Identification and Prioritization of Decision-Making Aspects on High-Rise Fast-track Buildings – A Pilot Study

Abstract

For decades, the construction industry has been facing time overrun challenges on almost all mega projects. Rarely there are no schedule slippages. Schedule compression is an approach, applied to meet the tight project deadlines and overcome time overrun issues. Fast-track and crashing are the two techniques used for schedule compression. Worldwide, fast-track has been used on projects for more than 50 years, but Pakistan is yet to adapt it as a construction norm in a scientific way. This reluctance on behalf of the client, the contractor and the consultant is primarily due to the inherently uncertain and risky nature of fast-track projects which requires dynamic decision-making. Moreover, these dynamic decision-making aspects have never been identified and parameterized to develop a decision-making model which can lead to project success in relation to time, cost, and quality. The aim of this research is to identify and parameterize the decision-making aspects into a research questionnaire which can further be used to develop a comprehensive decision-making model for high-rise construction in Pakistan. After an extensive literature review, initially 41 fast-track decision-making aspects were identified which were reduced to 37 after consultation with research community. The refined questionnaire containing 37 decision-making aspects was used for pilot survey in Pakistan’s construction industry to check its validity. Based on the input from the respondents, 19 most important decision-making aspects were discussed. The questionnaire consisted of a 5-point Likert scale, used to study the impact of each identified decision-making aspect on time variance, cost variance, scope variance and quality variance. This questionnaire will act as a stepping-stone for further development of a 3C’s (client, contractor, and consultant) decision-making model for fast-track high-rise projects in Pakistan using structural equation modelling (SEM).