Causes of delays in construction industry and comparative delay analysis techniques with SCL protocol

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to reveal the main causes of delays in the projects are from the client (relative importance index (RII)1⁄4 0.716), labor and equipment (RII1⁄4 0.701) and contractor (RII1⁄4 0.698). Hence determining the contractual responsibility of delay is the most likely source of dispute in construction projects and many techniques have been used in the courts to demonstrate the criticalities of a delay event on the project schedule. Therefore, authors try to investigate all process-based techniques of delay claims and evaluated and conformed them with principles by Society of Construction Law (SCL) protocol and Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering International (AACEI) in order to choose the best techniques based on the specific circumstances of each project. Design/methodology/approach – This section is divided into two distinct parts: refers to the methods used to assess the perceptions of clients, consultants, and contractors on the relative importance of causes of delay in construction industry; and refers to advantages and disadvantages of various techniques used to analyze delays and their conform with SCL protocol. A questionnaire was developed to assess the perceptions of clients, consultants, and contractors on the relative importance of causes of delay in Iranian construction industry. The respondents were asked to indicate their response category on 78 well-recognized construction delay factors identified by authors. Findings – In total, 78 causes of delay were identified through research. The identified causes are combined into seven groups. The field survey included 58 contractors, 55 consultants, and 62 client. Data collected were analyzed by RII and Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The authors identified main causes of delay and ten most important causes, according to Table AII, from the perspective of three major groups of participants (clients, consultants and contractors). The ranking of categories of causes of delay, according to Table I, were: client-related causes (RII1⁄4 0.716); labor and equipment category causes (RII1⁄4 0.701); contractor-related causes (RII1⁄4 0.698); material-related causes (RII1⁄4 0.690); design-related causes (RII1⁄4 0.666); external causes (RII1⁄4 0.662); and consultant-related causes (RII1⁄4 0.662). But according to the discussions and given that determining the contractual responsibility of delay is the most likely source of dispute in construction industry and many techniques have been used in the courts to demonstrate the criticalities of a delay event on the project schedule. Originality/value – All process-based techniques of delay analysis have been present in this paper and categorized in 11 groups. In order to understand the advantages and disadvantages of them by clients, contractor and consultant, a thorough review conducted to reveal the nature of techniques. In the next step, given that selecting the most appropriate technique based on constraints and specific conditions of each


Introduction
In construction, delay could be defined as the time overrun either beyond completion date specified in a contract or beyond the date that the parties agreed upon for delivery of a project.To the owner, delay means loss of revenue through lack of production facilities and rentable space or a dependence on present facilities.In some cases, to the contractor, delay means higher overhead costs because of longer work period, higher material costs through inflation, and due to labor cost increases.
Therefore, completing projects on time is an indicator of efficiency, but the construction process is subject to many variables and unpredictable factors, which result from many sources and it is necessary that a detailed assessment be conducted and calculates the loss resulted from delays on both parties in the projects with time required for the extension of projects time if the project is delayed.
A lot of research efforts have been made to study delay causes in different countries.For example, Odeh and Battaineh (2002), Vilventhan and Kalidindi (2016) showed that owner interference, inadequate contractor experience, financing and payments, labor productivity, slow decision making, improper planning, and sub-contractors are among ten top most important factors causing delay in Jordan; Maura et al. (2007) discovered that design errors, client liability, project specification and direct change order by the client are the major factors that cause the time and cost overrun in Portuguese; Abdul-Rahman et al. (2006) conducted a study on delay mitigation in the Malaysian construction industry; they proved that a financial problem is confirmed by the survey as the main causes of delay.
Hence, one of the most important problems in the construction industry is delay and it is essential to define the actual causes of delay in any construction project.So choosing an appropriate delay analysis method is an important part of construction industry.The famous process-based methods include the global impact, net impact, adjusted as-built CPM, as-planned expanded, but-for, snapshot, time impact, windows and isolated delay type techniques (Yang et al., 2006;Yang and Kao, 2007).These techniques are applied to prepare the logical basis to persuade their claims concerning the extension of time and financial burden but each delay analysis method adopts a different approach to identify delay impacts and may yield different results.
But in Iran, there is not a comprehensive and practical package for delays analysis techniques to determine which one is appropriate in accordance with the feature of the project.So the authors examine all delay analysis techniques that are frequently used in the construction project in Iran in order to determine which delay analysis techniques is appropriate for each construction project.
In this paper the main causes of delays in Iranian construction projects have been determined and the aim of this study is to operate a method based on which one could select the delay analysis techniques appropriate to the nature of the projects that what is needed to implement this method is to analyze the Society of Construction Law (SCL) protocols and analytical delay techniques and then to implement standards of protocol with delay analysis techniques.

