International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 9, Issue 4, April-2018 1

ISSN 2229-5518

Study on Causes and Effects of Change Orders

in Construction Sites
Abitha Varghese, Annie Sonia Xavier

Abstract— Change orders are one of the major problems in construction projects. Change orders in construction projects are any
occurrence in the project after the grant of the contract or bow of work on sites. Such changes may happen due to the needs to satisfy the
new or modified demands specified by the owner, to reduce project cost, or to correct existing design mistake. To make things bad most of
the changes were made during construction stage. These will cause change orders, contractual disputes, cost overrun, time delay and
frustration. In addition to that parties which are involved in the procedure of making the changes into reality will need to submit fresh claims
on the extra work done. Hence, proper analysis and actions are required to measure the causes and effects of change orders. The
objectives of this study is the identification and evaluation of causes and effects of change orders in construction site which includes data
collection by running questionnaires among the parties contributing to these changes, which is analyzed using Relative Importance Index
method.

Index Terms—Change, Contract, Cost, Delay, Demolition, Dispute, Rework

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1 INTRODUCTION

T he construction industry is one of the largest industries in

the world. Changes in planned design, construction meth-
contract time. Changes in drawings and contract documents
generally lead to change in contract amount or contract

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od and contract terms during progress of work lead to the schedule. Changes also increase the extremity of contractual
change order. Change, defined as any event that results in a disputes. In general, changes cause problems to all parties in-
modification of the original scope, execution time, or cost of volved in the construction process. There are many causes for
work, happens on most projects due to the uniqueness of each issuing construction change orders in large building construc-
project and the reduced resources of time and money available tion contracts. It might be due to further development of the
for planning. Change orders play a major role in construction owner’s requirements. It can also occur due to non-availability,
because they have a larger impact on cost, schedule, quality, slow delivery of required materials or correction of contract
safety, and productivity. So, it is one of the main cause for pro- document errors and omissions. Identifying the causes of
ject failure. change orders is very important in order to avoid potential
Change order is the most crucial part in any construction changes in future projects or minimize their effects. The aim of
project, as they are caused by any parties which involved in it. this research is to study the causes and effects of change or-
Therefore, causes which influence change order and its effects ders in construction projects.
on construction project are very crucial in any construction This study will help both owners and contractors to plan
firms. So, effective management of change order is required to effectively before commencing a project and during the design
be done. It may change from project to project, place to place, phase to minimize and control changes and change effects.
time to time and also with respect to the type of work. This study will also lay the foundation for further research on
the topic

2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Change order is a written order to the contractor, signed by 3 OBJECTIVES
the owner, and issued after award of the contract, implying a The main objectives of this research study are to:
change in the work or an adjustment in the contract sum or the
• Identify the main causes of change orders in construction
sites.
• Identify the effects of those causes.
• To formulate results and recommendations
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• Abitha Varghese is currently pursuing masters degree program in civil
engineering in TocH Institute of science and technology, Ernakulam, E- 4 SCOPE
mail: [email protected]
• Annie Sonia Xavier assistant professor in civil engineering in TocH Insti- Change orders play a crucial role in construction industry. It
tute of science and technology, Ernakulam, E-mail: has impact on construction cost, schedule etc .so it is necessary
[email protected] to identify/predict the causes and effects of change orders in
advance in order to manage a change order situation.

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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 9, Issue 4, April-2018 2
ISSN 2229-5518

5 METHODOLOGY pier project implementation, particularly in North Sulawesi,

Indonesia. The study methods were primary data collection by
The methodology adopted for the present survey is illustrated running questionnaires and secondary data from the office of
in Fig.1
the Department of Transportation and contractor company
document. The results showed that partially Construction Fac-
tor, Administration Factor and Resources Factor significantly
influenced the cost performance.
Mujahed Staiti et.al (2016) investigated the impact of change
orders on project performance in the West Bank, in order to
take proactive measures to minimize changes during construc-
tion. The main objectives of the paper are to identify the main
causes of changes occur in construction projects in the West
Bank and to highlight the potential effects of change orders on
the Palestinian construction industry. Microsoft Office Excel
and Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) were used in
this research to analyze data. Financial problem, Impediment
in prompt decision making process and Change in project
scope were found to be the major causes of change orders and
time overrun, Cost overrun and Disputes between parties to
the contract were the major effects.
Ahmed Senouci et.al (2016) identified the main caus-

