Delays of construction projects in Makkah from the point of view of the consultant

The study investigates the causes of delays in construction projects in the Makkah region of Saudi Arabia. The objective is to determine the most significant factors from the consultant designer and supervisor’s perspectives. This study is part of a series designed to explore the causes of delays from the perspective of different stakeholders in the construction industry. A comprehensive survey of 69 questions has explored various possible delay factors. All factors are grouped into eight categories based on their relevance and orientation. The factors were recorded and ranked by their relative importance index concerning their impact and frequency. The top three factors in their impacts are found to be (1) difficulties in financing the project, (2) poor management of the site and lack of distribution of tasks (3) low productivity of labor. The first two are delay factors related to the contractor group, and the third is related to the labor group. The highest in frequency relative importance index is (1) delays related to sub-contractor’s work, (2) lack of experience of the owner in the approval of the supervision team and (3) inadequate estimate of task duration and scheduling, inadequate training, and adopting new techniques. In the overall average of the impact index of all groups, the highest was the delays due to the contractor group, followed by delays due to the designer group, and finally, delays related to the labor group. The overall average of the frequency index of the whole group seems relatively low. The study’s novelty lies in the large number of delay factors that have been investigated, by collecting and analyzing actual data, focusing separately on the opinions of all stakeholders, and then comparing them to find objective results related to delays in construction projects in the Makkah region.


Introduction
The government of Saudi Arabia has invested billions of dollars in mega projects, both super and infrastructures, within the Makkah region in the last decade. Makkah construction projects have unique features in their magnitude and nature. Construction delay is a significant problem facing the construction industry in Saudi Arabia and the Makkah region.
It is widespread, and numerous levels of authority often discuss its economic and social impact. Many studies have investigated the causes of construction project delays in various countries. This part of the study will critically review the causes of construction delays in Saudi Arabia and other countries. This study will lead to an up-to-date Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https:// doi. org/ 10. 1007/ s43995-023-00024-2.

3
survey of the reasons for the delay and explore possible solutions on how this can be dealt with. This study investigates a wide range of factors that causes construction delays in the Makkah region in Saudi Arabia. The causes of delay were grouped into 8 categories, with 69 causes. The survey investigated the consultant designer and supervisor's prospective evaluations of all delay causes. A variety of company sizes and individual experiences and specialties have participated and documented in the survey.

Aim
This study is part of a series of studies aiming to identify the major causes of delays in construction projects in the Makkah region of Saudi Arabia, based on the opinions of different stakeholders. They investigate in-depth the reasons for regional delays rather than nationwide or global. This part is concerned with the idea of consultants, both designers, and supervisors, helping to draw a clearer picture of the delay problems facing construction projects. This would also assist decision-makers in building an appropriate strategy to deal with the problem.

Background
In recent years, substantial public funds have been spent on construction projects to develop Makkah. Most of these projects suffered from delays and their consequences. The Saudi Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs (MOMRA) and the Ministry of Transportation acknowledged public construction project delays. They reported that approximately 75% exceeded their scheduled time [1].
Delays often resulted in time overrun, cost overrun, disputes, litigation, and sometimes complete abandonment of projects. Delays directly impact the expected output and revenues as the contractors rely on a limited number of projects.
In Saudi Arabia, the construction industry occupies a large portion of the economy. It contributed 30-40% of the non-oil sector from 1980 to 2000. Makkah is the most significant city in Saudi Arabia and the Muslim world. Its population is the largest in Saudi Arabia, with an area of around 1200 km 2 and a population of 1,675,000. Around 20 million Muslims from across the globe travel to Makkah throughout the year to perform Umrah. Three Million come to perform the annual Hajj at a specific time in one location.

