An Exploration into Delay-Influencing Factors on Healthcare Construction Projects: The Case of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The construction project's delay is one of the biggest challenges that concern practitioners in the construction industry. The success or failure of construction projects is usually measured by the building team's achievement of the project's goals and objectives (ex., time and cost). The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), one of the largest construction industries in the MENA region, is experiencing significant delays in some construction industry projects for different reasons. The major causes of delays in project completion in the construction sector in the KSA and how sensitive it is to healthcare projects specifically differ from one project to another. Thus, there is an urgent need to identify construction project-specific causes of delay in the healthcare sector. The research is based on a quantitative approach using the systematic review methodology, where 100 delayed projects in Saudi Arabia were sampled from the healthcare sector, and the causes of delays were captured and recorded. Various factors contributed significantly to the projects' delays, such as change orders, high expenditure, and poor budgetary estimates. This study's results will help project managers reduce the risks of project delays by identifying the influencing factors and their local context, monitoring them, and finding the proper way to mitigate or element their impacts, if possible.