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es/factors that lead to change orders in Qatari construction
projects. A total of 1122 change orders were collected from22
Qatari residential and commercial construction projects. The
collected data was analyzed using statistical methods such as
Pearson correlation and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The
analysis results were used to quantify the change order im-
pacts on cost overruns in Qatari construction projects. Regres-
sion analysis models were also developed to predict change
order cost overruns with respect to project size/contract value.
Change of plans or scope by owner, differing site conditions
and contractor’s lack of judgment and experience were identi-
Fig. 1 Methodology of work. fied as the main causes.

6 LITERATURE SURVEY
Ibrahim Mahamid (2017) conducted studies to address the 7 CONDUCT OF SURVEY
causes of change orders and rework in construction projects Data is obtained through questionnaire survey. Owners, con-
and to measure reworks cost. The objective of the study is to tractors and design consultants were requested to answer
identify the main causes of change orders and its impact that questions based on their experience in construction industry
leads to rework in highway projects in Palestine. The relation- and their opinion about change orders.
ship between change order and rework is examined using re- The questionnaire is divided into four sections. The first sec-
gression analysis. Questionnaire survey was conducted in or- tion contains general information about the respondents such
der to collect the data’s and were analyzed using mean score as email address, contact address, company name, contact
address and type of work undertaken. Questions in the last
method. The main causes for change order were found to be
two sections are in a multiple choice question format. The se-
change of project scope by owner, lack of co-ordination be- cond section deals causes leading to change orders. A list of
tween construction parties and owners financial difficulties. major causes of changes obtained from literatures is presented
Estrellita Y. V. Waney et.al (2017) investigated the change in and the respondents are asked to put tick on the frequency of
the work construction contract which is commonly called occurrence of these causes in his projects. Most frequent caus-
work change order or Contract Change Order. The purposes es correspond to “very often‟ whereas the least frequent corre-
of the study was to identify factors that cause contract change spond to “never‟ which denies existence of the condition as a
order and to design a model for controlling contract change cause. The third section addresses the effects of changes in
construction projects. This list was also based on the literature
order (CCO) in term of cost performance at the government
review. Most frequent effect correspond to “major impact‟
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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 9, Issue 4, April-2018 3
ISSN 2229-5518

whereas the least frequent correspond to “no impact”. changes during the project.
The data for the work is collected from all over Kerala cover-
ing the construction sites. Data collection includes the causes
and effects of changes in construction projects. The responses
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(1)

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9 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
[6]. Estrellita Y. V. Waney1, Mycle M. Wala1 and Harson
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From the studies it can be concluded that the two main causes
for change orders in construction sites are [9]. Jaydeep N. Desai, Prof. Jayeshkumar Pitroda and Prof.
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• Financial problems. sessing causes Affecting Change Order in Construction”, Journal of
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• Increase in project duration
[10]. M. Haseeb, Xinhai, A Causes and Effects of Delays in Large
Construction Projects of Pakistan”neesa, Maloof and Wahab
11 RECOMMENDATIONS Rabbani (2011) “, Kuwait Chapter of Arabian Journal of Busi-
It is better to deal with the causes and find a solution so that ness and Management Review ,4 ,18-42
severity of causes can be reduced. It can be concluded that
the good performance and success of a building construction [11]. Ming Sun and Xianhai Meng (2009)” Taxonomy for change
project, to a large extent, is determined by the ability and ef- causes and effects in construction projects”, International Journal
fectiveness of the project team to manage the unnecessary of Project Management, 27, 560–572

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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 9, Issue 4, April-2018 4
ISSN 2229-5518

[12]. M.Gokulkarthi and K.S. Gowrishankar (2015) “A Study on

Impacts Of Change Order In Construction Projects”, International
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[13]. Mujahed Staiti ,Mohammed Othman and Ayham A.M.

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[14]. R. Karthick ,Balasubramanian Malathi and C.

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[15].Towhid Pourrostam, Amiruddin Ismail and Mahmood

Mansournejad (2011)” Identification and Evaluation of Causes and
Effects of Change Orders in Building Construction Projects”, Ap-
plied Mechanics and Materials,2261-2264

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