Related studies
Viles et al. [2] found that eighty percent of the reasons for the delay in construction projects can be summed up in three main reasons: problems during implementation, administrative issues, and labor disputes.
Prasad and Vasugi [3] found that the reasons for delays in construction projects differ from country to country. They were clearly shown by reviewing the literature; the critical causes in developing countries are fundamentally different from the critical causes in developed countries.
Ajayi and Chinda [4] found that design change and change of order during construction significantly increase project delays. On the contrary minimizing design errors, good management, and stakeholder cooperation significantly reduce delays.
Owusu and Aggrey [5] study showed that the actual sources of delays in project delivery are inadequate financial resources of clients, uncertainties in honoring payment for work done, underestimation of project duration, and poor communication between contracting parties.
Ansari and Ahmad [6] found that ten factors significantly affect delays, mostly fluctuating materials cost, inaccurate time estimate, error during planning, design errors or changes, and delay in payment to the contractors.
Bajjou and Chafi [7] study of schedule delay in Moroccan found that the most delays that affect the overall schedule of the project are the delay of the progress payment, lack of training for employees, lack of waste management strategy, unrealistic contract duration imposed by clients, rework due to the construction errors, excessive subcontracting, delay in obtaining permits from governmental agencies, ineffective planning and scheduling, lack of collaborative planning, and unskilled workforce.
Prasad et al. [8] found that financing-related reasons are the most important reasons for the delays in construction projects in India. This delay includes delay in settlement of claims, financial difficulties of the contractor, and delay in payment for overtime/variances by the owner, delay in payment from contractor to subcontractor or suppliers.
Patil [9] searched through 36 reasons for delays in construction projects recommended by previous studies, found that the opinion of the owner, contractor, and consultant were similarly in common in the leading causes of delays. The study concluded that the most significant delay factors, according to all three stockholders, are the factors related to labor.
Ogunlana et al. [10] suggested that there are specific problems that cause delays in construction in developing economies: (a) infrastructure inadequacies, (b) questions related to clients and consultants, and (c) issues related to the contractor.
Bordoli and Baldwin [11] investigated the average time overrun of government construction projects in the UK from 1993 to 1994 and found that it was 23.2%.
In the USA, Ellis and Thomas [12], investigated the root causes of delays in highway projects and they found that time overruns in 150 projects averaged 272 days or 25% of the contract duration.
In India, Doloi et al. [13] investigated the cases of delay in the construction industry. They have listed the leading causes of delay to be: unrealistic schedule imposed, slow decisions by the owner, unforeseen site conditions, and approval delay in shop drawings, low labor productivity, delay in material supply by the contractor.
In Nigeria Aibinu and Odeyinka [14] studied the causes of delay in a variety of construction projects. They found that the leading causes of delay are as follows: the financial difficulties of the contractor, the owner's delay of the cash flow, the unfinished drawings by the designer, slow organization, equipment failure, and maintenance difficulties, late delivery of ordered material, and incorrect structural drawings.
Also in Nigeria, Mohammed, and Isah [15] concluded that the main reasons for delay are: inadequate planning, deficiency of effective communication, shortage of material supply such as steel and concrete, issues related to the design, slow decision-making, financial issues, shortage of information on design drawings, and cash flow problems.
In Libya, Tumi et al. [16] found that improper planning, financial difficulties, design mistakes, slow decision-making, lack of proper communication, and material supply shortage ranked as the highest delay causes.
In Egypt, Abd El-Razek et al. [17] studied the leading causes of delay in a variety of construction projects from the point of view of different stakeholders. They concluded that the leading causes of delay are: financing the projects during construction, delays in repayment by the owner, changes in the design by owners during construction, and lack of professional management procedures.
Toor and Ogunlana [18], in their study of problems causing delays in significant construction projects in Thailand, concluded that lack of resources, poor contractor management, shortage of labor, design delays, planning and scheduling deficiencies, changed orders and contractor's financial difficulties were the significant causes of delay. Problems such as multicultural and multilingual environments cause ineffective communication and possible delays.
Assaf et al. [19] reported that financial factors were the highest among the fifty-six causes of delay included in their survey. According to the contractors, the most critical delay factors were the preparation and approval of shop drawings, delays in the contractor's progress payment, and design changes by owners. In the opinion of architects and engineers, the most important causes of delay were cash flow problems during construction, the relationship between different subcontractors' schedules in the execution of the project, and the slowness owner's decision-making process. On the other hand, owners attributed delays in construction projects to design errors, excessive bureaucracy in the projectowner organization, labor shortages, and inadequate labor skills.
Ahmed et al. [20] grouped delays into two categoriesinternal causes and external causes. Internal purposes 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. Bolton [21] classifies delay as follows: • Excusable but non-compensable delay-is caused by occurrences that are not attributable to any parties. • Compensable delay-these delays result from acts or omissions of the owner, or someone who acts as an owner is liable. • Inexcusable delay-these delays result from a contractor's fault or his subcontractors or material suppliers.
This review has underscored that the factors that cause delays in construction projects vary from country to country and from one circumstance to another.

