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Causes of
Causes of delay in construction delay in
projects: a quantitative analysis construction
projects
Elisabeth Viles
TECNUN School of Engineering, Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain
Natalia Carolina Rudeli
Agencia Nacional de Vivienda, Montevideo, Uruguay and Received 14 January 2019
Department of Civil Engineering, Revised 23 May 2019
2 July 2019
Universidad de Montevideo, Montevideo, Uruguay, and 1 August 2019
Adrian Santilli Accepted 25 September 2019

Department of Civil Engineering,

Universidad de Montevideo, Montevideo, Uruguay

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to perform a quantitative analysis of the literature in order to
determine the main causes of delay in construction projects.
Design/methodology/approach – A set of 47 articles from the literature were analyzed, yielding 1,057 different
causes of delay. In order to analyze and compare the main causes of delay, their degree of impact was studied
statistically. Next, a mention count method was used to determine the primary causes of construction project delays
and through the use of Pareto diagrams, the main causes of delays in construction projects were determined.
Findings – It was determined that the three main causes of construction project delay are problems that
occur during execution, administrative problems and labor conflicts; together they account for almost
80 percent of the causes found in the literature. Moreover, it was deduced that problems during execution are
based on unpredictable events, while administrative problems are rooted in poor cash flow management.
In addition, seven sub-groups of delay causes were identified as being major due to the number of mentions
detected. These were “Changes during construction,” “Poor construction management,” “Construction errors,”
“Economic/Financial,” “Conflict/Relationship” and “Lack of experience.”
Practical implications – This study provides a unique classification method, which was successfully
validated, for the causes of construction project delay. Thanks to the classification, designers may use this
information as a starting point for designing future construction projects, thereby minimizing the appearance
of unforeseen events during construction. Moreover, the results of this study will help project managers be
aware of the possible causes of delay that may affect their construction projects. This understanding can help
them identify potential risks in the initial phases of the project and allow decisions to be made early before
problems arise or the consequences of the deviations become irreparable. The results can also serve as input
for the development of future management improvement methodologies that are aimed at reducing costs and
ensuring that deadlines are met.
Social implications – Identifying the factors and causes of the delays will allow mitigation actions to be
taken in order to avoid delays, which will ultimately allow homes, schools, hospitals and other necessary
infrastructure to be delivered on time or even before the planned date.
Originality/value – This study provides a unique classification method that was successfully validated.
Thanks to the classification, designers may use this information as a starting point for designing future
construction projects, thereby minimizing unforeseen events during construction.
Keywords Scheduling, Design management, Construction planning
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
Construction projects tend to be one-offs. A construction project is a unique development on a
particular site under circumstances that will never be repeated. It is a complex endeavor that
requires the coordination of people and the availability of material, and it usually begins
despite there being many unknown factors such as incomplete design information, uncertain Engineering, Construction and
Architectural Management
site conditions or unreliable suppliers. Insufficient worker experience, problems with materials © Emerald Publishing Limited
0969-9988
supplies, last minute changes and fluctuating labor costs are conditions that make completing DOI 10.1108/ECAM-01-2019-0024
ECAM projects on schedule difficult, often leading to claims on cost compensations and time
extensions (Al-Kharashi and Skitmore, 2009).
The definition of delay in a construction project is not universally agreed upon, but those
found in the literature share certain aspects (Mohamad, 2010). For example, Stumpf (2000)
defines delay as an act or event that results in an extension of the required contractual time
for work completion. Such delays are reflected in the schedule as additional workdays or the
delayed start of another activity. Mohamad (2010) defines schedule overrun as “an act or
event that extends completion time” or as “the overrun time either beyond specified contract
completion date or beyond the date that the parties agreed for the project ending.”
Other definitions establish delays as any act, omission or other event that adversely affects
or alters the schedule, progress or completion of all or part of the work (MICHSPEC, 1997), or
as a state of extension in the duration of an activity (AACE, 2007). A delay can also be defined
as the additional time used to complete the tasks beyond the specified contract time (Assaf
and Al-Hejji, 2006). It has been further defined as a project that has slipped over its planned
schedule and results in a common problem in construction projects (Mulenga et al., 2015).
Regardless of definition, the importance of delays comes from their underlying causes
(Frimpong et al., 2003; Moura et al., 2007; Alaghbari et al., 2007). Construction project delays
may lead to higher costs, disputes between parties, abandonment of the project and even
litigation (Aibinu and Jagboro, 2002; Olusegun and Michael, 2011; Pourrostam and Ismail,
2011). Although a significant number of articles study the possible causes of construction
project delay, it is still difficult to know which causes are the most frequent and critical. This
is because these studies use different measurement scales to assess the criticality of causes,
thus hindering direct comparison.
However, from an academic and practical point of view, it would be desirable to summarize,
classify and quantify the causes of construction project delay. On the one hand, having
information on the causes of delay in a globalized context would provide academics with data
that would allow them to address new research topics. The new research topics might be
focused, for example, on analyzing in greater depth the primary causes of delays, with the aim
of keeping construction companies, public administrations and society itself from dealing with
the consequences of delay. On the other hand, the construction industry would also benefit
from this study were they to take into account the main causes of delay in construction projects
during the design stage in order to mitigate potential consequences in advance.
In specific terms, this paper studies the main causes of construction project delay
reported in the literature between 1985 and 2017, with the end goal of finding the most
frequent and important sources of delay. Quantitative techniques were used to determine
these main causes of delay, starting with the conceptualization and definition of the causes
of delay according to the various stages of construction projects, as well as using Pareto
diagrams from objective metrics to classify them.
This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 details the articles from the literature on
construction delays that have been taken into account in this study. Section 3 describes the
methodology used in order to determine the most frequent and important causes of delay.
Section 4 discusses the comparative analysis results and Section 5 presents the conclusions
drawn for this study.

