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Causes and Effects of Construction Project Delays: A Local Case Study in

Edirne City Centre

Conference Paper · November 2018

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5th International Project and Construction Management Conference (IPCMC 2018)
Cyprus International University, Faculty of Engineering, Civil Engineering Department, North Cyprus

Causes and Effects of Construction Project Delays:

A Local Case Study in Edirne City Centre

.A ın an . ı a an ar
Trakya University, Faculty of Architecture, Department of Architecture, Turkey
dinceraydin@trakya.edu.tr, emihlayanlar@trakya.edu.tr

Abstract
Time, budget and quality are the three main dimensions which usually measure the performance
of a project. These parameters are interdependent and, delay reasons leading to time overrun
also cause cost overrun and quality problems in construction projects. Therefore, delays are
one of the most important phenomenon of construction industry. Identification of the factors
causing delay is necessary for prevention, control and supervision of the delay. The aim of this
study is to investigate the factors that may cause delay in the construction activities which
accelerate by depending on increase in the house selling prices in Edirne in Trakya region in
recent years. For this purpose, in order to identify the causes of delays and the delay effects in
the city centre, a survey was conducted with the clients, consultants and contractors in Edirne.
Relative Importance Index (RII) is used to determine the relative importance of both causes and
effects. Findings of the survey differ from other studies due to a local case study. So, findings
reveal that top three delay reasons are: delays in municipality permits, changes in legal
regulations and difficulties in financing the project and paying the debt. On the other hand, bad
reputation and loss of reliability, time overrun and cost overrun are the main effects of delays.

Keywords: causes of delay, Edirne, effects of delay, project management, RII.

Introduction
Generally, the delay in the construction sector is defined as a “time overrun after the completion
of a contract or beyond the date agreed upon by the parties for delivery of the project” (Assaf
and Al-Hejji 2006, Kumar 2016). The success of a project depends on the most efficient
programming, scheduling and control of available resources and project activities by keeping
its time, cost and utility values at the top. However, along with cost and quality, project schedule
is considered to be the most important aspect of the construction management life cycle and as
one of the main drivers of the project success (Durdyev et al. 2017). Even with today's
technology and project management techniques, there are delays in construction projects and
project completion dates are still being postponed. This reveal that time overrun in construction
projects is very important and a chronic problem (Kazaz and Ulubeyli 2009). Delays in the
construction sector have become a global phenomenon, especially not only in developing
countries, but also in all countries (Pourrostam et al. 2011, Sunjka and Jacob 2013, Cülfik et al.
2014). However, delay is a more common problem in construction projects in countries where
economic development is directly linked to the construction sector (Sweis et al. 2008, Kuşakçı

478
et al. 2017). As in many countries, delay is also one of the most common problems in the
construction sector of Turkey. After agriculture and industry, construction sector is the third
most important production sector in Turkey. Moreover, the sector carries as much risk as it is
important. For this reason, it is necessary to find solutions for preventing and controlling the
delays by analysing them well.

In the literature, there are many studies that examine the causes and effects of delays in the
construction sector. It is seen that these studies are focusing on national basis and on large scale
projects in relation to the country's development level and its economy. Accordingly, financial
problems, inflation, late payments etc. are the most common causes of delay in developing
countries, while change orders by the client, planning and programming errors, slowness in the
decision by the client etc. are the most common causes in the developed countries (Assaf and
Al-Hejji 2006, Pourrostam et al. 2011, Kumar 2016, Samarghandi et al. 2016, Tafazzoli and
Shrestha 2017). Furthermore, time overrun and cost overrun are the most common delay effects
seen in all countries regardless of development level (Sarıkaya 2010, Kikwasi 2012, Sunjka and
Jacob 2013, Kuşakçı et al. 2017). However, there are also delays in the sector that are shaped
by different internal and external influences on the local scale. For this reason, it is important
to examine the causes and effects of the delay in construction activities in the local city scale.
In this context, Edirne, an agricultural city where construction activities have accelerated in
recent years, has been chosen as the case of this study.

According to September 2016 data, Thrace is the only region where housing prices have
increased by more than 20% in Turkey (Sezgin and Aşarkaya 2017). Edirne is one of the three
cities in this region. This situation is caused by the acceleration of construction activities with
the help of both local and other investors and contractors coming from neighbouring cities such
as Istanbul where construction activities rapidly continued. The changes in the number of
building permits for construction in Edirne city centre received between the years 2007-2016
is parallel to construction sector behaviour of the Turkey (Figure 1(a)). Accordingly, the
number of building production in Edirne has increased considerably compared to the previous
turnover in every period in which the country's economy has improved in the positive direction.
However, although Edirne continues to develop its construction sector, the difference between
the number of building permits and the number of occupancy permits is increasing day by day
(Figure 1(b)). The most basic reason for this situation is; the construction of the buildings are
not made in accordance with the relevant legislation, so the necessary changes take time and
the completion of the project delays.

Figure 1: (a) Changes in the number of new construction permits by year in Edirne and
Turkey (b) Change in the number of new building license-use permits in last 4 years in Edirne
(TÜİK 2016, Edirne Municipality 2017).

