Factors and impacts of excusable delays in Malaysia engineering, procurement and consturctional projects

Abstract

Construction project delays remain as global phenomena that attracts research interest of many scholars for decades. Delays caused by internal stakeholders (owner and representatives) and external factors which are beyond contractor‘s control are excusable delays which entitles extension of time with/without compensation to contractor. Rising popularity of Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) project delivery strategy in energy sector necessitate the owners and representatives of the sector to understand the factors and impacts of excusable delays on EPC project. The main objective of this study is to identify major factors and impacts of excusable delays on Malaysia EPC projects. The response for the study were collected based on systematic literature reviews and Likert scale questionnaire surveys. The responses obtained from questionnaire were statistically analysed by using relative importance index to establish the major factors and impacts as well as mitigation strategies for excusable delays of Malaysia EPC projects. The study identifies employer as major contributor of excusable delays followed by consultants and external factors. The perspective difference between employer, consultant and contractor also analysed and its evident that these stakeholders differs in factors causing the excusable delays but having almost same perspective on the impacts of excusable delays. The major impacts of excusable delays in Malaysia EPC projects are in term of cost and schedule overrun, additional financial lost, increasing number of reworks and loss of profit/revenue for all the stakeholders. Minimising changes and finalising design in initial phase of project are identified as top mitigation strategies that will eliminate and minimise the excusable delays. Formation of project steering committee and eliminate the limitation of inadequate resources were also identified as factors that will reduce and eliminate the excusable delays in Malaysia EPC projects.