2. Literature review
An exhaustive search was carried out using literature databases such as Science Citation
Index, Scopus, IEEE, and Springer and the following keywords: “Construction + delays,”
“Causes + delays + construction,” “Schedule + overruns,” “Time + overruns + construction.”
The search returned 124 articles.
Of the 124 articles, only articles that proposed a list of the causes of project delay were
taken into account, regardless of whether the author proposed a weighting or classification
method for determining the relative importance of each cause. Additionally, a chain Causes of
sampling technique (the snowball method) was used, meaning that all of the articles that delay in
were cited by the authors found in the initial search and that were related to the topic were construction
taken into consideration. The final set of articles analyzed contained 47 research articles,
yielding 1057 different causes of delays. projects
The first study on the causes of delay in construction projects dates back to 1985 and was
conducted by Sullivan and Harris (1985). Subsequently, other authors such as Mansfield et al.
(1994), Ogunlana and Promkuntong (1996), Odeyinka and Yusif (1997), Al-Momani (2000), Odeh
and Battaineh (2002) and Ahmed et al. (2003), conducted semi-structured and structured
surveys and Delphi panels with the purpose of reaching consensus on the main causes of delay.
Later, other authors proposed ways to measure the relative importance of the causes identified
(Alwi and Hampson, 2003; Frimpong et al., 2003; Long et al., 2004; Koushki et al., 2005; Zaneldin,
2006; Alaghbari et al., 2007; Sambasivan and Wen-Soon, 2007; El Razek et al., 2008; Le-Hoai
et al., 2008; Sweis et al., 2008). Subsequent publications broadened the spectrum of possible
causes by analyzing different types of road projects, among other new types of projects
(Al-Hadi Tumi et al., 2009; Kaliba et al., 2009; Al-Kharashi and Skitmore, 2009). More recent
articles on the subject list several additional causes of construction project delays (Abdullah
et al., 2010; Chileshe and Danso, 2010; Fugar and Adwoa, 2010; Afshari et al., 2011; Challal and
Tkiouat, 2012; Kazaz et al., 2012; Kikwasi, 2012; Mohammed and Danladi, 2012; Akogbe et al.,
2013; Gündüz et al., 2013; Sweis, 2013; Marzouk and El-Rasas, 2014; Gluszak and Lesniak, 2015;
Mukuka et al., 2015; Sepasgozar et al., 2015; Al Hammadi and Nawab, 2016; Awari et al., 2016;
Bangash, 2016; Anees and Sabarinathan, 2016; Shirowzhan et al., 2016; Sha´ar et al., 2016;
Al-Hazim et al., 2017; Nyoni and Bonga, 2017).
From a geographic point of view, more than 50 percent of the studies found in the
literature were undertaken in Asia and more than 80 percent of the total studies were carried
out in Asia and Africa. The remaining 20 percent is divided equally between North America
and Europe. The delay cause count by region is shown in Figure 1. Notice that Turkey was
considered separately because it is a bi-continental country and presents a considerably
high number of delay cause studies.
From a content point of view, it can be concluded that in most of the articles found in the
literature refer to case studies, so the results are subject to the regions and typologies of

