delays, building construction, Singapore.

1. Introduction
The characteristic of construction industry is
uncertainties, unpredictability and susceptible to
understandings leading to delays. Delays in
construction can affect the overall project participants
adversely. It is the common interest of all parties to
avoid the delay as much as possible at the first place
and to minimize then even if the delays arise. Davision
and Mullen [1] gave the concept of delay as the
extension of time beyond planned completion dates
traceable to the contractors. While, Aibinu and Jagboro
[2] defined the concept of delay as situation when the
contractor and the project owner jointly or severally
contribute to the non-completion of the project within
the original or the stipulated or agreed contractor
period. The duration of project is normally specified by
the owner and contractors have responsible to ensure
the completion of the project within the owners time
frame. Construction researcher and practitioners have
recently begun to emphasize the need for developing

Corresponding author: Borvorn Israngkura Na Ayudhya,

PhD, research fields: construction risks construction materials
(metakaolin, fly-ash, organic compounds, glass aramid, carbon
fiber and additives materials), durability of concrete and
corrosion
of
reinforced
concrete.
E-mail:
[email protected].

the concept of construction time performance to be

used by clients, consultants and contractors [3].
Nonetheless, delay in construction projects have still
been found from articles and research papers. Similarly,
Chalab and Camp [4] conducted a review on project
delays in developing countries during planning and
construction stage. In their study, they found that the
contractual disagreement caused both delay and cost
overruns on the early stages of construction. Rwelamila
and Hall [5] found that the timely completion of a
project was frequently seen as a major criterion of
project success. In Australia, Bromilow [6] found that
only one-eight if building contracts were completed
within the scheduled completion dates and the average
time overrun exceeded 40%. Wilson [7] examined the
role of the owner and architect/engineers roles in the
prevention delay and resolution of construction claims.
Wilson also summarized the causes of construction
claims which include change orders, adverse weather
and unclear contract agreement.

2. Literature Review
Delay is generally acknowledged as the most
common, costly, complex and risky problem
encountered in construction project. Construction

1028

Evaluation of Common Delay Causes of Construction Projects in Singapore

project can be susceptible to considerable pressure on

the time delay. Such pressure environments lead to
extension of time and cost. Delays in construction may
be caused by one or a combination of several reasons. It
may start with a simple reason and lead to a substantial
set of interrelated complex disputes in contract
agreement. Most of the typical delays are caused by
factors such as unrealistic contract duration and cost,
differing site conditions, change orders, delays, impact
and ripple effects of delays, evaluation the quality and
quantity of works, owner furnished items, difference in
the interpretation of plans and specifications,
unfulfilled duties, acceleration, inefficiency and
disruption [8-11]. Facts about site conditions that are
overlooked at the bidding stage could increase the cost
and the risk of disagreement. During construction
period, the conflict among owner and main contractor
has become increasingly prone activity. Cost overruns
may amount to a substantial percentage of the overall
contract value and delays may reach disturbing
proportions. The allocation of risk among the owner,
the main contractor and the designer is stated in the
construction contract. However, the construction
contract is typically prepared by the owner who ensures
that a considerable portion of the risk rests with the
main contractor. The main contractor therefore faces a
multitude of risk among which are inflation, strikes,
labor problems, adverse weather, accidents, shortages
of materials and staffs and unforeseen conditions at the
construction site. Imbalances in risk allocation may
eventually end up in disputes between involved parties
and probably seek for settlement in court. Over the past
decades, construction practitioners have tried to
develop and implement the right contractual methods
which fit the best approach of their needs and
minimizing delays in construction project. Nonetheless,
construction delays have still been found from research
papers. Assaf and Al-khali [12] found extensive of 56
causes of disputes over delay identified and reported
that the contract disagreement was one of their main
delay causes in large building projects. Ayman [13]