Studies on causes of delay
Delay in construction is a global phenomenon affecting not only the construction industry but the overall economy of countries as well (Sambasvian and Soon, 2007;Parchamijalal and Shahsavand, 2016).Delays in construction are caused by several factors.Ahmed et al. (2003) grouped delays into two categoriesinternal causes and external causes.Internal causes arise from the parties to the contract (e.g.contractor, client, and consultant).External causes, on the other hand, arise from events beyond the control of the parties.These include the act of God, government action, and material suppliers.Sweis et al. (2008) studied the causes of delay in residential projects in Jordan and concluded that financial difficulties faced by the contractor and too many change orders by the owner are the leading causes of construction delay.Abd El-Razek et al. (2008) in a similar study in Egypt found that the most important causes of delay are financed by contractor during construction, delays in contractor's payment by owner, design changes by owner or his agent during construction, partial payments during construction, and non-utilization of professional construction/contractual management.Sambasvian and Soon (2007) identified the delay factors and their impact on project completion in the Malaysian construction industry.The results indicated that the ten from a list of 28 different causes of delay were: contractor's improper planning; contractor's poor site management; inadequate contractor experience; client's inadequate financial resources and payments for completed work; problems with subcontractors; shortage in material; labor supply; equipment availability and failure; lack of communication between parties; and mistakes during the construction stage.Assaf and Al Hejji (2006) conducted a survey on time performance of large construction projects in Saudi Arabia.The survey had 73 different causes of delay.He studied the importance of various causes from the viewpoint of contractors, consultants, and owners.The most common cause of delay identified by all the parties was "change order."He also found that about 70 percent of the projects experienced time overruns.
The previously mentioned studies were generally focused on finding causes of delays.Some of these studies identified very limited (lacking) factors or ignored some important groups.This may be misleading or may result in wrong analysis.In this paper, through a comprehensive literature review and interviews with highly experienced construction professionals, the authors attempted to use the relative importance index (RII) method in the quantification of the relative importance of a comprehensive list of delay factors in construction projects in Iran.

Studies on delay analysis techniques
Project managers and schedule (timing) analysts do often face with the problem of how to analyze the complicated delays and resolve the claims resulted from it.In addition, in most of the contracts of construction, it is not specified which method would be used to evaluate and analyze delays.On the other hand, the contractor and client have different views against analysis and determination of responsibility for delay.As a result, calculating delays and determination of responsibilities of each of the party is an important issue.Therefore, project managers must have a systematic approach for analyzing delays and allocation of responsibilities.Since there are different methods to analyze delays such as: pervasive influence technique, Bar chart or Gant chart technique, collapse technique or (but because), critical path method, time impact technique, global impact technique, net impact technique, impacted as-planned technique, collapsed as-built technique, sectional technique or snapshot technique, isolated delay type technique.So choosing an appropriate delay analysis technique for calculation of the effects of delay on project is a critical decision that is discussed in this paper (Hoshino and Livengood, 2011).