REGIONAL DISTRIBUTION
1,000 30
900 27
800 24
MENTIONS COUNT

700 21
PAPER COUNT

600 18
500 15
400 12
300 9
200 6
Figure 1.
100 3 Causes of delay in
construction projects,
0 0 mentions/paper counts
Europe Africa America Asia Turkey
by region
Mentions Papers
ECAM construction projects that each author studied. This situation does not allow us to know
what the main causes of delay are in a global way, because there is no unified criteria for
identifying the causes of delay (e.g. in terms of what to call them) or because different
quantitative methods are used to evaluate delay causes (the criteria that each author uses to
classify them, in general, do not follow the same pattern). This fact makes it difficult
to perform a comparison analysis in order to determine with statistical rigor whether there
are common causes of delay among the studies found in the literature. Because the present
study is comprehensive in nature, it includes studies from several countries and different
types of projects since it is necessary to propose a unified classification model.
As a consequence, the study presented in this paper has a double objective. The first is to
classify and standardize all of the causes of construction project delay found in the literature
under a unified conceptual framework. The second is to analyze this new classification in
order to determine the main causes of delay in construction projects.
Having such information is of academic as well as practical interest. From the academic
point of view, it allows researchers to know which causes of delay in construction projects are
the primary ones in a global context, which will make it possible to evaluate different research
initiatives in the area of project management and, more specifically, in preventing and
mitigating delays. From the practical point of view, knowing what the most frequent causes of
delay are can improve the design of new construction projects by establishing contingency
plans to effectively and efficiently resolve possible deviations from the initial planned project.

3. Research method
The research method used to study the two objectives of this paper was structured in three
steps. The first step consisted of classifying the causes of construction delay. The next step
was to find an unbiased method for measuring the importance of each delay cause. Finally,
the third step consisted of a study of the main causes of delay. These steps are described in
detail in the following subsections.

3.1 Classification of the causes of construction delay

First, all studies related to causes of delay in construction projects were collected from the
literature. Because an adequate method for classifying the causes of construction project
delay was not found in the literature review, we created a classification scheme for the
causes we found by taking into account the phases that make up a construction project,
which can be divided into three primary phases: project conception, project design and
project construction (Chan and Kumaraswamy, 1997).
The causes of delay were distributed across the three phases and organized into two
levels, Figure 2. Level 1 contains eight groups, namely, “Administrative issues,” “Design,”

CONCEPTION DESIGN PROJECT CONSTRUCTION

DESIGN EXECUTION WORKFORCE MACHINERY MATERIALS WEATHER

Insufficient previous studies
Poor deadline estimation
Poor cost estimation

Consultant/Contractor problems
Site/Mobilization/Transportation
Poor construction management
Changes during construction
Complex design

Inappropriate use of material

Poor handling of machinery
Design delays

Design errors

Lack of communication

Conflicts/Relationship
Sociocultural aspects

Machinery purchase
Construction errors

Lack of experience

Machinery quality

Inclement weather
Safety/Accidents

Supply purchase
Low productivity
Sub-contractors

Supply changes
Lack of workers

Natural disasters
Quality controls

Supply delivery
Supply quality

Supply price

Figure 2.
Classification of
causes of delay in
construction projects ADMINISTRATIVE ISSUES
by project phase Contract Economic/Financial