conducted a survey on causes of delay on public

projects in Jordan. The results indicated that designing,
change orders, weather, site conditions, late deliveries,
economic conditions and increase in quantity were the
main causes of dispute and consequently delay
construction schedule. Similarly, Odeh and Battaineth
[14] reported that interference, inadequate contractor
experience, financing and payment, labor productivity,
slow decision making were five most important causes
of dispute and delay in construction project with
traditional contract. Kululanga et al., [15] identified
four sources of delay in construction; errors, defects
and omissions in the contract documents,
underestimating the real cost of the project in the
beginning, changed conditions and stakeholders
involved in the project. In fact, no project can be
considered shielded from a potential delay. Such delay
can lead to significant financial damages. The degree
of delay is depended on its nature of cause, content and
complexity of contract agreement. Walton and Dutton
[16] found that conflicts in inter-organizational
resulting in low trust and low respect which in turn has
an adverse impact on performance. It required an effort
and support from legal, design and construction team in
order to mitigate the threat of delay among construction
team. Therefore, the delay should be clear and
understood by all parties, especially the main
contractor so that they know how to avoid delay risks
in a way that agreed completion of project date can be
met.

3. Methodology
The data collection process involved two stages. The
first stage consisted of literature reviews for
information on the causes of delay in other countries
and non-structured interviews of 15 key players
involved in the implementation process. The purpose
of interviewing the key players was essentially to
validate a preliminary set of construction delay causes
gleaned from the literature and to determine from their
experience other factors which cause construction

Evaluation of Common Delay Causes of Construction Projects in Singapore

delay in buildings projects in Singapore. This phase

resulted in the identification of thirty-five (35) delays
factor. The second stage involved the development of
questionnaire incorporating the 35 delays identified
and data collection. The questionnaires comprised
open-ended and closed-ended questions. A
hand-delivered questionnaire method was used in order
to mitigate the low respondents. Questionnaire was
divided into three main parts. The first part was an
introduction to explain the idea and purpose of the
survey as well as the definition of the interested area of
study. The second part contained general information
questions including annual volume, specialization,
experience and nationality of the company. The third
part concerned the delay factors in building works
projects. For each question, the respondents have five
options .These are, most severe, severe,
moderately severe, fairly severe and none severe.
Furthermore, twenty-three of out seventy-four
respondents were also available to answer questions
relating to the questionnaire. The questionnaire was
dispensed to each category of the respondents-clients,
consultants and main contractors. The convenience or
availability sampling approach was used in the
selection of respondents. The survey resulted were
analyzed by using the severity index approach and the
Spearmans rank correlation coefficient formula to
measure the degree of agreement in the ranking by
contraction practitioners. The severity index was
helped to be an approximation to tolerance limit data,
the degree of delay tolerance to construction
performance impact was needed, although there have
been as much or more work in this area of dispute
tolerance as in other countries. Based on the response
to the survey, a severity index was calculated to
interpret the degree of seriousness effect of those
problems. This index was calculated as follows [17]:
4

Severity index (I)

a x
i

i 0

4 x i
i 0

100%

(1)

1029

where
ai = constant expressing weight given to ith response:
i = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4
xi = variable expressing frequency of ith response
i = response category index of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 illustrated
as follows:
x0 = frequency of very often response and
corresponds to a1 = 4;
x1= frequency of often response and corresponds to
a2 = 3;
x2 = frequency of moderate response and
corresponds to a3 = 2;
x3 = frequency of not often response and
corresponds to a2 = 1;
x4 = frequency of seldom response and corresponds
to a1= 0;
The respondent to the survey has to select one
weight (level of significance) for each factor causing a
delay. There are 5 level of weight, ranging from 0
(seldom to cause delay response) to 4 (very often to
cause delay response). The summations of all of the
respondents answers are averaged using the Eq. (1).
Eq. (1) was used to calculate the severity index for all
disputes factors. The index was ranked for domestic
and international funded public works projects. The
severity index was categorized into five levels. The
0-15.5% was categorized as non severe; 15.5-38.5% is
categorized as somewhat non-severe; 38.5-63.5% is
categorized as moderately severe; 63.5-88.5% is
categorized as severe; and 88.5-100% is categorized as
most severe. The categorizations reflect the scale of the
respondents answers to the questionnaire. The severity
index of a category was the average severity indexes of
all its related problems. As an example I, the average
weighted perceived significance was computed as
follows:

1 a x a x a x a x
I { 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 }100%
4
a1 a2 a3 a4
(2)
All the collected information from the survey were
examined and verified for their correctness. Data

