Management of variation orders in Gaza Strip : impacts and minimization

Other Title(s)

إدارة الأوامر التغييرية في قطاع غزة : تأثيرها و تقليلها

Dissertant

Nassar, Samiyah Rasmi Khalid

Thesis advisor

al-Hallaq, Khalid Abd al-Rauf

University

Islamic University

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

Department

Department of Architectural Engineering

University Country

Palestine (Gaza Strip)

Degree

Master

Degree Date

2017

English Abstract

Background and Problem: Nowadays construction of new projects is becoming an essential demand to improve the condition of Palestinian where during the lifecycle of the construction projects most of the clients and consultants are striving to obtain the ideal projects with a minimum margin of conflicts, minimum cost and time overrun and with maximum value added over each stage so, one of the real challenges that face the parties operating in construction projects is how to manage and mitigate the negative impact of the consecutive variation orders (VOs).

Aim and Objectives: The aim of this research is to study the management of the VOs.

To achieve the aim of this research many objectives exist, these objectives can be summarized as to investigate the prevalence of the VOs in the construction projects, to assess the current practices of the VOs management in Gaza Strip, to investigate the non-value adding activities associated with the variations during the construction stage, to identify the predominant origin agent as well as the direct causes of the VOs, to identify the impact of the VOs on overall project performance and to recommend strategies to minimize the VOs.

Methodology: First, review the literature to extract the causes and impact of the VOs and recommended strategies to minimize it.

This was fulfilled by conducting a desk study and interviews and using questionnaire.

Secondly, a desk study on six of the finished projects was conducted to extract the real causes and impact of the VOs.

Thirdly, interviews with their projects' managers to understand the causes and impacts of the VOs not seen at their projects documents and gather information about the current practices of the VOs management in their companies as well as look for recommendation and strategies if any to minimize the occurrence of the VOs.

Finally, a questionnaire was developed to assess the perception of clients, consultants, and contractors on the factors causing the VOs, impact of thr VOs, and recommended strategies to minimize it in the construction projects in Gaza Strip.

Results: The most occurred factors caused the VOs were Israeli restriction in terminals and siege, discrepancies between contract documents, internal political problems, change in specification by the client and budget allocated constraints.

In addition, the most influential factors impact the VOs were completion schedule delay, increase in duration of individual activities, delay in payment, suspend work in other activities, a dispute among professionals, and increase in project cost.

Conclusions: It was concluded that there are some similarities and differences between real data from desk study and interviews compared to the questionnaire result.

The differences between the study and real data are mainly because the completed project has a special nature where these projects faced several difficulties of closure and severe siege after the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip in 2014.

Not to forget to mention that the interviews included the perception of the contrctors (the managers of the selected projects in the desk study) while the questionnaire result included the perception of the client, consultant, and contractors.

Main Subjects

Architecture Engineering

No. of Pages

218

Table of Contents

• APA
• MLA
• AMA

Language

English

Data Type

Arab Theses

Record ID

BIM-906203