and levels Procedures and permits

OTHERS
“Execution,” “Workforce,” “Machinery,” “Materials,” “Weather” and “Others,” while Level 2 Causes of
disaggregates each Level 1 group into more detailed sub-groups. All of the causes that were delay in
placed in each Level 1 group were analyzed for further degrees of similarity and then construction
categorized into the sub-groups in Level 2. An example is the design group at Level 1, where
the causes were divided into six sub-groups at Level 2 based on a more refined degree of projects
similarity. The Level 1 groups and Level 2 sub-groups are shown in Figure 2, where the
levels and their position in the hierarchy are illustrated.
In terms of the Level 1 groups, the first one, “Administrative issues,” spans all three
phases of a construction project’s life and refers to the administrative and financial activities
that are required to execute the project, including the contract signing negotiations, the
economic and financial problems that can arise between the signing of the contract and
the completion of the construction phase, and procedures and permit processing.
The “Design” group includes construction project delay causes related to previous
studies, structure calculation, and the budgeting of the project. Within this group, the
“Design delays” sub-group includes the causes related to the delays in producing design
documents and plans and securing their approval. The “Complex design” sub-group, as the
name implies, are causes that explain the delays due to the complexity of the project being
designed. The “Design errors” sub-group refers to errors or unexpected events that occur
during the design phase, such as discrepancies between designers, failure to understand
client requirements or improper use of calculation software. The “Poor cost estimation” and
“Poor deadline estimation” sub-groups refer to the underestimation of costs and completion
dates, either of which leads to project reformulations. Finally, the “Insufficient previous
studies” sub-group refers to either the lack of studies or the poor quality of studies used to
determine site conditions, which produces unforeseen events during the construction phase.
“Execution” is the broadest and most complex group and contains the causes related to
unforeseen problems during the construction phase. This group further divides into nine
sub-groups. The “Changes during construction” sub-group refers to the changes that must be
made either due to client or contractor demand and that end up extending the estimated
completion time. The “Quality controls” sub-group refers to the controls that are carried out
during the intermediate phases of construction and which may delay the start of a new task or
result in the demolition of any construction that does not satisfy the quality specifications.
The “Construction errors” sub-group refers to unforeseen events that are derived from
construction errors, either due to deviations from the original project or improper execution.
These errors usually involve the demolition or re-construction of a part of the project. The
“Lack of communication” sub-group refers to the causes of delay attributed to poor
communication between parties. Miscommunication leads to misunderstandings, delays in
decision making or misguided decision making, which eventually lead to delays in the project.
The “Poor construction management” sub-group refers to poor choices made by the Project
Manager, such as incorrect decisions or decisions that were not made in time. The
“Site/Mobilization/Transportation” sub-group refers to problems that arise due to the site’s
geology and difficulties with people, machinery and material logistics due to the project’s
location. The “Consultant/Contractor problems” sub-group includes the causes of delay that
are attributable to consultants and/or problems with the contractor. The “Safety/Accidents”
sub-group contains the delay causes attributed to extremely overprotective safety measures
or a lack of safety, either of which can eventually end in work accidents during execution. The
“Sub-contractors” sub-group brings together the causes attributable to external contractors
acting under the responsibility of the construction company. These usually include concrete,
sanitation, electrical and paint suppliers, among others.
The “Workforce” group refers to the causes of delay attributable to labor, which
ranges from highly qualified personnel to builders or helpers at the work site. This group
has five sub-groups. The “Sociocultural aspects” sub-group refers to the all causes of
ECAM delay due to the religious, cultural or union aspects that affect the productivity of the labor
force. The “Low productivity” sub-group brings together labor-related delays due to low
construction rates. The “Conflicts/Relationship” sub-group refers strictly to personnel
conflicts; these might be internal conflicts between workers, labor demands or conflicts
with unions that may arise during the project’s development. The “Lack of experience”
sub-group brings together the causes attributable to the lack of knowledge or insufficient
training of the personnel assigned to a task. Finally, the “Lack of workers” sub-group
refers to the difficulty of finding suitable personnel for the project.
The “Machinery” group refers to delay causes that can be attributed to the performance,
quality or handling of the construction equipment during the execution phase and is made
up of three sub-groups: “Machinery quality,” which encompasses the causes that refer to the
compromised quality of the instruments or construction equipment, potentially leading to
work slowdowns; “Poor machinery handling,” which refers to the delays caused by the
incorrect use of equipment, either due to a lack of knowledge or worker recklessness; and
“Machinery purchase,” which encompasses the causes of delay due to the difficulty in
obtaining the appropriate machinery for the tasks to be performed.
The “Materials” group, as its name implies, refers to delays caused by problems with
materials; it is divided into six sub-groups. The “Supply quality” sub-group contains causes
of delay due to poor quality materials, which can result in the repositioning of supplies
or construction demolition/reinforcements. The “Supply changes” sub-group consists of
the causes that refer to changes in material specifications, which triggers re-designs and the
search for and purchase of new materials. The “Supply delivery” sub-group brings together
the causes of delay that can be assigned to suppliers, and the “Supply price” sub-group
refers to fluctuations in the price of materials, resulting in new authorizations, re-financing
and administrative procedures. Finally, the “Inappropriate use of materials” sub-group
refers to the incorrect use of materials by staff, either due to a lack of training or
recklessness, which leads to construction errors, re-working and supply repositioning.
“Weather” is a group that brings together the causes that are attributable to climate
problems and is divided into two sub-groups as a function of severity: “Natural disasters”
and “Inclement weather.” Finally, the “Others” group encompasses the causes of delay
found in the literature and for which there is no further specification that allows them to be
included in one of the other groups.