Methodology
In this study, a questionnaire has been developed, consisting of sixty-nine causes of delay. The questionnaire was organized in the form of an importance scale. Respondents were asked to indicate by ticking a column of the impact and frequency of each of the causes of construction delay (in terms of 5 = very important, 4 = important, 3 = somewhat important, 2 = less important, and 1 = not important). A hundred questionnaires were distributed by hand to consultants in the Makkah Region of Saudi Arabia. Thirty-six forms were filled, received, and processed.
The survey data were grouped into eight significant classifications: owner, consultant designer, supervisor, contractor, material, labor, site, and external factors. A ninth group is left for the participant to add whatever they can think for further contribution to the delay. The groups and various causes of delays are as follows: 1. Delays related to the owner or owner representative 2. Delays related to the consultant supervisor

Cronbach's α data reliability test
Before analyzing the results acquired from the questionnaire survey, Cronbach's α data reliability results were obtained to measure the internal consistency of the answers provided by the respondents using the Likert scale. The results from the reliability test were obtained for eight categories of the factors that influence construction delays, as indicated by the research objective of this study. The Cronbach's α and the internal consistency criteria are shown in Table 1.

Relative importance index (RII)
The relative importance index has been used to identify the importance of the impact of each cause of delay along with the frequency of that cause. The relative importance index (RII) was calculated using the following formula Fagbenle et al. [23]: where, RII = relative importance index P i = respondents' rating of the cause of delay U i = number of respondents placing identical weighting/rating on the cause of delay N = sample sizen = the highest attainable score on the cause of delay.

Cronbach's α data reliability test
The SPSS program was used to obtain the results. Tables 2  and 3 present the Cronbach's α reliability test results for the eight categories of delay causes in a construction project in Makkah, KSA. Table 2 represents the impact of data reliability, and Table 3 describes the frequency reliability data. The results of the coefficient of internal consistency of the reliability test for each category are excellent for impact and frequency. Moreover, the overall Cronbach's α reliability test results for 69 factors show that the internal consistency is perfect, with alpha equal to 0.998 for the impact and 0.998 for the frequency. This indicates that the answers provided by the respondents have excellent internal reliability.

Relative importance index (RII)
The following are the tabulated values of RII for the impact and frequencies of all sixty-nine expected delay factors, followed by a discussion of the observed values for each of the eight groups. Table 1 Internal consistency of Cronbach's α Gliem and Gliem [22] S/N Cronbach's α Internal consistency  Table 4 and Fig. 1, the delay in decision-making is commensurate with the parties' agreements with the project. The owner occupies the highest relative importance in impact but is relatively low in frequency. Delay of financing and payments by the owner comes second in impact but first in frequency. Lack of experience of the owner occupies third importance in impact and second in frequency. Delays due to unsolved right of way and delays due to unclear coordinates of underground utility come third in impact with a significant frequency index. The average of the impact is significant (RII = 0.68), while the frequency is relatively low (RII = 0.54).
In the group of delays related to the consultant supervisor of Table 5 and Fig. 2, delays in the approval of submittals, design drawings, shop drawings, sample materials, etc., seem to have significance in the highest RII in both impact and frequency. The negligence of finishing the work according to the schedule is second in impact and  Table 6 and Fig. 3, lack of design team experience and frequent design errors have a higher impact and frequency. This is a self-confession from the

