Causes of Construction Projects Delays

a qualitative analysis

Abstract

In general, the construction industry tends to be instable and delays are considered one of the main problems that concern the construction projects. Delays can lead to higher costs, disputes, project abandonment and even legal litigation.
The main objective of this paper is to carry out a statistical study and a qualitative analysis of the state of the art that allows knowing the main causes of delays in construction projects and their repercussion in the different countries of the world. For this article 1057 causes analyzed by 47 different authors have been studied, detecting that most of the studies have been carried out in Asia and Africa. The main causes of delay in construction projects have been determined using a family classification method. The problems that cause delays in construction projects are: problems during execution, workforce problems, financial issues and design complications. Likewise, the analyzed cases show a great variability in the way of weighing the importance of the causes proposed by the authors. This fact underscores the need to carry out research into new quantitative methods of analysis that will lead to a consensus on what are the most frequent and important causes of delays.