3.2 Determining an unbiased method for measuring the importance of a delay causes
In order to determine the statistical variability in the degree of impact metrics given in the
literature, a test for equality of variances was needed. We chose to use Levene’s test (Levene,
1960), which tests if k samples have equal variances. Levene’s test is an inferential statistic
used to assess the equality of variances for a variable calculated for two or more groups.
It tests the null hypothesis that the population variances are equal. If the resulting p-value of
a Levene test is less than some significance level (typically 0.05), the obtained differences in
sample variances are unlikely to have occurred based on random sampling from a
population with equal variances. Thus, the null hypothesis of equal variances is rejected and
it is concluded that there is a difference between the variances in the population. Otherwise,
when the value is greater than 0.05, it can be said that the variances are equal or that there is
no statistically significant dissimilarity between the values.
To perform a Levene’s test, it is necessary for the measured data to be on a unified scale.
But as each of the articles we reviewed proposed a different scale for measuring the relative
importance of construction project delay causes, in order to compare the studies found
in the literature, every proposed measuring value was standardized to a scale from 0 to 100.
The sum of all the values assigned by an author was transformed to 100, and then every
cause was adjusted linearly to the new scale.
 For example, Akogbe et al. (2013) mentioned 31 causes of delay in construction projects with Causes of
impact factors that varied between 0.260 to 0.679. It should be remembered that each author delay in
uses his or her own scale of importance to identify the proposed causes of delay. All the impact construction
factors of the 31 causes proposed by Akogbe et al. were summed to standardize the values,
totaling an overall value of 14,839. This value will equal 100 percent and each individual value projects
will be calculated linearly. For example, the cause “finances capability” has an impact factor of
0.679 on the authors’ scale and is equivalent to 4.58 percent of the total listed causes.
The statistical test of equality of variances was carried out on these standardized data.
Additionally, for each group and sub-group, the number of times a cause was mentioned
was tracked. This yielded two different measuring systems: one based on the standardized
relative impact index assigned by the studies’ authors and another one based on the
mention counts (see Tables I–III). For example, in Table I, for Abdullah et al. (2010) there is
one mention for the sub-group “Changes during construction,” and that mention has a
standardized impact index of 4 percent.
A statistical analysis of data variability was carried out for the standardized relative
impact index by comparing the shape, central tendency and variability of the standardized
sample. Moreover, after obtaining the results referring to the variability of the index, we
compared the results with the counting method.

3.3 Study of the main causes of delay

After determining the best way to measure the importance of the causes of construction
project delay, a statistical study was carried out using Pareto diagrams in order to identify
the main causes and their relative weight. This gave us a list of main causes and their
involvement in the delay, which allowed us to define families of problems that affect
construction projects and provide more specific details about causes within the subgroups.
In this specific case, the database measured through the counting method was considered
and Pareto diagrams were used at different levels to identify the groups and sub-groups of
main causes.
This tool is considered one of the seven basic quality tools (Tague, 2005). The objective of
a Pareto chart is to highlight the most important causes that affect a process. While the left
vertical axis represents the percentage of occurrence (or other unit of measure) of each
cause, the right vertical axis represents the cumulative percentage of total number of
occurrences (or other unit total).
The biggest benefit of using Pareto chart analysis is that it helps to highlight the
important causes in a scenario where there are a large number of causes to be considered.
Second, the diagrammatic representation is extremely simple to understand and allows
researchers to focus on the few key causes by directly showing their percentage of influence.
This statistical tool can determine the main groups and sub-groups of causes of delay of
construction projects.

4. Results and discussion

An individual value plot using the standardized author impact index for the Level 1 groups
and Level 2 sub-groups was drawn, Figure 3. This graph shows how the impact index
differs greatly from article to article for the same Level 1 group (Figure 3(a)) or Level 2
sub-group (Figure 3(b)). Note that it was not possible to draw this graph for the individual
causes of delay due to the large amount of data; instead, causes were classified into the Level
1 groups and the Level 2 sub-groups. For example, for the cause “Low productivity,” the
importance value given in Marzouk and El-Rasas (2014) has a value of 10.3 on the
standardized importance index, while the standardized and adjusted values are 1.3 and
1.0 in Al-Kharashi and Skitmore (2009) and Gündüz et al. (2013), respectively.
Another example can be seen in the cause “Lack of communication between parties,”
ECAM

Table I.
Literature review
summary – part 1
 Causes of
delay in
construction
projects

Table II.
Literature review
summary – part 2
ECAM

Table III.
Literature review
summary – part 3
 (a) AUTHOR IMPACT INDEX VARIABILITY Causes of
25,000%
delay in
construction
projects
20,000%
AUTHOR IMPACT INDEX

