Factor Analysis of Construction Delays in The U.S. Construction Industry

International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure 2017 111
Factor Analysis of Construction Delays in the U.S. Construction

Industry
Mohammadsoroush Tafazzoli, Ph.D.1; and Pramen Shrestha, Ph.D., P.E.2
1
Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction, Univ. of Nevada,
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by University Of Florida on 11/04/17. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
Las Vegas. E-mail: tafazzol@unlv.nevada.edu

2
Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction, Univ. of Nevada,
Las Vegas, 4505 S. Maryland Pkwy., Las Vegas, NV 89154. E-mail:
pramen.shrestha@unlv.edu
Abstract
Delays in completing construction projects is one of the most common problems of

the construction industry, and has a detrimental effect on all triple-bottom lines of
sustainability (i.e., social, environmental, and financial). Considering the numerous
negative consequences of construction activities, particularly for the environment,
efforts should be taken to minimize the duration of the construction phase and the risk
of delays. This study involved empirical research about the causes of delay in the
U.S. construction industry. It was based on the findings of a nationwide survey, and
targeted experienced experts in the construction industry in order to study the causes
of delays in construction projects. The survey results showed that excessive change
orders and delay in decision making process played a significant role in causing
delays. The factor analysis results indicated that 14 delay causes can be extracted and
grouped into four categories namely, communication, decision making process,
designer’s inefficiency, and contractor’ efficiency. These findings could be used to
combine together delays causes, so that the root causes of delays could be
determined.
INTRODUCTION
The statistics indicate that a considerable amount of construction projects fail to

finish on time (Duran, 2006, Tafazzoli 2017). Widespread occurrence of delays in
construction projects is an issue that is causing considerable economic losses
(Ogunlana, 1996). In addition, the construction industry has a significant amount of
fundamental environmental concerns, such as the exhaustion of natural resources,
pollution of air and water, solid waste, deforestation, toxic wastes, health hazards, and
global warming (Augenbroe, 1998).
Effects of Construction Delays on Sustainability. The construction industry is

responsible for considerable contributions to significant environmental concerns.
Longer construction periods, which is the outcome of delays, prolongs the negative
effects of construction on the environment. More broadly, construction delays affect
© ASCE
International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure 2017

all three aspects of sustainability, i.e., social, environmental, and economic. Figure 1
describes some of these consequences on the triple bottom-line.
Social Effects
•Greater proximity of people near to pollutants potentially can affect their
health.
•Delay causes longer exposure of construction personnel and neighboring
people to construction hazards
•Delays can cause loss of moral in workers and can effect the quality of work
•Availability of facilities are delayed to the public, with potential
consequences to their health and well-being.
Environmental Effects
•Emissions and air pollution
•Soil and water pollution
•Disturbance of the natural soil due to commuting of construction equipment
•Wildlife in the vicinity of the project are affected
•Higher resource consumption, i.e., water, electricity, and gasoline.
Economic Effects
•Loss of public budgets (in governmental projects) that could be otherwise
spent to improve the economy
•Resulting costs of disputes, lawsuits, litigations
•Loss of labor productivity
Figure 1. Negative effects of construction delays on the triple-bottom lines (i.e.,

social, environmental, and economic).
Figure 2 illustrates an effective approach to mitigate the negative effects of

construction on sustainability. By minimizing construction delays, the objectives of
sustainability can be achieved.
The conventional construction
industry plays a large role in
Shortening the Minimizing
reversing sustainable
construction period construction
could contribute to delays is
sustainable essential for
development sustainable
The intensity of the detrimental
development
effects is linked to the duration of
construction activities
Figure 2. The importance of construction delays in sustainable development.

Objectives of the Study.
The major objectives of this study were threefold. The first objective was to
investigate the main causes of delays in construction projects, based on a national
© ASCE

