Project Management Practices

Delay in Construction Projects: Types, Causes and

Effects
Abdullah M. Tawfek1 and D. K. Bera2
Abstract
Delay in the construction projects is one of the most recurring issues in
construction project worldwide. It can be defined as the lateness of completion;
It either exceeds the date specified in the contract or the date decided by the
parties for delivery of the project. The objectives of this study are to discuss the
types of construction projects delay and their causes and effects. This study is
carried out based on different types of delays mentioned by different authors.
There are a lot of causes that are responsible for the delay. However, some
causes are more effective than others. No set of causes are agreed upon to be the
most effective. The classification of the most effective causes is different from
one study to another. The various effects of delay that were identified include:
time exceed, cost exceed, dispute, arbitration, total abandonment, and litigation.
The study mostly concludes that time and cost overrun is directly proportional
to delay in construction projects.
Keywords: Construction Delay; Types of Delay; Concurrent Delay; Causes of
Delay; Effects of Delay.

1. Introduction
In general, delays are among the most well-known issues that occur in the
building development industry and may happen in basic or complex project.
Delay in building construction project can be defined as the lateness of
completion; it either exceeds the date specified in the contract or the date
decided by the parties for delivery of the project. It slips over its planned
schedule and is considered as a common problem in construction projects
(Ramya et al., 2015).
According to (Zack, 2003), delay is an event that requires more time than the
one specified in the contract to perform or complete works. Delay as a loss of

1
Student, Civil Engineering, KIIT University, Yemen
Email: abdullahtawfeq560@gmail.com
2
Faculty, School of Civil Engineering, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India

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time, Majid (2006) stated that Time refers to the period needed for the
completion of the construction project. If the project is delay, it means that the
project work cannot be completed according to the original contract schedule.
According to (Kanase et al., 2017), construction delay is classified into critical
delay, non-critical delay, causable delay, non-causable delay and concurrent
delay. According to (Ahmed, 2015), there are many causes that result in
construction project delay. According to (Aibinu and Jagboro, 2002), there are
six effects of delay in construction project: Time overrun, Cost overrun,
Dispute, Arbitration, Litigation and Total Abandonment.
2. Literature Review
Construction sector is one of the most important sectors for the economical
growth of the countries. It creates more job chances. This sector is characterized
by its important products such as buildings, dams, roads, railways, bridges, etc.
Increasing the production rate in construction projects makes a significant
contribution to the growth of any country’s economy. The production rate plays
a major role in the project success. Yet, there are many expected or unexpected
factors which can affect the production rate. Such factors lead to construction
project delay.
Most of construction projects have the same execution process but the causes of
construction projects delay are different from one country to another based on
many factors (climate, construction condition, project location, etc).
2.1. Types of Delay in Construction Projects
Project completion on the specified time in the contract is the main objective in
construction projects. Project delay leads to the negative value of the contract
regardless of the causes of delay or the responsible party of the delay

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Type of
Delay

Non- Critical Causable Non-causable Concurrent

Critical Delay
Delay Delay Delay Delay

Non-
Compensable
compensable
Delay
Delay

Figure 1: Types of Delay in Construction Project

2.1.1. Critical Delay
It is the type of delay that affects the project completion time or date. This type
of delay happens in critical activity (critical path) in CPM scheduling, It foils
the contractor from completing the work in the scheduled completion time as
the parties agreed upon in the contract.
2.1.2. Non-Critical Delay
It is the type of delay that does not affect the completion date of the project
because this type of delay happens in non-critical activity in CPM scheduling,
but it affects the progress of the activities.
2.1.3. Excusable Delay
It is the type of delay that occurs due to an unexpected event which can be
controlled neither by the contractor nor the subcontractor. The following events
are responsible for excusable delay (Flood, Fire, Acts of God, General labour
strikes, usually severe weather, etc.)
The analyst should consider the documents of the contract before s/he draws
any conclusion about the excusable delay based on the preceding definitions.
The contract should clearly state the project possible delay factors to justify
extension of time (Ahmed, 2015). Under this type of delay, there are two sub-
types.