15,000%

10,000%

5,000%

0,000%

Adm. issues Weather Execution Workforce Machinery Materials Others Design

LEVEL 1 GROUP

(b) AUTHOR IMPACT INDEX VARIABILITY

25,000%
AUTHOR IMPACT INDEX

20,000%

15,000%

10,000%

5,000%

0,000%
Sociocultural aspects
Low productivity
Procedures and permits
Machinery quality
Supply quality
Supply changes
Changes during construction
Economic/Financial
Conflicts/Relationship
Contract
Quality controls
Design delays
Natural disasters
Complex design
Supply delivery
Construction errors
Design errors
External factors
Lack of communication
Lack of experience
Lack of workers
Poor handling of machinery
Poor construction management
Poor cost estimation
Poor deadline estimation
Insufficient previous studies
Machinery purchase
Supply purchase
Supply price
Consultant/contractor problems
Safety/Accidents
Site/Mobilization/Transportation
Sub-contractors
Weather
Inappropriate use of material

Figure 3.
Causes of delays in
Construction projects
standardized
index plot
LEVEL 2 SUB-GROUP

which was mentioned in 28 different articles and to which, for example, Challal and Tkiouat
(2012) assigned a standardized value of 14.7, while Ahmed et al. (2003) proposed 1.7.
The equality of variances test was also carried out (Figure 4). It can be deduced that the
method of standardized relative impact presents central tendencies and variability, which
does not allow the evidence to show whether one group has more importance than another.
The variability of these measures is so big that it is not possible to make distinctions
between the groups (see resulting p-value greater than 0.05).
The school of thought known as “Evidence-based management” studies the problem of
data variability in root cause studies (Pfeffer and Sutton, 2006). One of the main results is
ECAM AUTHOR IMPACT INDEX INTERVAL CHART
95% CI for the mean
6,000%

5,500%

AUTHOR IMPACT INDEX

5,000%

4,500%

4,000%

3,500%

3,000%
Figure 4.
Interval chart for 2,500%
standardized Adm. Issues Weather Execution Workforce Machinery Materials Design
importance indexes by LEVEL 1 GROUP
Level 1 groups
Note: Individual standard deviations were used to calculate intervals

that in industries where it is necessary to appeal to expert opinion in determining root

causes, it is inevitable that the results are influenced by personal criteria, life experience, and
organizations or locations where such quantitative studies were carried out. In these cases,
separating the “truth” from the “noise” obtained by the subjective criteria is usually a
challenge, and further analyses must be carried out to determine what evidence can be
deduced based on a quantitative analysis.
Taking into account the large amount of data collected and the variability within the
data, in referring to the analysis of the indices proposed by the authors, there is no evidence
that suggests that one Level 1 group is more important than another. Considering this fact,
the standardized impact indexes were rejected as an indicator for measuring the degree of
impact of the causes of delay and the mention counting method was examined.
The counting method, despite being simpler, studies the problem of the causes of
construction project delay from a holistic view but yielding quantitative results. The
procedure to determine the main causes presents a smaller statistical bias. Moreover, the
counting method is more suitable for the Pareto analysis that is carried out in order to
determine which family or families are the main ones, because the certainty of the repetition
values presents less statistical skew.
Having discarded the method of standardized relative impact index and having
selected the counting method to determine the main causes of delay of the construction
projects, a statistical analysis using Pareto charts was performed for the Level 1 groups
by region, Figure 5. Four out of the five regions reveal that the “Execution” group is the
main group of construction project delay causes. In second place was the “Administrative
issues” group, which is the second-ranking group in four out of five regions. Finally, the
“Workforce” group ranked third in four out of five regions. Regardless of the location
of the study, these three groups were top-ranked (with possible variation in order of
appearance). As can be seen in Figure 5( f ), when the overall causes of delay without
regional differentiation were analyzed, 77.3 percent of the causes mentioned in the
literature were included in these three groups; from this point the focus of analysis was
narrowed to these main groups in Level 1.
A statistical analysis was then run to determine the primary causes of delay within the
Level 2 sub-groups under the three main Level 1 groups. Pareto charts were again used to
run an analogous study and determine the primary sub-groups (Figure 6).
 (a)
LEVEL 1 GROUP PARETO CHART – MENTIONS COUNT – AFRICA
(b)
LEVEL 1 GROUP PARETO CHART – MENTIONS COUNT – AMERICA
Causes of
600
100
70 delay in
500