survey with construction managers. The second objective was to identify the group of
causes that are associated with delays in construction projects. Finally, the third was
to provide recommendations to help reduce delays in construction projects.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Various studies have been conducted to investigate why construction delays happen
and how to prevent them. Due to the complexities of construction projects and the
large number of potential causes that could contribute to delays, however, these
studies have not been able to provide effective solutions to control the occurrence of
delays. One solution to fill this gap, which was the focus of this study, is to find
hidden correlations among the potential causes; by this means, the number of causes
could be narrowed down to concentrate on the main factor(s) that cause the delays.
One common approach of construction delay studies has been based on
attempting to maximize the application of science and engineering in the
construction industry to make it more standardized, repeatable, and predictable. The
challenge in introducing a universal prescription to prevent or handle delays in
construction projects is their uniqueness with regard to size, duration, objectives,
environment, complexity, deadlines, finances, organization structures, personnel,
delivery method and payment method, (Zou et al. 2007, Keung and, Shen 2013).
These variation make it difficult to formulate the process and increase its
controllability.
The construction delay studies can be categorized in three main categories; the
first group are the studies that attempt to find the causes of delay in a certain county
or region. For instance, Al-momeni (2000), investigated eight causes of delays on 130
public projects in Jordan and Kazaz et al. (2012) studied the main causes that effected
project durations in Turkey with regard to seven categories. In another study,
Shrestha et al. (2014) found that most of the delay claims originating in the
construction industry was due to schedule changes in the project.
The second category of delay studies, focuses on developing data collection
tools to prevent delays. An example of such studies is a research by Abu-Dayyeh in
1997 in which an image-processing system that could integrate pictorial and voice
information with project control data to evaluate the performance and delay
management was developed.
The third category of delay studies in the literature, focuses on methods for
analyzing delays’ consequences. An example of these studies is a research by
Bubshait et al. (1998), in which three delay-measurement processes were evaluated to
measure the effects of delays, utilizing computerized critical path method (CPM)
analysis.
STUDY METHOD
The method used in this paper to analyze the causes of construction delay in the U.S.
consists of three main steps
1. Conduct a national survey to assess the criticality of potential causes of delay.
2. Analyze the rating of causes of delays provided by construction experts within
the U.S.
3. Use factor analysis to determine the groups of causes that are critical to
construction delays.
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Investigating the main common causes of construction delay. The events that may
lead to the occurrence of delay in construction projects are too many. Including and
analyzing each and every event that may have a contribution to delay is not practical.
Therefore, to do the analysis, it was first required to identify which potential causes
should be included in the study (table 1).
Table 1. Main Causes of Construction Delays in the Literature

Category Potential Cause of Delay Index
Unrealistic schedule (bid duration is too short) DC1

