Causes of Errors in Construction Contract Documents in Southwestern, Nigeria
10 Jul 2017-Vol. 1, Iss: 2, pp 11-23
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the frequent causes of errors in construction contract documents and recommended that the frequent errors identified should always be prevented from occurring if cost and time overrun are to be minimized.
Abstract: The issue of continual poor project performance in the construction industry remains unresolved and there is need for improvement. In view of improving project performance, the study aims at investigating the frequent causes of errors in construction contract documents. The survey research design and mixed research methods were used for the study. The respondents for the study consist of 86 consulting and 98 contracting firms that have been engaged on building projects that is above one floor between 2012 and 2015. Fifty one (51) interviews were also conducted on contractors, project managers and consultants on the projects they were involved and can equally provide necessary information for the study. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 20) was used for the analysis of the study. The study found that the frequent causes of the errors in contract documents are frequent design changes by clients, lack of adequate time to prepare documents and design management experience among others. Based on the findings, it was concluded that the causes of errors in contract documents vary from one state to the other. It was also concluded that there is difference in the causes of errors in contract documents based on types of building, services rendered by construction organisations and states in South West, Nigeria. However, there is no significant difference in the causes of errors in contract documents based on procurement method except where there is incomplete documentation or contracting organisations have overlapping activities. The study recommends that the frequent errors identified should always be prevented from occurring if cost and time overrun are to be minimized. Also since most of the causes identified are related to consultants, it was recommended as suggested by interviewees that all designs must go through quality assurance process.Keywords: Building projects, Construction, Contract documents, Errors, project performance
Citations
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09 Jul 2018
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated human behaviour during fire evacuations in multi-storey residential buildings through a focus on the challenges and obstacles that occupants face and found that occupants remain reluctant to use a lift during evacuation in fire event, irrespective of any signage clearly stating that is appropriate to do so in the context of modern lift technology.
Abstract: Purpose - The paper aims to investigate human behaviour during fire evacuations in multistorey residential buildings through a focus on the challenges and obstacles that occupants face. Any variations in response behaviours that are relevant to the evacuation strategies/plans in the UK context of occupancy typical of multi-storey buildings in large cities. Design/methodology/approach - A literature review was conducted to identify the factors occupants face and also the decision-making of occupants regarding methods of egress. A mixed research method was adopted using interviews and a questionnaire survey. The findings from the interviews and survey are benchmarked against the information gathered from the literature review. Findings - The paper identifies various challenges that occupants face when evacuating a multi-storey residential building. In terms of the decision-making process, the research results evidence that occupants could be given more information on the evacuation procedures within their specific building. The paper also finds that occupants remain reluctant to use a lift during evacuation in fire event, irrespective of any signage clearly stating that is appropriate to do so in the context of modern lift technology. Originality/Value - This paper contributes to the body of knowledge available on the evacuation of multi-storey buildings located in large cities within the UK, outlining potential areas for future research, focused on providing an insight of the behavioural decisions made by the occupants make when evacuating a building in the event of a fire.
18 citations
29 May 2018
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate the major causes of design documents' deficiencies in a fast expanding economy, where errors can translate to an adverse impact on the economy, and identify and assess the causes of DDDs for large construction projects from the consultants' perspective.
Abstract: Purpose
Design documents’ deficiencies (DDDs) are a major issue that plagues the construction industry in many countries. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the major causes of DDDs in a fast expanding economy, where errors can translate to an adverse impact on the economy. This paper aims to identify and assess the causes of DDDs for large construction projects from the consultants’ perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 20 causes of DDDs were shortlisted through an extensive literature survey. In total, 37 consultants based in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia participated in the study. The respondents were requested to provide their opinion with respect to the relative importance of the identified causes. The result of their responses was then used to rank the causes.
Findings
Based on their significance indices, the most significant causes of DDDs were “assigning design tasks to designers who lack work experience,” “team members’ communication skills,” “the level and quality of the design professional’s education,” “cross-disciplinary coordination,” “effective design team,” and “lack of knowledge transfer mechanism.”
Practical implications
Recommendations were provided to mitigate the issues of DDDs. It is envisioned that through a better understanding of the major causes of DDDs, design firms will be better positioned to recognize DDDs’ causes and establish appropriate measures for reducing their occurrence. The findings of this paper are beneficial to all project stakeholders, including design firms, clients, contractors, and end users.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the literature by providing an assessment of the various causes of DDDs in the context of a rapidly expanding economy, where any inefficiency can lead to massive losses to the economy.
15 citations
01 Feb 2021
TL;DR: In this paper, a questionnaire survey to identify the significance of key quality variables was carried out and a total of 139 variables on design documentation quality were used to determine the level of significance.
