Inadequacies of analysis of pre-construction activities on cost overruns in construction projects

Abstract

Cost overrun is considered as one of the critical issues in the construction sector projects in many of the developing countries. It has been identified that pre-construction factors affect mainly on time and cost overruns in construction projects. The focus here is on mainly four pre-construction factors which are selected from review of literature. They are conducting geotechnical site investigations, identification of availability of sufficient knowledge to do the project, identification of availability of skilled labour, identification of required material, machinery and equipment. This research study attempts on identifying the severity of the adequacy of these four pre-construction factors on cost overruns and to develop a relationship between cost overrun variation with the adequacy level of analysis of those pre-construction factors. A thorough review of literature was done to identify the four pre-construction factors and then a questionnaire survey was conducted to obtain the responses from industry experts regarding construction cost overruns related with the adequacy levels of analysis of four factors for a selected project. The survey data obtained were analysed by determining Relative Importance Index, Regression Analysis and Sensitivity Analysis techniques. The results obtained from the analysis techniques are interpreted under this research study based on the limitations.