Ineffective delay penalties provisions in contract DC2
Contract
Errors in contract documents DC3
Selecting inappropriate project delivery method DC4
Excessive change orders by the owner during construction DC5
Delayed payments by the owner DC6
Delay in approving design documents by the owner DC7
Owner
Time consuming decision making process of the owner DC8
Unnecessary Interference by the owners DC9
Delay to furnish and deliver the site to the contractor DC10
Poor communication and coordination of the owner with
DC11
designer and/ or contractor
Poor Quality Assurance (QA) plan of the owner DC12
Lack of management staffs of the owner DC13
Inappropriate construction methods DC14
Contractor inefficiency (in providing the labor, equipment and
DC15
Contractor material and handling sub-contractors
Poor communication and coordination of the contractor with
DC16
owner and/ or designer
Inadequate contractor experience DC17
Financial difficulties and mismanagement by the contractor DC18
Poor site management and Quality Control (QC) by the
DC19
contractor
Legal disputes between designer and the owner DC20
Design errors DC21
Complexities and ambiguities of project design DC22
Delays in providing the design documents by the designer DC23
Inadequate experience of the designer DC24
Inadequate site assessment by the designer during design
Designer DC25
phase
Misunderstandings between owner and designer about scope
DC26
of the work
Financial difficulties with the designer DC27
Poor communication and coordination of the designer with
DC28
owner and/ or contractor
Legal disputes between designer and the owner DC29
May vary
Delay in getting permits and acquisitions DC30
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In order to select these causes, a comprehensive study was conducted on the existing
literature to find the causes that have been highlighted in previous research. The
causes that have been emphasized by more than one-study were selected. Also, the
causes that could be grouped under a certain title were selected to narrow down the
number of causes.
National survey to assess the criticality of potential causes of delay. Not all the
contributing causes have the same effect in causing delays. In order to investigate the
relative importance of the causes, a nationwide online survey was designed and
conducted among the experienced experts of the construction industry in the U.S. The
survey respondents list were prepared by gathering data from the LinkedIn network
as well as by personnel connection. About 11,000 experience construction personnel
were identified who had US construction experience. The survey questions were
prepared in the Qualtrics Survey tool, which is the online survey tool used by
University of Nevada Las Vegas. The respondents were asked to assess the effect of
each potential cause (listed in Table 1) when a delay occurred, rating the effect 1 to 5,
for which ‘1’ represents the least effect and ‘5’ represents the most effect and hence
significant criticality.
Analyzing the rating of the causes of delays. A descriptive analysis was conducted
to determine the most critical causes of delays in construction projects. The mean and
standard deviation values were used to determine the most critical causes. This
analysis resulted in average ratings of each cause of delay, and identified some of the
most important causes of delays in construction projects.
Factor analysis to determine critical causes of delays. Factor analysis evaluates the
correlations or relationships among all variables, and tries to narrow down the
number of variables that might explain these correlations. Based on this, at the end of
the analysis, a factor (component) should be found that can effectively explain all the
possible correlations between the causes. This data reduction technique reduces the
number of potential causes to just a few. This study focused on reducing this number
to limited potential causes, and determining the key correlation among the causes of
construction delays. This would help to find a parsimonious solution that could
explain the relationship between the causes.
Factor analysis has many applications in the real world, it is commonly used
in business studies to dissect variables such as target customers. In human resource
management it is used for staffing by screening the collected data about the
employees. In addition, insurance companies rely on this analysis to create and
update their policies.
Factor analysis was selected for delay analysis in this study because it a
proper method when applied to concepts that are hard to measure. In addition, it is
capable of collapsing a large number of variables into a few interpretable underlying
factors (Rahn, 2016). Considering that the causes of construction delays are too many
– making them hard to measure – and the fact that handling each potential cause of
delay requires effort and budget, this method fits for this purpose. Based on the
literature, “factor analysis is helpful when either a few or hundreds of variables are
involved, based on items from questionnaires or a battery of tests” (Rummel, 1970).
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Using factor analysis, the number of variables can be reduced to a smaller set; this
makes it possible to extract the underlying concept between variables and interpret
them.
The following mathematical model explains the factor analysis method. In this
model, p is the number of variables that are the causes of delay, and are labeled as
DC1, DC2, …, DC30; and m is the number of underlying factors, F1, F2,…,Fm. Also,
DCj is the variable represented in these factors. The model assumes that “there are m
underlying factors, whereby each observed variable is a linear function of these
factors together with a residual variate” (Yong et al., 2013).
= + +…+ (1)
where j = 1, 2, … , 30.
Factor loading is the term used to explain the relationship of each variable to the
underlying factor. In other words, factor loadings explain how much the variable has
contributed to the factor (Yong et al., 2013). Therefore, a larger value for factor
loading indicates that the variable has contributed more to that factor than do others
(Harman, 1976). Referring to Equation (1), the factor loadings are aj1, aj2, …, ajm, and
indicate that aj1 is the factor loading of jth variable on the first factor.
RESULTS
About 11,000 construction experts were invited to complete the survey, of which 219
people participated, yielding response rate of 2%. As this survey email was sent to a
great number of people, clearly, the response rate was low. From the survey data from
those who responded, the average years of respondents’ experience was 27.9 years.
Table 2 shows project types, delivery methods, ownership types, and parties
the respondents worked with on the projects. The results showed that most of the
respondents were involved in the construction of building projects (87.7%). Design-
Bid-Build (DBB) projects was the method most of the respondents worked on,
followed by Design-Build (DB) and Construction Manager-at-Risk (CMAR).
Similarly, the respondents were more involved in private projects (86.9%), followed
by public projects and public-private-partnerships (P3). For these projects, 83% of the
respondents worked within the owner’s organization.
Table 2. Types of Projects in Which the Respondents Were Involved
Type of Projects Type of Project Delivery Method

Infrastructure Design Design-
Building Highway Other CMAR Other
* -build bid-build
87.7% 13.9% 22.6% 6.1% 66.0% 67.9% 39.2% 12.9%
Type of Ownership Party That Respondents Worked For
Designer/
Public Private Public-Private Others Owner Contractor
Consulting Firm
48.8% 86.9% 17.8% 1.4% 82.6% 31.1% 37.7%
* Projects include water and wastewater, tunnel projects, railroad construction, etc.
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Table 3 shows descriptive statistics of the ratings regarding the causes of