1030

Evaluation of Common Delay Causes of Construction Projects in Singapore

cleaning was carried out by checking the frequency and

descriptive statistics as well as coding and data entry.
The cleaned data were then computed and analyzed to
obtain frequency, statistical descriptive analysis and
variance. SPSS 12.0 was used for multiple comparison
tests. The results of the survey are shown in Table 4
and Table 5.
Rank agreement
The spearmans rank correlation, was a
non-parametric measure of statistical dependence
between two variables. It offered an advantage of not
requiring the normality assumption or homogeneity of
variance assumption. The subjected can be compared,
as results have one or two outliers, their influence can
be negated. In this study, the relationship among
different parties or factors was measured. A perfect
spearman correlation of +1 or 1 occurred when each
of the variables was a perfect monotone function of the
other. A +1 indicated a perfect positive relationship
among respondents, whereas-1 presented that there
was a negative relationship among their respondents
opinion. The spearmans rank correlation coefficient, rs
was used to measure and compare between the
rankings of owners and main contractors for a single
cause of delay. These results were used to test the
significance level at 5%. The coefficient can be
computed as follows:

rs 1

6 d12
N ( N 2 1)

(3)

where
rs = Spearmans rank correlation coefficient between
two parties.
d = The difference in ranking between ranks
assigned to variables for each cause (owner and
consultants,
owner-contractors,
consultantscontractors), and
N = The number of pairs of rank, equals to 35 and 4
for all the delay factor and for the main categories of
delays, respectively.
The classification of construction delays were
caused by several factors. Based on literature reviews

and interviews with owners, consultants and main

contractors in the related area of study resulted in the
identification of 35 common delay factors. In order to
present the identified problems; they were classified
into four main delay groups. The classification of main
group was based on Assaf et al.s [18] delay
classification; with slightly modified into contract and
specification dispute, financial dispute, environment
delay and other common issue delay. Each group
reflects issues that have a common purpose.

4. Results and Discussions

The informations on respondent among owners,
consultants and main contractors with their response
rate were shown in Table 1. The total rate of response
to the questionnaires was 83%(66). The owners filled
questionnaires with success rate of 83%(12) whilst
domestic and international main contractors and
consultant companies filled questionnaires with
success rate of 88%(18), 95%(19) and 67%(15)
respectively. The evaluation of overall success rate was
considered as excellent [17]. Babbie suggested that any
rate of success over 50% can considerably be reported,
while the overall value above 60% and 70% can be
mentioned as good and excellent respectively.
Information on type of building projects were shown in
Table 2. While, comparison severity issues in building
projects were shown in Table 3. These profiles indicated
Table 1 Type of organization with their response rate.
Number
of
questionnaires
Sent Filled
Owner
14
12
Main contractor (Domestic)
20
18
Main contractor (International) 20
19
Consultant
20
15
Total
74
66

Organization

Percentage
of responses
83
88
95
67
83

Table 2 Profiles of projects.

Classification
Residential building
Office Buildings
Total

Number of projects
40
42
82

Evaluation of Common Delay Causes of Construction Projects in Singapore

1031

Table 3 Comparison severity index factors in building projects.

Delay factors
I (%)
Contract and specification category
56.4
Insufficient working drawing details
68.2
Inaccurate bill of quantities
62.5
Inability of main contractor to sublet the contract during bidding 29.7
Violating condition of the contract
52.4
Poorly written contract
59.1
Unrealistic contract durations
58.8
Mistakes and discrepancies in design documents
55.4
Change orders
58.1
Shop drawing approval
63.5
Financial category
55.3
Delay in progress payment by owner
86.5
Payment system of owner
48.3
Main contractor financial problems
77.7
Inflation
16.9
Exchange rate
21.3
Accuracy of project cost estimate
66.6
Evaluation of completed works
72.3
Fluctuation in materials cost and labor during construction
52.7
Environment category
42.8
Adverse weather conditions
73.3
Act of gods
64.9
Unforeseen problem underground
63.9
Inappropriate type of foundation
56.1
Noise pollution
10.8
Dust pollution
11.8
Approval environment assessing impact from local authority
53.4
Debris and construction junks
8.1
Others commons category
52.3
Lack of skill labor and engineers
57.8
Slow in making decision from owner
47.3
Deficiencies in contractors organization
56.4
Unexpected social events
57.4
Bureaucratic
56.8
Third party delays
49.0
Major accidents
54.4
Communication with engineers and main contractor
47.0
Poor quality of completed works
47.6
Poorly done planning and scheduling
49.7

that delays in building projects were fairly common in

Singapore. Table 4 showed comparison spearman rank
correlation and Table 5 summarized the responses in
respect of the 5 most delays factor in building projects.
As far as 4 main delay categorizes were compared in
Table 5. The contract and specification delay category