Abstract: There are numerous studies on design documentation variables without efforts to evaluate their level of importance. Therefore, the aim of this study is to evaluate the significance of these variables towards improving design documentation quality. A questionnaire survey to identify the significance of key quality variables was carried out. A total of 139 variables on design documentation quality were used. The mean score and Standard deviation of each factor were used to determine the level of significance. Based on responses from 112 construction industry players, the significance of each variable is determined. Design documentation is fit for purpose was considered highly important as an attribute while Inadequate and Insufficient documentation was ranked highest for quality influential factors. The findings will provide valuable data to stakeholders, researchers, and academics and will help enhance project performance because professionals will be aware of key factors that can influence design documentation quality. It will also aid in providing solution to sustainable infrastructure design and delivery challenges in the industry. The study offers a pragmatic data and empirical evidence to expand knowledge on design documentation quality. It is the first of its kind that explored the significance of design documentation quality variables based on the outcome of a meta-synthesis.
10 citations
14 Jun 2018
TL;DR: The study found that poor working drawing and lack of coordination among design documents are the major causes of variation and variation costs could be minimized if government policies, aimed at ensuring proper contract documentation, were put in place, and construction professionals were limited to their core roles on construction projects.
Abstract: Design errors and variations are inherently part of many construction projects and require deliberate effort to combat. The literature reviewed indicates that empirical studies of the cost effect of design-error-induced variations are scarce. This study investigates the causes of variation on building projects, the frequent design errors that lead to variation, the effects of design error on variation cost, and solutions to design-error-induced variation in design documents. A mixed methods research (interviews and 30 case study building projects) was used to collect the necessary data for the study. Interviews were conducted with 25 construction professionals to obtain information on the causes of variation on building projects and solutions to design-error-induced variation on building construction projects. Thirty documents including valuation breakdowns and variation/change order documents were obtained by convenience sampling technique and used for the extraction of design errors leading to variations and their associated costs. The data was analysed with frequencies and percentages. The study found that poor working drawing and lack of coordination among design documents are the major causes of variation. Errors in design calculations and wrong descriptions in specifications are prominent design errors that led to variation. Design errors account for roughly 36% of the variation cost of building projects. Structural and architectural drawings contain the largest number of errors among design documents, but electrical and mechanical documents have the highest contribution to variation cost. The study concluded that variation costs could be minimized if government policies, aimed at ensuring proper contract documentation, were put in place, and construction professionals were limited to their core roles on construction projects. Rechecking of design documents prior to use, knowledge sharing, and use of computer programs were among the recommended solutions to design-error-induced variation in project documents. Keywords: Construction projects, cost of error, design documents, design error, variation cost, valuation documents
10 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose that proper design documents are crucial to the success of construction projects and that poor design documents can have a range of adverse effects on various construction project stakeholder.
Abstract: Properly prepared design documents are crucial to the success of construction projects. Poor design documents can have a range of adverse effects on various construction project stakeholder...
10 citations
Additional excerpts
...It is likely that the pattern observed by Dosumu, Idoro, and Onukwube (2017), where it was found that the factors being considered differed from region to region, could apply in the current context....
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References
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TL;DR: This paper demonstrates some of principles of system design principles through the analysis of one class of errors: slips of action, defined to be situations in which the user's intention was proper, but the results did not conform to that intention.
Abstract: By analyzing the classes of errors that people make with systems, it is possible to develop principles of system design that minimize both the occurrence of error and the effects. This paper demonstrates some of these principles through the analysis of one class of errors: slips of action. Slips are defined to be situations in which the user's intention was proper, but the results did not conform to that intention. Many properties of existing systems are conducive to slips; from the classification of these errors, some procedures to minimize the occurrence of slips are developed.
427 citations
"Causes of Errors in Construction Co..." refers background or result in this paper
...About eighty-seven (87) causes of errors were attributed to errors in contract documents, some of which include lack of consistency (Norman 1983), unreliable and incompetent staff and acceptance of low design fee (Love et al. 2011) among others....
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...About eighty-seven (87) causes of errors were attributed to errors in contract documents, some of which include lack of consistency (Norman 1983), unreliable and incompetent staff and acceptance of low design fee (Love et al....
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...The result is also consistent with the findings of Mohammed (2007) and Norman (1983)....
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...Some of the causes linked to errors in contract documents by various researchers in the construction industry include lack of consistency (Norman, 1983), reuse of notes and details of similar projects, wrong assumptions of standard practice, inexperience, lack of clarity and poor interface…...
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...industry include lack of consistency (Norman, 1983), reuse of notes and details of similar projects, wrong assumptions of standard practice, inexperience, lack of clarity and poor interface co-ordination, poor management practices, inadequate quality management, poor communication, absence of well-defined design leadership, unclear project leadership role and lack of design verifications (Palaneeswaran, et al....
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TL;DR: In this article, the nature of design errors is explained and the principal underlying causes identified with reference to the normative literature and the authors phenomenological research, and a systemic model for reducing design errors was presented and the enabling role of BIM discussed.