delays. The data showed that Delay Cause (DC) #5 and 8 both had a mean rating
above 3.5. The rest of the other causes had mean ratings of less than 3.5. Based on the
ratings, the most critical causes were “excessive changes by the owner during
construction” and “time-consuming decision process taken by the owner.” Various
studies also found that the change orders increased the schedule growth and delayed
construction projects (Ibbs 1997; Ndihokubway and Haupt 2008; Shrestha et al.
2017).
Table 3. Descriptive Statistics of Ratings for Potential Causes of Delay
Cause DC1 DC2 DC3 DC4 DC5 DC6 DC7 DC8 DC9 DC10
Mean 3.298 2.129 3.382 2.596 3.871 3.067 3.444 3.669 2.983 2.601
S.D* 1.181 1.130 1.327 1.281 1.235 1.494 1.365 1.296 1.308 1.375
Mean 3.281 2.382 2.354 2.528 3.079 3.107 2.770 2.624 2.747 2.270
S.D* 1.253 1.109 1.199 1.289 1.273 1.214 1.433 1.344 1.309 1.359
Mean 3.433 3.337 3.185 3.017 2.848 2.860 1.916 2.966 2.062 3.331
S.D* 1.296 1.202 1.354 1.329 1.290 1.287 1.035 1.288 1.258 1.494
* Standard Deviation
To determine the number of factors these delay causes belong to, the Eigne values of
these number of factors were determined. The test results showed that these delays
causes could be categorized in six factors, because the Egenvalue was greater than
one up to six factors (Refer Table 4).
Table 4. Results for Factors Having an Eigenvalue Greater than 1 and the
Percentage of Variance
Extraction Sums of Squared Loadings

Factor
Eigenvalues Variance (%) Cumulative (%)
1 10.29 34.31 34.31
2 2.57 8.55 42.86
3 1.85 6.16 49.02
4 1.44 4.81 53.83
5 1.14 3.81 57.64
6* 1.09 3.62 61.26
* The eigenvalue for Factors 7 through 30 was less than 1.0.
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The goal was to determine the factor that captured most of the variance. Based
on this, the factors with the least amount of variance were discarded. The total
variance was calculated by dividing the magnitude of the eigenvalue for a certain
factor by the sum of eigenvalues. For this study, this approach was useful in
narrowing down the number of variables that are causes of delays in construction
projects. The results of calculating the eigenvalue for each component are shown in
Figure 3.
Figure 3. Scree plot of eigenvalues of the components (factors).
Both Table 4 and Figure 3 were used to decide how many factors to retain. To fulfill
the goal of cutting down the number of factors, the common rule used in factor
analysis is to keep the factors that have eigenvalues greater than one. All other
factors, i.e., factors with eigenvalues less than 1, were discarded. Based on this rule,
six factors were retained after doing the calculations. In other words, six factors were
found to explain the relationships among all the causes of delays.
For the next step, in order to select the top factor among the six, which of the
six factors has the largest share in the variance was determined. To do so, the
percentage of variance by factor was compared (Table 4). For example, looking at
Factor 1, it can be seen that the percentage of variance for this factor accounted for
34.31%; this is more than the accumulated percentages of all the other four factors
(8.55 + 6.16 + 4.81 + 3.81 + 3.62 = 26.95%).
The scree plot (Figure 3) represents the results even more clearly. In this
graphical method, proposed by Cattell (1966), the rule of thumb is that the above
factors, which are known as the scree in the scree plot, should be retained. The scree
part of the plot is where the plot tends not to draw much, or the part that forms an
almost flat line. According to this criterion, and using results of the scree plot, only
© ASCE

one factor was selected. In the next step, this component (factor) was labeled based
on the causes that had a heavy load on it.
In order to determine which variables are highly correlated to this factor,
factor loading was determined by using factor analysis, as shown in Table 5. The
loadings were a Pearson correlation of the causes with the factor. One common
solution by Kline (1994) to interpret the factor loadings is to “choose a significant
loading cut-off in order to make interpretation easier”. “The choice of cut-off may
depend on the ease of interpretation, including how complex variables are being
handled” (Yong et al., 2013). Sixteen causes had correlations of less than 0.60, and
the rest of the causes had more than 0.60 correlation (highlighted in Table 5).
However, only two causes – DC11 and DC16 – had correlations greater than 0.70.
Looking at these 14 causes, it can be seen that these causes are related to four areas;
communications, delays in decision making, contractors’ inefficiency, and designers’
inefficiency. Four delay causes (DC11, DC16, DC26, and DC28) are related to
communication; three delay causes (DC7, DC10, and DC23) are related to delays in
decision making or providing the required documents; three delay causes (DC17, DC
18, and DC19) are related to inefficiency of contractors; four delay causes (DC20,
DC21, DC 24, and DC25) are related to designers; inefficiency. Therefore these four
categories can be created in this factor to define the delays by reducing number of
delay causes from 30 to just 14 delay causes.
Table 5. Eigenvalues and the Percentage of Each Factor in the Total Variance
Loading in
0.402 0.359 0.484 0.583 0.449 0.513 0.616 0.560 0.560 0.647
Factor 1
Loading in
0.723 0.576 0.589 0.570 0.473 0.710 0.623 0.640 0.649 0.604
Factor 1
Loading in
0.631 0.540 0.647 0.652 0.661 0.658 0.498 0.616 0.571 0.578
Factor 1
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

