Key Causes of Variation Orders in Public Construction Projects in South-South Zone of Nigeria: An Explanatory Factor Analysis

Emmanuel O Adu ,Bassey Okon Samuel ,Adeniran Lashinde

doi:10.7176/cer/12-1-06

Abstract

This study investigates the key causes of variation order in public construction projects in the South-South Zone of Nigeria. Primary data obtained from 338 validated questionnaires, administered to stakeholders in the built environment are analysed using mean score and Factor Analysis. The findings reveal that change of plans or scope of work, client`s financial difficulties, inadequate working drawings, inadequate project objectives, errors and omissions in design are the key dominant causes of variation orders in public construction projects. Seven components, which include: client-related, contractor/construction-related, consultant-related, organisational-related, resource-related, environmental-related, and innovation-related, were extracted through factor analysis indicating principal actors and origin of variation orders. It is recommended that stakeholders should give adequate priority not only to the dominant causes of variation orders at planning and implementation stages but also to the principal actors and sources of the causes in order to strategically address the situation and minimize impact of its occurrence. Keywords: Classification, Construction project, Principal actors, South-South zone, Variation order. DOI : 10.7176/CER/12-1-06 Publication date: January 31 st 2020

Highlights

Construction projects are dynamic in nature
Construction project can hardly commence from inception to completion without experiencing a change which may end up as a variation order
Ijaola & Iyagba (2012) argue that the complex nature of construction process is a reason for changes which may lead to a variation order

Summary

Introduction

Changes are consistently inevitable in the project lifecycle especially at the production stage. This is as a result of clarity of project plans and certainty of assumptions and design variables adopted early at the planning stage which become more obvious to the design team during construction. Alsuliman et al (2012) supporting this assertion, submit that the nature of the industry itself is complicated and uncertain due to the unique features and conditions of each project, with a large number of interdependent and sequential tasks. This variability in construction terms is generally referred to as variation orders (Halwatura & Ranasinghe 2013)

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Results

Conclusion