Causes of delays in construction industry
SCL has identified some factors that should be considered in choosing the method of delay analysis that includes the conditions related to the contracts, nature of causal events, value of claims, time in hand, recorded information, information of the existing time plan and planner's experience on the project (Braimah, 2013;Yangand Kao, 2012).SCL protocol is intended to act as an aid to the interpretation of the delay and disruption provisions contained in standard of civil engineering and building contracts and to act as a guide to the manner in which the managers ought to properly prepare delay and disruption claims and how adjudicators, arbitrators and judges ought to properly determine them.The protocol does not fully reflect the provisions concerning delay and disruption contained in certain standard forms and is not intended to have contractual status, it is believed that it is at least a useful guidance document.Arditi and Pattanakitchamroon (2006) discussed selecting a suitable delay analysis method and concluded that the most appropriate analysis method depends on information available, time of analysis and capabilities of the method, as well as time, funds and effort allocated to the analysis.Bubshait and Cunningham (1998) proposed an approach for selecting one suitable method among the as-planned method, the as-built method, and the modified as-built method.Their approach consists of four scenarios, each comprising various approved schedules (network or bar chart) with different evidence and progress reports.They concluded that method selection depends on the time and resources available, and on the accessibility of project control documentation.Mohan and Al-Gahtani (2006) discussed ten delay analysis techniques in analysis flow and compared them in resolving the issues of real time delay, concurrent delay and pacing delay.Based on study results, Mohan and Al-Gahtani proposed a desirable delay analysis system consisting of 11 requirements, such as the requirement for the project schedule to be updated every day, taking account of all delays and changes in total floats.

Methodology
This section is divided into two distinct parts: refers to the methods used to assess the perceptions of clients, consultants, and contractors on the relative importance of causes of delay in construction industry; and refers to the nature of process-based techniques used to analyze delays and their conformity with SCL protocol.

Experts' perception of causes of delay
A questionnaire was developed to assess the perceptions of those in the Iranian construction industry on the relative importance of causes of delays.Then the questionnaire was filled out by highly experienced construction professionals including project managers, site managers, technical office managers, technical office engineers, procurement managers, and technical consultants.The collected data were analyzed through the RII method.RII or weight is a type of relative importance analyses.RII was used for the analysis because it best fits the purpose of this study.The analysis included ranking the different causes according to the relative importance indices.The analysis revealed the factors and groups that contribute most to delays.
The respondents were asked to indicate their response category on 78 well-recognized Construction delay factors identified by authors.These causes were categorized into the following seven major groups.Client-related causes (with 19 factors); contractor-related causes (with 13 factors); consultant-related causes (with 9 factors); design-related causes (with 8 factors); material-related causes (with 8 factors); labor and equipment category causes (with 8 factors); and external causes (with 13 factors).A five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (very low) to 5 (very high) was adopted to capture the importance of causes of delays.Before distributing the questionnaires, a small interview with industry professionals was conducted that includes a 15 clients, 15 consultants and 15contractors.The basic purpose of this 500 ECAM 25,4 interview was to verify the completeness of the questionnaire in capturing the factors relevant for Iran.All the respondents agreed that the questionnaire was sufficient to capture the causes of delays.We distributed the questionnaires through our co-workers in Public Works Department of Iran, developers, consultants and construction firms.Our co-workers in turn distributed to their friends.This sampling method enabled us to obtain a large number of completed questionnaires quickly and economically.In total, 250 sets of questionnaires were distributed to the potential respondents at all levels in the organizations within the construction industry.In all, 100 sets were distributed to clients, 70 sets to consultants and 80 sets to the contractors.Of the 250 questionnaires, 175 sets (70 percent) were returned and there were 62 sets (62 percent) from clients, 55 sets (79 percent) from consultants and 58 sets (73 percent) from contractors.
The nature of process-based techniques All process-based techniques of delay analysis have been present in this paper and categorized in 11 groups.In order to understand the pros and cons of them, a thorough review conducted with the participation of clients, contractor and consultant to reveal the nature of these techniques.The results of this review on techniques have been obtained based on several years' experiences of the client, consultant and contractor and studies that have been done by authors .In the next step, the most appropriate technique has been selected based on constraints and specific conditions of each project, which is one of the most important steps to carry out a successful delay analysis.The authors conformed, all process-based techniques of delay analysis, by SCL protocol and Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering International (AACEI) principles.The SCL protocol recommends that wherever possible, an appropriate method should be agreed and adopted by the parties before retrospective delay analysis is carried out.The protocol gives guidance on the appropriateness, or otherwise of different types of retrospective delay analysis to different evidential situations.The protocol suggests that if the method is not agreed between the parties, then this failure to agreement should be taken into consideration by the arbitrator, or judge when awarding the costs of the dispute.Finally, the result of this match was brought in order to choose the best technique based on the specific circumstances of each project.Kometa et al. (1994) and Sambasvian and Soon (2007) used the RII method to determine the relative importance of the various causes of delays.The same method was adopted in this study.RIIs are calculated for each factor as in the following equation:

Data analysis
where RII is the relative importance index; W the weighing given to each factor by respondents (ranging from 1 to 5); A the highest weight (i.e. 5 in this case); and N the total number of respondents.The RII value had a range of 0 to 1 (0 not inclusive); the higher the RII, the more important was the cause of delays.The causes were ranked based on RII values.From the ranking assigned to each cause of delays, we were able to identify the most important factors or causes of delays in Iranian construction industry.For more information about the list of causes of delays categorized into seven groups refer to Table AI.
In Table AII, the main causes of delays in each category specified and have been ranked based on RII.For more information on the way of ranking and 78 causes of delays from experts' views refer to Table AII (Table I).

Causes of delays in construction industry
Table II, summarizes RII and ranking of the categories of causes of delay as perceived by all respondents.

Analysis of variance (ANOVA)
ANOVA is used to get the average scores obtained by construction industry experts given to each of the causes of delay (i.e.RII) and every seven fold causes has been rated using these scores and the rate of their being under the effect on the projects has been prioritized.According to Levene's test, the significance of this test is more than 0.05 and parametric tests such as ANOVA can be used.ANOVA is a collection of statistical models used to analyze the differences among group means.In the ANOVA setting, the observed variance in a particular variable is partitioned into components attributable to different sources of variation.Factorial ANOVA can be balanced or unbalanced (Gelman, 2005;Armstrong et al., 2002).This is to say, you can have the same number of subjects in each group (balanced) or not (unbalanced).The results shown in Table III indicate that the data were balance and there is no significant difference among respondents' data, at the community.

Pearson's correlation
Data normality test (one sample K-S test) clarifies that the calculated p-value is greater than the significant level which is equal to 0.05 ( p-value W 0.05).This in turn denotes that data follows normal distribution and we can use Pearson's correlation test.
In order to test the degree of agreement between the three groups of respondents, a correlation analysis was done using Pearson's correlation coefficient.Table IV

Causes of delays in construction industry
So based on the perceptions of clients, consultants, and contractors on the relative importance of causes of delay in Iranian construction industry and data analysis using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), we found that clients (with 19 subcategories and RII ¼ 0.716); labor and equipment (with 8 subcategories and RII ¼ 0.701) and contractors (with 13 subcategories and RII ¼ 0.698), respectively, have the highest impact in construction industry.
In this paper, at first all the delays have been identified and ranked and validated from client, contractors and consultants, viewpoint three factors of ten causes that lead to delays and are of main causes have been identified in Table AI.Then, in Table II, based on the opinions of clients, contractors, consultants and all the three, the index of relative importance and ranking have been ranked in seven categories in which delays had been examined.In the following, in order to lower or remove those after interviewing with experts, 40 alternative have been extracted and presented in Table AIII that performing this task could prevent delays emergence in next projects.
Given that delays are an integral part of construction industry.Therefore, the authors in second part of this paper discussed the pros and cons of all process-based techniques of delay claims and compared the versatility of each of them with SCL protocol.
In Table V, all the strengths and weaknesses of delay analysis techniques are studied in detail, and it should be noted that none of these methods are not preferred over one another and according to the conditions of project and available documentation; one of this methods can be used in the project.Therefore, among them and with regard to the specific and better features that some of these techniques have than others, in terms of complexity, they can be separated into two levels, namely: (1) The first level that is shown in Table V (Items 4, 6 and 7), represents a simple method that a major problem in view of the simplification in these techniques is that they do not have a mechanism for exact determination of the types of delays, as a result, those delays that should not be applied in the analysis, are considered and therefore unrealistic and exaggerated results are obtained.In addition, these techniques consider the timing schedule only once (primary schedule) and assume that the critical path is fixed for the entire project.This makes the delays in contrast to what has really happened, potentially be considered as critical and also global impact technique, against two other techniques, has another weakness that has not the ability to consider the delays at the same time.
(2) The second level shows the detailed procedure, which includes the techniques that have been identified with number 2, 5, 8, 9, 10 and 11, in Table V.These techniques offer convenient and reliable methods for analyzing delays.At the same time enhancing and mitigation methods with analysis, define the type of delay.
Increasing and decreasing methods while doing the analysis, identify the type of delay, too.Of course, the main problem is that these two techniques are applied only once to the scheduled timing and thus no change in the critical paths during the project implementation is accepted and also, simultaneous delays are not considered, of all the methods, both time impact technique and snapshot technique, because of considering the impact of delays during project and CPM scheduling, are known as systematic and reliable methods for quantifying delays in construction projects.
The biggest problem with these techniques is that during the analysis none of them identify the delay type accurately and a series of other analyses to determine the contribution of the employer and the contractor of the delay is necessary.Another disadvantage of time impact technique is that the delay activities has been analyzed and examined separately and the impact of simultaneous delays is not specified during the analysis and due to a number of delayed events in the project,