Abstract: An advocated panacea for reducing design errors and rework in construction and engineering projects is building information modeling (BIM) Yet, it would appear that advocates of BIM have overlooked why and how design errors occur In this article, the nature of error is explained and the principal underlying causes identified with reference to the normative literature and the authors phenomenological research A systemic model for reducing design errors is presented and the enabling role of BIM discussed
131 citations
"Causes of Errors in Construction Co..." refers background in this paper
...Poor project performance remains an unsolved problem in the construction industry, and its occurrence has continually led to the frustration of many clients (Love et al. 2011)....
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...About eighty-seven (87) causes of errors were attributed to errors in contract documents, some of which include lack of consistency (Norman 1983), unreliable and incompetent staff and acceptance of low design fee (Love et al. 2011) among others....
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...…design time allowances, constructability, quality of staff (Tilley, et al. 2005), unreliable and incompetent staff, acceptance of low design fee (Love et al. 2011), time boxing (Love et al. 2000), planning/programming, stress, repetitive tasks (Shelton, 1999), limited attention, biases,…...
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...However, re-use of notes and details of similar project, types of client and acceptance of low fees were highly rated as significant by Palaneeswaran et al. (2007), Tilley et al. (2005) and Love et al. (2011) but this result shows that they are not frequent causes of errors in contract documents....
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...2005), unreliable and incompetent staff, acceptance of low design fee (Love et al. 2011), time boxing (Love et al....
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01 Jan 1998
TL;DR: A review of the most frequent design defects found during the construction phase in four building projects allowed the researchers to design several tools to prevent the occurrence of these defects.
Abstract: In building projects customer requirements, constructive aspects and quality standards are defined during the design phase. However, this important phase is usually carried out with little interaction between the construction and design teams causing many problems during construction such us: incomplete designs, change orders, rework, construction delays, etc. This paper describes a performance study of the design-construction interface. This study comprised: interviews with experts, data collection from several projects and design and implementation of improvement tools. A review of the most frequent design defects found during the construction phase in four building projects allowed the researchers to design several tools to prevent the occurrence of these defects. QFD was used to identify the most effective tools and to set priorities for implementation. The proposed changes were implemented in a construction company participating in the study with significant impacts on performance. The implementation comprised new design and review procedures, standards for communication as well as explicit definition of internal customer requirements and design attributes. The implementation of these changes brought important reductions on design defects and their corresponding impacts in this company, some of these results are discussed in this paper.
92 citations
"Causes of Errors in Construction Co..." refers background in this paper
...…and designers, inconsistencies between drawings and specifications, designer with little construction knowledge, non-technical specifications (Alarcon & Mardones 1998), deficient procedures, poor communication between workers, inadequately trained workers, conflicting interest of workers,…...
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01 Jan 1999
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an analysis on the application of some lean construction principles to design management, considering the three different views of design (design as conversion, design as flow and design as value generation), proposed by Huovila et al.
Abstract: Several studies have pointed out the importance of the building design process in terms of improving the performance of the construction industry, and that it is a very difficult process to manage. It involves thousands of decisions, sometimes over a period of years, with numerous interdependencies, under a highly uncertain environment. As distinct from production, quality in the design process has to be achieved by a careful identification of customer needs and subsequent translation of those needs into specifications. The aim of this article is to present an analysis on the application of some lean construction principles to design management, considering the three different views of design (design as conversion, design as flow and design as value generation), proposed by Huovila et al. (1997). This discussion is based on empirical data collected in two case studies developed in Brazil. Each case study involved the development of a model for managing the design process for a small-sized house building company.
63 citations
"Causes of Errors in Construction Co..." refers background in this paper
...Tzortzopoulos and Formoso (1999) noted that the causes of errors in construction contract documents are poor communication, lack of adequate documentation, deficient or missing input information, unbalanced resource allocation, lack of coordination between disciplines, erratic decision making, lack…...
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TL;DR: In this paper, a research project was conducted to explore construction failure investigation techniques and processes to determine whether they were adequate and to develop failure investigation guidelines, which can be used for construction failure investigations.
Abstract: A research project was conducted to explore construction failure investigation techniques and processes to determine whether they were adequate and to develop failure investigation guidelines. Data was collected on failures and failure investigation techniques from surveying 115 members of the engineering and construction industry. Construction failure case studies were created using docu- mentation provided by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, state offices of safety and health, and forensic engineers. The construction failure case studies were analyzed to determine how these organizations conduct their investigations and to develop guidelines that can be used for construction failure investigations. This article provides: ~1! description of the methods used for the research; ~2! results obtained from the industry survey; ~3! summary of the results of an investigation into case studies on construction failures; ~4! analysis of the results; ~5! discussion on construction failure investigative techniques; ~6! guidelines developed during the research project for investigating and documenting failures; and ~7! recommended format for reporting the findings of failure investigations.
60 citations
"Causes of Errors in Construction Co..." refers background in this paper
...Yates and Lockley (2002) categorized the causes of errors into the design, construction, material, administrative and maintenance errors....
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