479
The aim of this study is to investigate the factors that may cause delays in the construction
activities which are going fast with the increase of house prices in Edirne in Thrace region.
Also, the effects of delays are evaluated in the study. For this purpose, a survey was conducted
with the clients, consultants and contractors operating in Edirne. However, the study only
focuses on the Edirne city centre.

esearc et
Determination of the causes of delays in the construction sector and the effects of these delays
in Edirne, one of the cities where intensive construction activities are carried out locally, is the
main aim of the study. In this context, a total of 58 delay factors under the 8 delay groups such
as client, contractor, design, external, finance labour, material-equipment and project
management related delays and 8 delay effects were determined as the result of literature
review. The basic criterion in the determination of the questions is that the questionnaire will
be applied in urban scale. The questionnaire consists of 3 main parts. The questions in the first
part are to obtain general information about the participants. In the second part, the causes of
the delay in construction projects are listed and participants are expected to respond according
to their previous experience in the construction sector and own opinion, by using 5-point Likert
scale. In the last part participants are expected to evaluate the effects of delays.

The survey was conducted between December 2017 and January 2018, and face-to-face
interviewing was preferred to encourage participants and increase their response rate. A total
of 34 people attended the survey in the client, consultant and contractor roles in the city centre
of Edirne. The number of participants can be accepted according to the central limit theorem,
which indicates that it is sufficient to obtain statistically significant results because the sample
size is over 30 (Kwam and Vidakovic 2007). In order to evaluate the results obtained from the
survey, Relative Importance Index (RII), which is widely preferred in analysing both causes
and effects of delays in construction projects, has been used (Chan and Kumaraswamy 1997,
Sambasivan and Soon 2007, Kazaz et al. 2012, Gündüz et al. 2013, Cülfik et al. 2014, Kumar
2016, Durdyev et al. 2017). In this method, the RII account is made according to Equation (1):

ƩW
RII = (1)
AxN

where “W” is the weighting given to each factor by the participants (ranging from 1 to 5), “A”
is the highest weight (i.e. 5 in this study), and “N” is the total number of participants. The RII
value has a range from “0” to “1” (0 not inclusive and 0 < RII ≤1). The higher the value and
closer to 1 means that it is more important than the other. The RII is used to rank the different
causes. These rankings makes it possible to compare the relative importance of the factors and
also effects.

Results and Discussion

The demographic distributions of the 34 participants in this study are shown in Table 1.
Accordingly, it is noteworthy that mainly men are involved in construction activities. When the
role of stakeholders in the project is assessed, it is seen that more than 50% of the participants
are clients. However, this is a consequence of the fact that the people in the contractor role are
treating themselves as clients if they agree with a subcontractor. It can be said that this results

480
from the lack of professional illiteracy in the small construction companies in Edirne. It is also
seen that the construction activities in Edirne, which is an agricultural city, are predominantly
on residential buildings. The evaluation of the causes and effects of delays is directly related to
the experience of the project parties. Therefore, it is very important that approximately 45% of
the participants have over 20 years of experience. The lack of delays and the control of delays
depend on the planning and scheduling. In the study, it was determined that 90% of the
participants were scheduling for time management. However, only 37% of these participants
use software for this. When the size of the projects on the local scale is taken into consideration,
it is seen that the vast majority of the participants use MS Excel program for time management.

Table 1. Demographic results of the survey

Frequency % Frequency %
A e Role
20 – 29 3 08.82 Client 18 52.94
30 – 39 7 20.58 Consultant 9 26.47
40 – 49 10 29.41 Contractor 7 20.58
50 and above 14 41.17
Gender Experience
Male 33 97.05 0 – 5 years 3 08.82
Female 1 02.95 6 – 10 years 7 20.58
Education 11 – 15 years 6 17.64
Undergraduate 22 64.70 16 – 20 years 3 08.82
Graduate 7 20.58 21 – 25 years 3 08.82
Doctorate 2 05.88 More than 25 years 12 35.29
Other 3 08.82
Occupation Sector
Architect 12 35.29 Residential + Retail 7 20.58
Civil Engineer 7 20.58 Residential 15 44.11
Builder 8 23.52 Commercial 5 14.70
Technician 2 05.88 Historical 3 08.82
Other 5 14.70 Other 4 11.76

According to the results obtained within the study, the 10 most important factors causing delays
in the construction projects in Edirne city centre are listed together with the name of groups of
factors and RII value in Table 2. As the result of the rank basing on RII, the three most important
reasons behind the delay are; (1) delay in obtaining permits from municipality (RII: 0.800), (2)
change in government regulations and laws (RII: 0.800) and (3) difficulties in financing project
(RII: 0.758). Financial related delays are the most common causes for the delay in developing
countries and Turkey, being one of the developing countries, has the same characteristic. This
is also observed in Edirne with its local scale. However, it is seen that the structure and
dynamics of the construction industry are more dependent on local regulations in urban scale.
This also overlaps the opinions of participants in face-to-face interviews and the notes in the
last section of the questionnaire where participants are asked to express their own views and
suggestions. In addition, the three least important reasons for delay are the difficulty in sharing
equipment (RII: 0.461), personal conflicts between labours (RII: 0.461) and labours' strike (RII:
0.497). According to this, it is seen that material-equipment and labour-related delay causes
have less importance than the others. This is a result of Edirne closeness to Istanbul, where the

481
construction activities are carried out intensively, facilitating the supply both materials-
equipment and labour.