507
Causes of delays in construction industry the analysis may be very time consuming.Accuracy of both time impact technique and snapshot technique is a function of the number of intervals between analyses that occur during the project from beginning to end.Isolated delay type technique relying on the strengths of previous techniques, provide a practical method for analyzing delays.The mentioned technique showed that in the case of reliable information and reports available in the project, it is superior to the other techniques.Isolated delay type techniques study the delays during the analysis process and therefore it reduces time needed for delay analysis and so the expense is decreased.This technique considers the simultaneous delays in various activities.
The SCL protocol has been prepared by the SCL for determining extensions of time and compensation for delay and disruption.It exists to provide guidance to all parties in the construction process when dealing with delay and disruption matters.It recognizes that transparency of information and methodology is central to both dispute prevention and dispute resolution.
The object of the protocol is to provide useful guidance on some of the common delays and disruption issues that arise in construction projects.The purpose of the protocol is to provide a means by which the parties can resolve these matters and avoid unnecessary disputes.A focus of the protocol therefore is the provision of practical and principled guidance on proportionate measures for dealing with delay and disruption issues that can be applied in relation to all projects, regardless of complexity or scale, to avoid disputes and where disputes are unavoidable to limit the costs of those disputes.Users of the protocol should apply its recommendations with common sense.The protocol is intended to be a balanced document reflecting equally the interests of all parties to the construction process.
Given that the delays occur in every construction project and the significance of these delays varies considerably from project to project, hence identifying the type of delay analysis techniques and selecting the most appropriate technique based on constraints and specific conditions of each project is one of the most important steps to carry out a successful delay analysis.But unfortunately in Iran, because of the lack of accurate knowledge on a variety of techniques all parties cannot use the most suitable delay analysis techniques for each project and this leads to create a lot of disputes and claims in projects.Hence the delay analysis techniques for further investigation are evaluated and conformed with principles which have been released in Table VI by SCL and (AACEI.Finally, the result of this match, the rate of using each of these techniques in various stages of construction projects, the plausibility of each of these techniques in court, the level of expertise needed to experts analyst delays and the amount of time required for the analysis depends, the use of each of these techniques in large and complex projects, that regarding the mentioned items, each technique could be selected with respect to the kind of project regarding the feature it has.The information needed to be analyzed the delay, etc. have been shown in By examinations carried out and interviews with the experts, the Iranian project have been divided into three groups from magnitude perspective and into 6 categories from delay rates perspective that regarding their features and the results obtained from complete comparison of the methods of delays analysis (Tables V and VII) a proper method to examine delay in six above classes are suggested as the following table.