By considering the numerous negative effects of construction activities on the triple-
bottom lines of sustainability, and the fact that a longer construction period could
exacerbate these effects, it is essential to minimize the period designation for
construction activities during a project. To make this happen, one fundamental
measure would be to minimize the delays in construction by identifying the root
causes of the occurrence of delays in construction projects.
Based on the survey, critical issues for construction delays were identified to
be change orders and a slow decision process by the owners. From the literature also
© ASCE

it was found that the change order causes delays and cost growth in the projects.
Therefore, it is necessary for owners to control the change orders and speed up the
decision making process during the construction of the projects. If not there is a
higher possibility that the projects can be subjected to delay.
This paper focused on a new approach for investigating the roots of
construction delay causes by means of the factor analysis method. It was concluded
from the analysis that the four categories of causes related to communication,
decision making, designer’s efficiency, and contractor’s inefficiency can be combined
by reducing number of delay causes from 30 to 14 only. The correlation value shows
that the communication and coordination between the owner and contractor had the
highest correlation values (more than 0.70) with the principal component. Therefore
the importance of effective, clear, and precise communication between the owner and
the contractor during construction is undeniable. Some of the factors that make
effective communication more challenging are: 1) working with unfamiliar personnel
in every different project, 2) adversarial cultures, 3) the tensions of the job, 4) tough
atmosphere (physical work in noisy, and unfavorable conditions with a high chance
of distractions), 5) involvement of technical language, and 6) the conflicts of interests
(Anumba et al., 1997)
The key to overcome the difficulties caused by poor communication is to
establish effective communication strategies. It is essential to remember that
prescribing a communication paradigm that works in every project is not practical
(Dainty et al. 2007). Instead, project managers should know the principles of effective
communication, and facilitate them by the types of measures that they implement in
their projects. A combination of clear speech, nonverbal signs and writing, active
listening, is essential to maximize the quality of interpersonal, group/ team, and
organizational communication. Also, applying a successful project delivery method –
for example, Kanban, which uses sticky notes to communicate the process with the
project personnel – and other technologies could be helpful. Progress meetings is
another solution highlighted in the literature to facilitate communication among
construction team members for requesting and exchanging the information (Gorse et
al., 2002). In terms of further research, it is recommended that applications of
technology that enhance communications among various personnel throughout the
construction process be investigated.
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© ASCE

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International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure 2017 111

Factor Analysis of Construction Delays in the U.S. Construction

Las Vegas. E-mail: tafazzol@unlv.nevada.edu

Delays in completing construction projects is one of the most common problems of

The statistics indicate that a considerable amount of construction projects fail to

Effects of Construction Delays on Sustainability. The construction industry is

International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure 2017

Figure 1. Negative effects of construction delays on the triple-bottom lines (i.e.,

Figure 2 illustrates an effective approach to mitigate the negative effects of

Figure 2. The importance of construction delays in sustainable development.

International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure 2017

International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure 2017

Table 1. Main Causes of Construction Delays in the Literature

Unrealistic schedule (bid duration is too short) DC1

International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure 2017

International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure 2017

Table 2. Types of Projects in Which the Respondents Were Involved

Type of Projects Type of Project Delivery Method

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Table 3 shows descriptive statistics of the ratings regarding the causes of

Table 3. Descriptive Statistics of Ratings for Potential Causes of Delay

Extraction Sums of Squared Loadings

International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure 2017

Figure 3. Scree plot of eigenvalues of the components (factors).

International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure 2017

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure 2017

Abudayyeh, O. Y. (1997). A multimedia construction delay management system.

International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure 2017

Bubshait, A. A., & Cunningham, M. J. (1998). Comparison of delay analysis

Dainty, A., Moore, D., & Murray, M. (2007). Communication in construction:

International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure 2017

Postgraduate Conference, Construction Industry Development Board. Bloemfontein –

International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure 2017

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