The Importance of New Technology for Delay Mitigation in Construction Projects

Abstract

Construction technology has a great potential to improve productivity and decrease project duration. Delay happens in many construction projects, although the priority of delay causes is different in various countries due to environmental effects. Delays can lead to considerable negative effects such as lawsuits between owners and contractors, loss of productivity and revenue, and contract termination. This paper presents key sources of construction projects delay in Iran, following a review of publications related to delay. In addition, the paper presents the relationship between new technology and time overrun in those projects. One of the main causes of delay in many projects is that they use an old generation of construction technologies; however, the role of technology adoption in delay is ignored. In order to collect first-hand data to explore the delay sources, experienced project managers of the residential and industrial projects were recruited. Experienced professionals from twenty six companies participated in this study. Seventy-three delay causes were identified in the sample projects, in which 25 factors were related to the new technology restriction. The result of the study assists policy makers and practitioners to understand the actual factors causing delay. The value of the study is that it investigates three main issues such as frequency of occurrence, degree of severity, and importance of each factor. Different than other studies, the paper focuses on technology attributes that may affect the project scheduling and time.