Conclusion
(1) Construction projects often suffer from delays due to a wide variety of reasons, which can have severe financial impact on the project.As a result, delay claims may be filed.But delays can be avoided or minimized when their causes are clearly identified.However, in case of delays the analysis of its impact, the causes, and effects of the delaying activities is one of the most complicated types of claims analysis.The aim of this paper is to identify the delay factors in construction projects and introduction type of delay analysis techniques for applying more reliable and precise techniques in order to reduce the frequency and to mitigate the severity of disputes and litigation due to delay claims because delays are considered to be a serious problem in the construction industry.
Hence through a detailed literature review and interviews with experts from the Iranian construction industry, a total of 78 different delay factors were identified and categorized into seven groups the field survey included 58 contractors, 55 consultants and 62 clients.Data collected were analyzed by RII and SPSS.We identified main causes of delay and ten most important causes, according to Table AI.
(2) According to the discussions and given that determining the contractual responsibility of delay is the most likely source of dispute in construction industry and many techniques have been used in the courts to demonstrate the criticalities of a delay event on the project schedule, the authors discussed the pros and cons of all process-based techniques of delay claims and compared the versatility of each of them with SCL protocol in order to choose the best techniques based on the specific circumstances of each project.
(3) The Iranian projects have been classified from magnitude perspective into three categories and from the perspective of emergence of delays; they have divided into six groups.Several methods of analyzing delays have been compared from different dimension (Tables V-VII).So regarding the features of projects one could select the most suitable methods kind based on Table VIII.For example, for those mega projects with many delays, i.e. 6th class, the methods of analysis of delays has been selected as the most suitable method.
In this paper, by providing all the causes of delays in Iranian construction projects, all parties can be familiar with the variety of delays and implementation of solutions which are presented in Table AIII in appendixes, they can decrease the causes of delays in projects.But delay cannot be controlled from time to time and occurs in every construction project and the significance of this delay varies considerably from project to project.Unfortunately in Iran, there is not a comprehensive and practical package for delays analysis techniques to determine which technique is appropriate for each project.So the implications of this paper could be used as a complete package, in order to select the appropriate delays analysis techniques according to the circumstances of each project.Hence, by the use of SCL protocol guidance and according to the circumstances of each project the authors show on which basis choose the best delay analysis technique to reduce the confusion and disputes arising from the delays in construction projects.
gives the results of this analysis.Based on this test, view point of clients and contractors are not the same as consultants and have different opinions from each other.On the other hand, view point of Clients and the contractor were nearly identical to rank of delay factors.

Table V .
(Clark, 2006;Alkass et al., 1996)It uses CPM format and so the result is the difference between the time completion of the construction and modified schedule This technique is applicable at the end of the project, when there is no other possibility for delay compensation 1.This is the best method when the delay analysis needs to be revised 2. This technique is very good for projects that are linear in nature and structure and the events are considered in As built schedule instead of planned schedule 3. Simplicity of comparison is the advantage

