Micro-level Evaluation of Wastage Factors in Construction Industry of Pakistan and its Overall Impact

Abstract

Despite the fact that construction industry is a main contributor in development of a country, it imposes negative impacts on economy and environment. As we know, wastes in construction industry have always been causing significant problems like cost overruns, time delays, and quality compromises, especially in developing countries like Pakistan. A lot of work has been done internationally on determining different causes of waste, its contribution to waste generation and evaluating percentages of waste of different materials. However, there is a lack in research on the contribution of construction waste on the micro level in Pakistan. This research therefore focuses on analyzing the most vital and frequent causes contributing to the various construction wastes in Pakistan and its overall impact on cost, time, quality and material of the project. Almost 120 questionnaires of well-designed structured questionnaires were distributed in two phases among architects, civil engineers, contractors, and quantity surveyors etc. All the factors contributing to non-value adding activities were identified by going through the literature and personal observation made by visiting ongoing projects. The top ten factors were finalized after the first phase by calculating the Relative Importance Index (RII) of each factor. Furthermore, construction professionals were asked to provide contribution of these factors affecting cost, time, quality and material based on their experience and knowledge in the construction field. In the second phase the subject matter experts were asked to score their judgments about these ten factors generating waste in construction projects in Pakistan for its overall quantification and validation. Finally, the data collected were statistically analyzed and processed. Moreover, interviews of construction professionals were conducted. Based upon their recommendations, mitigating measures to minimize waste in construction projects in Pakistan were added in this report. The top three factors as extracted from the data collected from the construction professionals and validated by the data collected from other subject matter experts shows that the top three factors contributing to the construction wastes in Pakistan are lack of training and awareness to workers, lack of waste reduction/poor management plan and inventory issues respectively.