80
60
100
construction
400
50 80
projects

AMERICA
AFRICA

60 40
60

%
300
30
40 40
200
20

100 20 20
10

0 0 0 0
L1GROUP L1GROUP
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Ad

Ad
COUNT 220 152 61 52 41 25 COUNT 34 13 5 5 2 3
% 39.9 27.6 11.1 9.4 7.4 4.5 % 54.8 21.0 8.1 8.1 3.2 4.8
% AGGREGATE 39.9 67.5 78.6 88.0 95.5 100.0 % AGREGGATE 54.8 75.8 83.9 91.9 95.2 100.0

(c) (d) LEVEL 1 GROUP PARETO CHART – MENTIONS COUNT – TURKEY

LEVEL 1 GROUP PARETO CHART – MENTIONS COUNT – ASIA
1,000 140 100
100
120
800 80
80
100
TURKEY

600 60
60 80
ASIA

%
%

400 60
40 40
40
200 20 20
20

0 0 0 0
L1GROUP L1GROUP
n

ce

ls

ry

ce

ls

ry

s
ue

er

ue

er
io

ig

io

ig
ia

ia
ne

ne
or

or
ut

es

ut

es
th

th
er

er
ss

ss
kf

hi

kf

hi
ec

ec
O

O
D

at

at
.I

.I
or

ac

or

ac
Ex

Ex

M
m

m
W

W
M

M
Ad

Ad

COUNT 447 177 118 100 58 33 16 COUNT 51 24 22 18 13 5 3

% 47.1 18.7 12.4 10.5 6.1 3.5 1.7 % 37.5 17.6 16.2 13.2 9.6 3.7 2.2
% AGGREGATE 47.1 65.8 78.2 88.7 94.8 98.3 100.0 % AGGREGATE 37.5 55.1 71.3 84.6 94.1 97.8 100.0

(e) LEVEL 1 GROUP PARETO CHRT – MENTIONS COUNT – EUROPE

(f ) LEVEL 1 GROUP PARETO CHART – MENTIONS COUNT – ALL REGIONS

100 2,000
50
100
80 1,500
40
80
ALL REGIONS
EUROPE

30 60
60
%

%
1,000

20 40
40
500
10 20 20

0 0 0 0
L1GROUP L1GROUP
s

ry

ls

er

ce

ls

s
n
ue

er

ue

er

er
rc

ig

tio

ig
io

ria

ia
ne

th

or
es

es
ut

fo

th

in

th
er
ss

ss
ea
e
hi

kf
ec

h
ec

O
D

at

at
.I

.I
or

ac

or

ac
W
M

Ex

M
Ex
m

m
W

W
M

M
Ad

Ad

COUNT 15 11 9 7 3 3 2 2 COUNT 763 381 218 191 117 53 39

% 28.8 21.2 17.3 13.5 5.8 5.8 3.8 3.8 % 43.3 21.6 12.4 10.8 6.6 3.0 2.2
% AGGREGATE 28.8 50.0 67.3 80.8 86.5 92.3 96.2 100.0 % AGGREGATE 43.3 64.9 77.3 88.1 94.8 97.8 100.0

Notes: (a) Level 1 group Pareto chart for Africa; (b) Level 1 group Pareto chart for America; Figure 5.
Level 1 Pareto charts
(c) Level 1 group Pareto chart for Asia; (d) Level 1 group Pareto chart for Turkey; (e) Level 1 by region
group Pareto chart for Europe; (f ) Overall Level 1 group Pareto chart

In Figure 6(a) it is possible to see that three Level 2 sub-groups account for almost
80 percent of the total causes. This means that “Changes during construction,” “Poor
construction management” and “Construction errors” were the three primary sub-groups
within the “Execution” group. Note that all three arise from unforeseen events during
execution. This implies that improvement methods should focus more on predictive
techniques than root cause elimination methods. By knowing trends in behavior, it
will be possible to correct deviations at a macro level and put a construction project back
on track and toward its expected schedule. For an example of using prediction
methodologies for management improvement, see Rudeli et al. (2017, 2018). Figure 6(b)
shows that within the “Administrative issues” group, almost 80 percent of the causes
mentioned refer to a project’s economic/financial problems, i.e., poor management
ECAM (a)
LEVEL 2 GROUP PARETO CHART – MENTIONS COUNT – EXECUTION
800
100
700
600 80

500

COUNT
60

%
400
300 40
200
20
100
0 0
EXECUTION

c ing

Tr /Mo rors n

b- ion f

or

ls

s
tio /

Su icat k o
ta on

er
em tio

te er tio

ro
ct
m on n

on ent

m L n
Po stru dur

th
or ati
ag ruc

un ac

nt
ra
c tio

ru

O
co
sp liz

nt
an st

st
co ges

co
an bi

y
lit
n

C
n

ua
ha

or

Q
C

Si

co
COUNT 276 190 123 46 35 32 30 31
% 36.2 24.9 16.1 6.0 4.6 4.2 3.9 4.1
% AGGREGATE 36.2 61.1 77.2 83.2 87.8 92.0 95.9 100.0

