IDENTIFICATION OF PHASE-BASED KEY PERFORMANCE FACTORS AND THEIR BEST PRACTICES IN CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

Abstract

Delay and cost overrun in construction projects are two widespread problems arousing practitioners’ and scholars’ concerns as poor time and cost performance lead construction projects to failure. It is estimated that more than half of the construction industry’s projects encounter significant cost overruns and major delays, resulting in the industry having a tarnished reputation. Despite the attempts of numerous researchers to identify key performance factors, their results have been inconsistent. Most of the literature has focused solely on the construction phase budget and time overruns; the engineering/design and procurement phase costs and schedule performances have been rarely studied. Therefore, the objective of this study is to primarily identify the Key Performance Factors (KPF) in Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) phases and calculate the weight impact associated with each of the identified KPFs. The second aim of this research is to find the most appropriate Best Practices (BPs) for the top-ranked phase-based KPFs. In this regard, a comprehensive review of existing literature was performed. The results of the literature review were utilized to develop a detailed survey collecting comprehensive data of the recent completed construction projects. In the meantime, various statistical analysis methods including two sample T-test and Kruskal-Wallis test were utilized to analyze the collected data. Then, Epsilon-Squared effect size method was applied to prioritize the identified KPFs. The outcomes of this study address the potential confusion of the industry’s practitioners related to the inconsistent list of potential KPFs and their best practices, and pave the way for the construction research community to conduct future performance-related studies.