Owner
Rank
1
5
10
31
24
11
12
20
13
9
2
1
27
2
33
32
6
4
23
4
3
7
8
19
35
34
22
36
3
14
29
17
15
16
26
21
30
28
25

I (%)
52.5
65.9
54.1
26.4
44.6
52.0
55.1
58.1
56.8
59.5
54.5
76.4
29.1
70.3
31.4
25.0
60.5
73.3
69.9
34.5
43.2
42.2
56.4
44.9
16.9
13.9
34.8
24.0
50.8
57.1
47.0
47.3
46.3
46.6
52.7
51.0
53.4
48.6
58.4

Consultant
Rank
2
5
14
31
25
17
13
9
11
7
1
1
30
3
29
32
6
2
4
4
26
27
12
24
34
35
28
33
3
10
21
22
23
20
16
17
15
19
8

Main contractor
I (%)
Rank
56.3
2
68.2
5
63.9
9
29.7
33
52.4
21
59.1
14
58.4
15
55.4
20
58.1
16
61.5
11
57.1
1
72.0
3
43.6
29
77.7
2
33.4
32
33.8
31
62.8
10
66.9
6
66.2
7
47.7
4
78.4
1
71.3
4
60.1
12
57.4
17
20.6
34
16.6
35
65.9
8
11.5
36
49.6
3
59.5
13
49.3
25
51.7
23
56.4
19
52.0
22
48.0
27
48.6
26
34.8
30
50.0
24
45.6
28

was rated as the highest severity index by owner with

severity of 56.4% while consultants and main
contractors had seen differently. Contract and
specification delay category was rated as second
highest severity index by consultants and main
contractors with severity of 52.5 and 56.3%

1032

Evaluation of Common Delay Causes of Construction Projects in Singapore

respectively. From interviewees point of view, the

payment was sometime delayed. This was due to
mis-management in cash flow of owner. The delay in
payment caused difficulties to main contractors in
bringing the performance of completion as it was stated
in contract agreement. In multi-international funded
projects, it further required authorized representative
persons from loan provider to sign necessary
documents as double-standard system before it could
be further processed. The progress payment was
usually transferred to main contractor designated bank
account within 14 days after all requested documents
had been approved by authorized persons [19-22].
Table 4 Comparison spearman rank correlation.
Delay category

Spearman
coefficient
Main
categories

Owners-Main
0.8
contractors
Main
0
contractors-Consultants
Owners-Consultants
0.8

rank

correlation

delay All
factors

delay

0.61
0.89
0.65

Table 5 Comparison severity index factors in five most

delays factor in building projects.
Sector
Overall

Five most severity index

Delay in progress payment by owner
Adverse weather conditions
Main contractor financial problems
Evaluation of completed works
Act of gods
Owner
Delay in progress payment by owner
Main contractor financial problems
Adverse weather conditions
Evaluation of completed works
Insufficient working drawing details
Consultant Delay in progress payment by owner
Evaluation of completed works
Main contractor financial problems
Fluctuation in materials cost and labor
during construction
Insufficient working drawing details
Main
Adverse weather conditions
contractor
Main contractor financial problems
Delay in progress payment by owner
Act of gods
Insufficient working drawing details

Index
86.5
78.4
77.7
73.3
71.3
86.5
77.7
73.3
72.3
68.2
76.4
73.3
70.3
69.9
65.9
78.4
77.7
72
71.3
68.9

