CAUSES OF INCOMPATIBILITY BETWEEN DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION IN BUILDING CONSTRUCTION

Abstract

Building construction projects are started with the ambition to transform the customer requirements into best serving products requiring minimum alterations or additions during the course of construction. However, requirements defined during the design phase change during construction phase (Alarcon et at. 1998). These changes cause incompatibilities between the design and construction phases. The most common changes or incompatibilities are made in the architectural details, structural details, materials and quality. The result of these changes is rework (Undurrage 1996), change orders, construction delays, cost over-runs, etc. Situations like these cause reduction in investment and potential growth of the building construction. Keeping in view the importance of the building construction and consequences of incompatibilities as explained above, it was decided to carry out a research in this field to study the causes of incompatibilities and their ranking in the building construction industry of Pakistan. This study included feedback in the form of questionnaire survey from two hundred and eighty one (281) respondents including clients, consultants and contractors connected with building construction constructed using the traditional procurement method. Though most of the respondents are currently working in the twin cities (Rawalpindi/Islamabad), however some of them are working in other parts of the country as well. In addition, many of them have past experience of working in other parts of the country.