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2.1.3.1. Compensable Delay

Compensable delays are caused by the proprietor or the proprietor's agents. The
contract identifies carefully the types of delays which are compensable delay, so
for that types the contractors are entitled to extension of time (EOT) and to
additional compensation.
2.1.3.2. Non-Compensable Delay
This type of delays is caused by other party. Neither the contractor nor the
client's fault, no one is responsible for this type of delays. The contract
identifies carefully the types of delays which are non-compensable so for that
types the contractor is entitled to get extension of time only without any
compensation for delay harms.
2.1.4. Non-excusable Delay
Non-excusable delay is the foreseeable events which are under the contractor’s
control. There is some examples for this type of delays:
a. Late of materials delivery by supplier.
b. Late of works execution by sub-contractors.
c. Execution of work in wrong ways by contractor or sub-contractor.
d. Shortage of labor and equipment.
e. Labors strike due to the contractor’s intention to delay or stop their
wages.
2.1.5. Concurrent Delay
Concurrent delay is when two or more delay events happen either at the same
time or different times but their effects is felt simultaneously (Hastak, 2015).
“True concurrent delay is the occurrence of two or more delay events at the
same time, one an Employer Risk Event and the other a Contractor Risk
Event. The effects can be felt at the same time. For instance, the Owner fails
to offer access to the site, and the Contractor has no resources mobilized to
implement any work“ (SCL, 2016).
The following figures are some situations of Gantt Chart Planned Vs Actual- of
Concurrent delayat the same and different time from owner and contractor.

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Figure 2: Gantt chart Planned Vs Actual- Delay at Same Time from Owner
and Contractor

Figure 2: above the owner delay and contractor delay happen and finish at the
same time so the contractor is entitled to extension of time without any
compensation.

Figure 3: Gantt chart Planned Vs Actual Delay at different times from Owner and
Contractor
Figure 3 : the owner delay starts first on path-A and then the contractor delay
starts on path -B and both delays finish at the same time so the contractor is
entitled to extension of time and compensation for ( A ) time.

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2.2. Causes of Delay

Many articles and research papers have mentioned the factors of delay in
construction project in many ways. According to the researchers so far done
in the field of construction project delay, the ten important causes are
mentioned below:
(Shboul et al., 2008), revealed the most important causes of delay ranked by
three parties: 1- Financial difficulties facing the contractor ranked as the first
most important causes 2- Too many change order by the owner ranked as the
second causes. 3- Poor scheduling and planning of the project by the
consultant as third causes.
(Rao, 2016),founded the major causes of delay is ranking among 42 causes as
following: Ranking 1st is delay in payments by owner having relative
important index (RII) value is 0.812, Ranking 2nd is lack of communication
between parties by project having RII 0.775, Ranking 3rd is late issue of
instruction by designer having RII 0.754, Ranking 4th is poor management
and execution by contractor having RII 0.739, Ranking 9th delay in approving
design document by consultant having RII 0.697, Ranking 11th and 12th is
shortage of materials and price fluctuations respectively.
(Henry et al.,2008),found the following causes or factors important for
controlling delay: expertise and experience of consultants, information flow
process, meeting the desired requirements of the information, expertise of the
team members of the project, the tender period and market conditions, contract
design and its implementation and the complexity of project design and
construction.
(Najjar,2008), found the critical cost overruns factor was because of the
political situation of the country, market fluctuations of the construction
materials’ prices and inflation rate.
2.3. Effects of Delay
According to (Aibinu and Jagboro, 2002), there are six effects of delay in
construction project.

2.3.1. Time Overrun

One of the most important problems meet the construction project today is
Time Overrun.