Impact and Frequency Importance Index Factor
Frequency Impact designers which is considered self-criticisms and admission. Errors in calculating the initial project time are second in impact and fourth in frequency. The absence of the designer during modifying the design or correcting the wrong designs came third in impact and second in frequency. The designer's incompatibility to change the design with the rest of the project parties comes fourth in impact and second in frequency. The average impact is significant (RII = 0.71), and frequency has insignificant values (RII = 0.46). Table 7 and Fig. 4 contain the delays due to the contractor group. The impact of difficulties in financing the project is the highest in this group but not as frequent as other factors. Poor management of the site and lack of    for the impact and the frequency, and they (RII = 0.80) and (RII = 0.65), respectively. Table 8 and Fig. 5 present delay factors related to the material. The rejection of materials that do not meet specifications requirements ranks highest in impact and frequency.
The second impact changes in material types and specifications during construction but the third in frequency. The average impact index is medium (RII = 64), but frequencies for the material group are relatively low (RII = 42).
Delays related to labor impact are presented in Table 9 and Fig. 6. Low labor productivity seems to be the most significant factor of delay in impact, while inadequate crew size ranked highest in frequency. Unqualified and unskilled workforce rank second in impact but fifth in frequency, and late salary and compensation rank second in frequency. Inadequate crew size ranked third in impact but first in frequency. Labor strike turns out to be insignificant in both impact and frequency. The average impact is significant (RII = 0.73), and the frequency is medium (RII = 0.58). Table 10 and Fig. 7 present delay factors related to the construction site. Lack of equipment or maintenance occupies the highest rank of importance in impact and second in frequency. Unforeseen site conditions (unexpected subsurface conditions, e.g., soil, high water table, etc.) come second in impact. The inappropriate number of equipment or incompatibility between them comes third in impact and first in frequency. The average impact index is medium (RII = 0.64), and the frequency index is relatively low (RII = 0.40).
Delays related to external factors are summarized in Table 11 and Fig. 8. The weather factor occupied the highest rank in impact and frequency. This is highly expected due to the high temperature in Makkah for most of the year. Force Majeure (flood, earthquake, etc.) comes second    in impact, while delay due to dispute comes third. The average impact index is medium (RII = 0.62), and the frequency index is relatively low (RII = 038). Figure 9 shows the overall average impact and frequency of the eight categories. The contractor is the main factor in project delays from the consultant's point of view. The second is labor in both impact and frequency. The consultant supervisor and designer closely ranked thirdly in impact, but consulting supervisor is higher in frequency than the designer; this is accurate because the supervisor is more involved during the execution of the project where delays predominately occur.
Finally, delays due to external factors seem to be the lowest in impact and frequency. Table 12 shows the top twenty-eighth delay factors.

Conclusion
Following the investigations of sixty-nine possible factors causing a delay in construction projects in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, the top three factors in their impacts are found to be (1) difficulties in financing the project, (2) poor management of the site, and lack of distribution of tasks (3) low productivity of labor. The first two are delay factors related to the contractor group, and the third is related to the labor group. The highest in frequency relative importance index are (1) delays related to subcontractors' work (2) lack of experience of the owner in the approval of the supervision team (3) poor estimate of task duration and scheduling, and inadequate training, and adopting new techniques.
In the overall average of the impact index of the whole group, the highest was the delays due to the contractor group, followed by delays due to labor, and finally, delays related to consultant supervisor groups. The overall average of the frequency index of most groups seems relatively low. Although the outcome of this analysis is based on the opinion of the consultant with a reasonable outcome, however, the objectivity of these findings needs to