4.1 Contract and Specification Delay Category

Interviewees expressed their opinion on contract and
specification delay category as delays mostly came
from contract and specification which required the
provision of clear working drawing. The violating
condition of the contract must be monitored and
improved. Fair-contract should as much as possible be
encourage. It might help to minimize the violation of
the contract. While consultants and main contractors
gave their expression on contract and specification
delay category as sometime contract was weak and
specification was unclear. These caused further
discussion among owner consultant and main
contractor which caused delay in progress if owner had
not finalized the project.
It was worth to point out that change orders in large
construction project were a consequence of insufficient
working drawing details, inaccurate bill of quantities
and unrealistic contract durations which affect project
durations during the execution of the project. This
cause the dispute and delay between owner and main
contractor. The main reason why considerable works
have been frequently changed by most construction
owners is due to sufficient time and effort are not spent
at the preconstruction phase for feasibility studies,
design and site survey and exploration.
4.2 Financial Delay Category
As far as financial delay category was concerned, the
result showed in table 3 that the delay in progress
payment by owner factor was rated as the mostly
severe delay factor by owner consultant and main
contractor. The explanations were given by
interviewees as construction projects require steady
and in-time payment from owner in order to utilize the
payment to pay off their expenses. Delay in payment
would have momentum on involved activities in
construction projects. Work progress could be delayed
or even ceased if the payment had been prolonged.
Furthermore, those subcontractors had weaker in
financial stability therefore ability to maintain their

1033

Evaluation of Common Delay Causes of Construction Projects in Singapore

works progress was low and vulnerable to went

bankruptcy. This was natural of businessman to worry
about the payment even though owner had already
provided an evident to proof their ability to financial
support throughout the project.
4.3 Environment Disputes Category
Adverse weather condition and unforeseen problem
underground factor were main concerned factors for
owners and main contractors. These factors caused
delay for construction. In order to alleviate the delay
factors, proper investigate on historic background of
construction site should be deployed. Regarding to
community health concern, noise and dust pollution
factor were becoming a concern issue among owners,
consultants and main contractors where construction
site was located near high buildings and residential
areas. Noise and dust might cause inconvenience for
neighbors and pressing a complaint to local authority.
Therefore, restricted time was given to main
contractors. Approval environment assessing impact
from local authority factor is now becoming another
concern factor to owners, consultants and main
contractors.
4.4 Others Commons Category
Interviewees make a high concerned on lack of
skilled labors and engineers factor which owners
expressed their deep concerned on consequence of
lacking of skilled labors and engineers will effect to
overall performance and progress of project as well as
quality of works. In order to alleviate the problems
group, owners and the main contractors should
carefully review all aspects of project in order to ensure
that there was a minimum error. Respondents also
agreed that inadequate in open and factual
communication between client and main contractor
will lead to construction delays and disputes as the
owners and main contractor unable to express the
construction difficulties formally and in detailed so that
consultants able to give solution in timely manner.

Therefore, both parties should have a positive thinking

and good-will when problems arose.

5. Conclusions
The conclusion can be drawn from studied and the
results of the analysis of the survey delay problems in
building projects in Singapore as follows.
This study has identified and classified 35 related
factors of common delay in building projects in
Singapore. These common delay factors among owners
consultants and main contractors. The main delay
category can be classified into 4 main categories:
contract and specification, financial, environment and
other common.
All main delay categories and their related delay
factors were found to have frequency of very often
response on the relationship among construction
practitioners, Nonetheless, the degree of severity do
vary.
Financial

delay

category

was

evaluated

as

moderately severe level by construction practitioners.

It appeared that main contractors have paid their
attention to financial greater than contract and
specification delay category which caused severely
delay in construction. Whist, owners gave their first
attention to contract and specification delay category
which believed to cause severe delay in the
construction project.
The delay in progress payment by owner factor was
rated as the highest overall severity index with 86.5
percent (severe level).

6. Limitation and Suggestion for Further

Research
In this study, the first obstacle is shortcomings in the
data can be identified such as the contract agreement
and construction experience of the interviewees. The
collecting of the company specific data are both costly
and time consumed compared with that of publicity
available data.

1034

Evaluation of Common Delay Causes of Construction Projects in Singapore

Acknowledgment
Author would like to thank the Ministry of
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
(Japan) for providing partially financial support
through Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research
(Research Project No.18206048).

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