Table VI .
Accurate and realistic estimation of the time of the Project and the resources on hand (to decrease the causes of No. 2, 3, 5 in TableAI) 2. Sufficient studies before investment and evaluation of the project before start of it (to decrease the causes of No. in TableAI) 3. Lack of using poor executive principles due to hold low cost tenders (to decrease the causes ofNo.14, 15, 17, 18, 19in Table AI) 4. Removing conflict and lack of delay (to decrease the causes of No. 4 in Table AI) 5. Making correct decisions and in time (to decrease the causes of No. 4, 5, 7, 10, 12, 18 in Table AI) 6.Not to change and excessive involve in initial assumptions and scope of the project (to decrease the causes of No. 1, 9 in Table AI) 7. Reduce dispute among executive subordinates (to decrease the causes of No. 13, 14, 15, 17 in Table AI) 8. Predict alternative financing in the case of deficiency (to decrease the causes of No. 3, 16, 19 in Table AI) 2. Labor and equipment category causes 9. Holding educational periods and safety justification in the workshop (to decrease the causes of No. 59, 63, 64 in Table AI) 10.The presence of incentive systems in the labor force 11.Allocation of skilled manpower and increase productivity (to decrease the causes of No. 58, 59, 60, 64 in Table AI) 12. Supply of new equipment and machinery (to decrease the causes of No. 62, 65 in Table AI) 13.Use of modern methods in the repair and maintenance of equipment during breakdowns and accidents (to decrease the causes of No. 65 in Table AI) 14. Considering standards in installation (to decrease the causes of No. 65 in Table AI) 15.Operating technology in mechanical devices and increasing the speed and efficiency and reduce errors (to decrease the causes of No. 61, 62, 63 in Table AI) 3. Contractor-related causes 16.Selection of sub-contractors based on competence rather than on low prices (to decrease the causes of No. 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27 in Table AI) 17. Considering safety points and HSE in Project (to decrease the causes of No. 21, 22, 24, 32 in Table AI) 18. Non-weak contractors in developing executive alternative of coping with sever territories (to decrease the causes of No. 22, 26 in Table AI) 19.The technical study and design schedule and planning by the contractor during the tender stage (to decrease the causes of No. 23, 24, 27, 29 in Table AI) 20.Provide timely statements (to decrease the causes of No. 29, 31 in Table AI) 21.Sub-contractors following of schedule (to decrease the causes of No. 21, 29 in Table AI) 4. Material-related causes 22. Timely selection in approval of resources of the materials and buying them (to decrease the causes of No. 52, 55, 56, 57 in Table AI) 23.Anticipation of the shortage of materials in the market and considering the solutions before the crisis and rising prices (to decrease the causes of No. 50, 55, 57 in Table AI) 24.Requesting a guideline formulated about the condition of maintaining the facilities and materials from manufacturers and suppliers (to decrease the causes of No. 51, 53, 54 in Table AI) 25.Prevention of crime and abuse of resources and materials while transit in workshop environment

Table AIII .
Corresponding authorParvaneh Shahsavand can be contacted at: parvaneh_shahsavand@yahoo.comNo.CategoryAlternative of decrease and remove of delays 5. Design-related causes 26.Use of advanced software engineering and design (to decrease the causes ofNo.42,44,46, 47, 49 inTable AI) 27.Provide timely execution plans to contractor (to decrease the causes of No. 45, 43 in Table AI) 6. External causes 28.No deficiency would be in the formulating contracts (to decrease the causes of No. 67, 70 in Table AI) 29.Considering referee of resolving discrepancy among workforces (to decrease the causes of No. 67, 70 in Table AI) 30.Financial limitation faced due to lack of allocation budget by government in the projects (to decrease the causes of no.76 in Table AI) 31.Anticipation of international situation and prolong the negotiations with builders and track orders (to decrease the causes of No. 78 in Table AI) 32.Anticipation of prolonging orders because of office bureaucracy (to decrease the causes of No. 67 in Table AI) 33.Study and anticipation of regional bad weather conditions (to decrease the causes of No. 69 in Table AI) 34.Study on inflation and market fluctuations and presenting alternatives (to decrease the causes of No. 76 in Table AI) 35.Exchange rate forecasting because of the political regional climate and gold and oil price impact on it (to decrease the causes of No. 76, 78 in Table AI) 36.Considering the conditions of societies and their cultures and preventing regional and labor strikes (to decrease the causes of No. 68, 78 in Table AI) 37. Paying attention to allocating credits in 2nd half of the year by the government on public projects (to decrease the causes of No. 76 in Table AI) 7. Consultant-related causes 38.Accuracy in early studies and examining the feasibility of projects economic justification (to decrease the causes of No. 36, 41 in Table AI) 39.Timely providing design drawings and personating documents needed for next decision makings (to decrease the causes of No. 33, 34, 35, 38, 40 in Table AI) 40.High accuracy in evaluation and estimation of the volumes and work sums (to decrease the causes of No. 39, 40, 41 in Table AI)For instructions on how to order reprints of this article, please visit our website: www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/licensing/reprints.htm Or contact us for further details: permissions@emeraldinsight.com