Development of a Fuzzy Synthetic Evaluation Based Construction Project Contract Documents Adequacy Assessment Model

Abstract

The Mistakes or error in construction projects’ documents that could affect project duration and cost are called construction documents deficiencies. i.e. errors in documents of drawing, specification, quantity etc. Construction documents deficiencies are studied in USA, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Australia, Sri Lanka etc. in buildings construction projects. however not much has been done in Pakistan. Moreover, limited attention is given to the construction documents deficiencies (usually unreported construction documents deficiencies during bidding phase) in Pakistani construction industry. Recent publications pointed out the fact that the construction documents deficiency of buildings construction projects is common which effect cost & schedule of the projects. Therefore, it is in need of attention. The objective of the study was to development of a fuzzy synthetic evaluation-based construction project contract documents adequacy assessment model. For this reason, the study examined the impact construction document deficiencies on building construction projects’ cost & schedule and ranked of types of deficiencies/errors exist in construction of buildings documents. Data was collected through two questionnaires surveys; one questionnaire was for contractors and another one was for owners or consultants to the owners. Graphical & tabular representation was used in this study for the analysis of data while fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE) technique was used to rank deficiencies in building construction projects. This research work was inspired from the work of Pesek, (2017). The main difference between our studies is that Pesek (2017) developed contractor document review assessment (CDRA), while I developed fuzzy synthetic evaluation-based model to solve the identified problem. Respondents of the contractor’s survey reported that 26.05% of the time they found deficiencies in documents through bidding phase but they always disclose deficiencies in construction document to owners of the projects in bidding phase 5.26% of the time. Contrary to the contractors’ information, owner survey respondents averred that they learned deficiencies in construction documents through bidding phases is only 13.08% of the time. Likewise, the contractor surveys’ respondents stated that they recognize deficiencies in construction documents 50.79% of the time during construction phase. Whereas, respondents of project survey stated that in construction phase they learn 62.95% of the time. These two collections of responses have variance of 12.16%. Almost the variance of reporting of these two phases is matching. So, this is somehow pulling attention that contractors are keeping back some of important deficiencies in contract documents during bidding phase. This decision is supported by the result that 55.26% (n=21) of contractors never or rarely reports deficiencies to the owner of the project during bidding phase. Over two third (65.79%) of the respondents of contractor survey declared that most money-making time to disclose mistakes in contract documents to owner of project is after the award of contract. Contrary to the contractors, 94.87% of the project owner respondents said that knowing deficiencies in documents during bidding phase results in grooviest value of project. The top three errors discovered through fuzzy synthetic evaluation technique by analyzing only data of consultants are; inadequate coordination among various drawings, dimensional errors in drawings and items written in drawings but missing from specification or vice versa. The top three errors by examining owners’ data are; inadequate coordination among various drawings, dimensional errors in drawings and items written in drawings but missing from specification or vice versa. The top three errors by analyzing only contractors’ data are; inadequate coordination among various drawings, imprecise quantities of items and omission & ambiguities in quantities. The top five types of errors discovered through fuzzy synthetic evaluation technique by analyzing whole data of consultants, project owners and contractors are insufficient coordination among various drawings, dimensional errors in drawings, imprecise quantities of items, items written in drawings but missing from specification or vice versa and design errors. By analyzing the individual as well as whole data of consultants, project owners and contractors. Among six groups of types of errors “drawings” was ranked to the top of the list while second and third one is bill of quantities & specifications. The overall magnitude value of occurrence obtained is “3.506”. On Likert scale the number “3.506” exists between undecided and agree. Therefore, this is clearly realizing that deficiencies in contract document of building construction project does exists and it does impact the project cost and schedule.