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“Construction time overrun is defined as the time overrun either beyond

completion date specified in the contract, or beyond the date that parties agree
upon for the delivery of the project”(Larsen et al., 2015).
2.3.2. Cost Overrun
Cost overrun is so common in construction projects. It is related to time
overrun. It is an unexpected cost that happens because of the financial
shortage due the fact that the amount specified during planning cannot meet
the project expenditures which results in the project delay beyond the
scheduled time.
2.3.3. Dispute
Dispute is a main reason of delay in construction projects. It is arisen among the
project parties during the construction project. The project engineer as a
mediator party has to solve any dispute early during construction otherwise the
project completion will be late.
2.3.4. Arbitration
It is a way to resolve dispute outside the courts, a third party is agreed upon
by the project parties to solve the dispute.
Arbitration is more efficient than litigation as regard to cost and time. Lately,
most of construction dispute leads to arbitration, where the arbitrators should
have enough experience in construction process and construction- related
issues.
2.3.5. Litigation
It is the process of legally involving the court in dispute resolving. The court
has the lawful right to impose the results of litigation on the parties.
2.3.6. Total Abandonment
Total abandonment is a paramount factor that brings about delay in construction
project (Aibinu and Jagboro, 2002). It can affect the construction process either
temporarily or permanently. Total abandonment means the whole project stops
immediately because the client or the contractor is facing financial difficulties
(clients’ bankruptcy, poor marketing and sales strategies).
3. Conclusion
This study analyzed various researches that targeted construction delay to find
out the causes, types and effects of delay. After surveying various studies, the

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following methods were found much in use to analyze the causes of delay:
Relative Importance Index (RII), Frequency and severity Index (FI and SI),
Friedmann’s test, reliability analysis using SPSS statistical software, etc.
According to the latest trends in construction project delay research, the causes
of delay are various. Though certain causes were identified as major causes, no
single cause was found to be extremely important than the others.
Delay causes can be classified into critical and non-critical delays, excusable
delays and non-excusable. Knowing about the level of impact the delay mainly
caused due to improper schedule of the project that means planning in advance
by identifying which factors cause what kind of delay and so reduce the impact
of delay. The project manager is not only expected the problems created by
these causes but also have the strategy to manage these causes as early as
possible. If delay is expected in the early stages of the project, the cost and time
overruns increase proportionately with delay. So the causes of delay should be
foreseen before of the status of growth of the project and accordingly steps to be
taken to minimize the time and cost overrun. One can easily identified the
causes of delay of the project on and before of the project by studying this
exhaustive study.
References
Aibinu, A. A., & Jagboro, G. O. (2002). The effects of construction delays on
project delivery in Nigerian construction industry. International journal
of project management, 20(8), 593-599.
Al-Najjar, J. M. (2008). Factors influencing time and cost overruns on
construction projects in the Gaza Strip. Master thesis, Islamic
University, Gaza.
Divya, R., & Ramya, S. (2015). Causes, Effects and Minimization of Delays in
Construction Projects. In Proc. Conf. on the Research in
Communication, Computation, Electrical Science and Structures
(NCRACCESS-2015) (pp. 47-53).
Dr. Makarand Hastak, PE CCP, Editor (2015) American Association of Cost
Engineering.
Larsen, J. K., Shen, G. Q., Lindhard, S. M., & Brunoe, T. D. (2015). Factors
affecting schedule delay, cost overrun, and quality level in public
construction projects. Journal of Management in Engineering, 32(1),
04015032.
Muhammed, T. A. (2015). Delays in Construction.
Odusami, K. T., & Onukwube, H. N. (2008). Factors affecting the accuracy of a
pre-tender cost estimate in Nigeria. Cost engineering, 50(9), 32.

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Rao, B. P., Shekar, S. C., Jaiswal, N., Jain, A., & Saxena, A. D. (2016). Delay
Analysis of Construction Projects. Journal of Information Technology
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Sweis, G., Sweis, R., Hammad, A. A., & Shboul, A. (2008). Delays in
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Thorat, S., Khandare, M., & Kanase, A. K. (2017). Identifying the Causes and
Effects of Delay in Residential Projects.
Zack, J. G. (2003, May). Schedule delay analysis; is there agreement. In Proc.
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