Quantifying and Modeling the Cumulative Impact of Changes Order for the Projects in Iraq

Abstract

This research investigates the change orders projects of hospital construction in Iraq, for several reasons. Because these types of projects have a relatively long duration, which leads to a change in some requirements or the emergence of new developments with the owner or gets a new technical development in this field, also these projects contain a large number of documents, specifications, plans, bill of quantities, and a large number of engineers with various specializations participate in preparing them, which makes the probability of change possible due to the large work and poor coordination between those specializations or the development of new government regulations. This current research is based on a database of eleven projects for hospitals. The researcher used combined methodology: the qualitative method represented by interviews of many construction professionals, and the quantitative method represented by questionnaire surveys and gathering data through a survey the documents of change orders for the projects. In this study, we adopted the analytical statistical approach by used F-tests and then used a one - way ANOVA analysis. The researcher managed to reach mathematical models that can predict the added cost of change requests that occur through the planning or implementation phase for the project, to avoid or minimize project changes. A series of statistical model selection criteria were applied to carefully identify the best models, for ease of use of search results and to obtain a tool that can be used by the parties to the project.