Table 2. The ranking results of top 10 causes of delays

Groups of factors Causes of delays RII Rank

External-related Delay in obtaining permits from municipality 0.800 1
External-related Change in government regulations and laws 0.800 1
Contractor-related Difficulties in financing project 0.758 3
Client-related Delay in approving design documents 0.739 4
Labour-related Shortage of labours 0.733 5
Client-related Slow decision making 0.733 5
Contractor-related Inadequate experience of contractor 0.733 5
Labour-related Unskilled and/or unqualified labours 0.727 8
Design-related Inadequate experience of design office 0.727 8
Design-related Unclear and inadequate details in drawings 0.727 8

Each individual cause’s RII perceived by all participants were used to assess the general and
overall rankings in order to give an overall picture of the causes of construction delays in Edirne
city centre construction industry. These rankings also made it possible to cross compare the
relative importance of the items as perceived by the three groups of participants (Table 3). In
this context, the three most important groups of causes of delays are contractor-related (RII:
0.701), finance-related (RII: 0.697) and client-related (RII: 0.692) delays. However, some of
the groups of delay causes can differ from each other according to project parties. The most
parallel results with the general situation were obtained by the clients. In addition, there is a
consensus on the causes for the three most important delays between the clients and the
contractors, while close ranking is seen for other causes. Consultants, on the other hand, state
that the most important delays are due to financial reasons. Material and equipment-related
delays are also the least significant delays in which almost all parties have the same opinion.

Table 3. The ranking results of groups of delay factors

Groups of factors Client Consultant Contractor Overall

RII Rank RII Rank RII Rank RII Rank
Client-related 0.725 3 0.663 4 0.633 3 0.692 3
Contractor-related 0.726 2 0.691 2 0.641 2 0.701 1
Design-related 0.741 1 0.619 6 0.643 1 0.690 4
External-related 0.679 5 0.689 3 0.624 4 0.672 5
Finance-related 0.720 4 0.724 1 0.587 6 0.697 2
Labour-related 0.643 7 0.549 7 0.571 8 0.604 7
Material-Equipment-related 0.585 8 0.511 8 0.573 7 0.563 8
Project management-related 0.678 6 0.636 5 0.600 5 0.652 6

482
Table 4 shows the effects of delays in construction projects in Edirne city centre. According to
the literature, time overrun and cost overrun, which are delay effects in construction projects,
are the most common global results in the construction sector worldwide. This situation is also
the same in Turkey (Sarıkaya 2010). However, unlike the studies carried out nationwide, when
the delay effects on the construction projects in the urban scale were examined, it can be seen
that there are some differences. The maintenance of the business continuity of small and local
construction companies depends on its reliability in the city. Therefore, delays in construction
projects will cause the company to gain a bad reputation among the local people by reducing
the confidence through the company. For this reason, the most important delay effect in the
case study is obtained as the bad reputation and the reduction of reliability. The most significant
effects after this effect are time overrun and cost overrun, respectively. When the opinions of
the project parties are compared to the delay effects, it is seen that while the clients and the
consultants have similar results, the contractors evaluate the situation differently.

Table 4. The ranking results of groups of delay effects

Groups of effects Client Consultant Contractor Overall

RII Rank RII Rank RII Rank RII Rank
Arbitration 0.656 8 0.667 6 0.600 7 0.648 8
Bad reputation 0.844 1 0.756 1 0.700 2 0.794 1
Cost overrun 0.767 3 0.733 2 0.667 5 0.739 3
Dispute 0.744 5 0.689 5 0.633 6 0.709 5
Litigation 0.678 7 0.644 7 0.700 2 0.673 7
Low quality work 0.811 2 0.600 8 0.567 8 0.709 5
Time overrun 0.767 3 0.733 2 0.700 2 0.745 2
Total abandonment 0.722 6 0.733 2 0.733 1 0.727 4

Conclusion
In conclusion, delays in construction projects are experienced today with various known and/or
unknown factors and will continue to be experienced in future periods. Therefore, it is necessary
to predict and to analyse the causes of the delays carefully in order to take precaution and to
control delays. An investigation on the causes and effects of delays for local and small-scale
projects is crucial as it provides a positive contribution to the national development of the
construction industry. The fact that the time management is not done properly in the provinces
like Edirne, where the construction activities are progressing rapidly, will affect the investments
of the sector negatively. This will help to minimize the time and cost overruns, especially by
taking the necessary precautions at the first stage of the project and by preparing the project
schedule plans. Thus, it may be possible to get rid of time and cost overruns.

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