(b)
LEVEL 2 GROUP PARETO CHART – MENTIONS COUNT . ADM. ISSUES

400
100

300 80

60
COUNT

%
200

40

100
20

0 0
ADM. ISSUES Economic/Financial Procedures and Permits Contract
COUNT 270 71 40
% 70.9 18.6 10.5
% AGGREGATE 70.9 89.5 100.0

(c)
LEVEL 2 GROUP PARETO CHART – MENTIONS COUNT – WORKFORCE

200 100

80
150
COUNT

60
%

100
40

50
20

0 0
p

ity

rs

WORKFORCE
er
hi

nc

ke
tiv

Figure 6.
ns

th
rie

or
uc

O
io

pe

w
od
at

of

Level 2 sub-group
ex
el

pr
/R

ck
of

w
ts

La
Lo
ck

Pareto charts for

c
fli

La
on
C

the primary COUNT 79 60 38 22 7

Level 1 groups % 38.3 29.1 18.4 10.7 3.4
% AGGREGATE 38.3 67.5 85.9 96.6 100.0

of the cash flow. Cash flows are directly related to the schedule because it defines incomes
and expenses. For this reason, to prevent poor financial and economic behaviors, a study
of construction project cash flows typologies would be of great importance. Although
there are some studies that categorize economic behavior in projects (see Vogt, 1994;
Shenhar, 1998; Hwee and Tiong, 2002, among others), we did not find any specialized Causes of
studies on economic behavior in construction projects. delay in
Finally, in terms of the “Workforce” group, “Conflicts/Relationships,” “Lack of construction
experience” and “Low productivity” are the three main sub-groups that account for over
80 percent of the causes mentioned, Figure 6(c). In the case of the “Workforce” group, given projects
that all the causes are attributable to personnel, further studies of human behavior are
necessary to determine the root causes of conflict and low productivity (see Loosemore et al.,
2003; Makulsawatudom et al., 2004; Alinaitwe et al., 2007; Kazaz et al., 2008, among others, as
examples). These studies identify the factors that should be focused upon when
productivity improvement is to be initiated and summarize the main factors that influence
this issue.
Table IV summarizes the results of the cause mention count for the main Level 1 groups
and the main Level 2 sub-groups.

5. Conclusion
A total of 1,057 causes of delay in construction projects were studied. In order to analyze and
compare the main causes of delay, the impact degree proposed in the articles was taken into
consideration. This index was standardized, and a new impact measure was generated and
then studied statistically. The standardized impact degree index was discarded due to the
statistical variability in the data because using this method did not provide any evidence for
any Level 1 groups being more important than others. Next, a mention count method was
used to determine the primary causes of construction project delays. For this purpose, a
comparative method that presented less statistical skew was used.
Taking into account the results of the mention count methodology, it can be concluded
that the main causes of construction project delay are problems that occur during execution,
administrative problems and labor conflicts, which together represent almost 80 percent of
the causes mentioned in the literature studied. Moreover, it can be deduced that problems
during execution are based on unpredictable events, while administrative problems are
rooted in poor cash flow management. In addition, seven Level 2 sub-groups of delay
causes were identified as being major due to the number of mentions detected; these were
“Changes during construction,” “Poor construction management,” “Construction errors,”
“Economic/Financial,” “Conflict/Relationship” and “Lack of experience.”
The classification, quantification and summary of the primary causes of delay listed in
the literature on construction project delays and presented here can serve as input for future
management improvement methodologies that are aimed at reducing costs and ensuring
that deadlines are met. The results will also help improve the construction project design
phase. Thanks to the group and sub-group classification of causes proposed in this study,
designers will find it easier to know what the main causes of delay in construction projects
are and use this information as a starting point for designing future construction projects,
thereby minimizing unforeseen events during construction and generating cost savings.

Level 1 Frequency Level 2 Frequency

Execution 763 Changes during construction 276

Poor construction management 190
Construction errors 123
Adm. issues 381 Economic/Financial 270
Workforce 218 Conflicts/Relationship 79
Lack of experience 60 Table IV.
Low productivity 38 Literature summary
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Further reading
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construction projects in Burikna Faso”, Journal of Managment in Engineering, Vol. 32 No. 5,
pp. 23-39.

Corresponding author
Natalia Carolina Rudeli can be contacted at: nataliarudeli@gmail.com

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