Though contractor claims are inevitable, the frequency of their occurrence and their impact on project cost, time or both, can be minimized with effective management by a client during the ...pre-contact and post-contract phases. The article discusses findings of a study that investigated the nature of claims and the level of effectiveness in managing them by an organisation code named, BuildServe. The latter manages building construction projects for the government of Botswana. A total of 32 projects, implemented in a five-year period (2015-19), were selected and yielded 79 construction claims for the study. A mixed-method approach was employed to analyze and understand their nature. Apart from project document review, experiences of project managers were solicited through interviews, a Delphi technique and a focus group discussion. Results indicated that a majority (61%) of the claims related to requests for extension of time with additional cost while the rest were purely requesting for extension of time (31%) or cost (8%). Furthermore, results indicated that on average the completion period was twice the contracted duration of which the awarded extension of time contributed half (49.8%) of the project delays, the other half is due to rejected (21.3%) and non-claimed delays (28.9%). In addition, majority (56%) of the claims were due to client breaches of contractual clauses while others were due to common law (19%) and quantum meruit (9%) breaches. Client breaches related to various delays (48%) and changes (22%) to project work. The results indicated that BuildServe needed to improve its claim management regime, an aspect confirmed by the by project managers’ self-assessment who noted that first, there is a lack of institutionalization of project evaluation to harness lesson learned from past project implementation experiences. Second, there was also a need for restraint by the client especially in reducing project changes and delays on decisions or actions that affect project work. It is hoped that improving these areas will reduce avoidable claims and hopefully curtail project time and cost overruns.
Construction projects often see owners who exert their dominance by modifying the standard contracts without contractors’ prior consent. This can lead to undesirable outcomes for contractors, thus ...referred to as unilateral contractual change risk (UCCR) in this study. As such, identifying UCCR proactively becomes essential for contractors, particularly in engineering-procurement-construction (EPC) projects where the claim scope is limited. Although natural language processing (NLP) has shown promise in the identification of UCCR, it faces difficulties due to the high cognitive demands required. To fill the gap, we propose a rational-augmented NLP framework that emulates human reasoning to identify UCCR in EPC contracts in an explainable and effective manner. The framework (1) leverages NLP techniques to disassemble contract text into features that draw the attention of human readers for obligation-related comprehension, and (2) generates a coherent sequence of intermediate reasoning steps using a customized Microsoft Excel and-in interface to identify predetermined categories of UCCR. Our framework, which achieves an outstanding F1 score of 0.87, is trained on a widely used standard form of EPC contract. It also presents a user-friendly interface for contractors to discern any intentional or malicious acts committed by the owner during the contract stage. Furthermore, our methodology can be adapted to enhance risk management in other sectors.
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•Human-like reasoning to identify risky modification in construction contracts.•Use of two NLP models for extracting obligations and elements.•Excel add-in interface for streamlined implementation.•Non-reliance on practical contracts for training data.•Enhanced interpretability in contract formulation perspective.
Egypt incurred about 74 billion of Egyptian pounds in the last decade due to arbitration cases. This paper aims to find a solution for the Egyptian construction industry to avoid disputes among ...project parties, which convert the project from win-win situation to lose-lose situation and the project may not be completed.
Methods/Analysis: This study uses the new approach of contracts administration of avoiding disputes from its inception represented in FIDIC 2017 and the approach of disputes settlement represented in FIDIC 1999 instead of the used ad-hoc construction contracts in Egypt.
After analyzing the Egyptian construction field, it is found that each of badly written contract and poor contract administration are the main reasons for most of disputes among project parties.
as a try to solve this issue, a case study been applied to use the standard contract of FIDIC 2017 to be the project’s contract instead of used regular ad-hoc contracts in Egyptian construction field, results confirmed that the new approach of disputes avoidance is in the line of the nature of Egyptian construction projects, in addition to FIDIC 2017 mentions more detailed conditions and scenarios which avoid almost all project disputes and deliver the project to the completion date with win–win situation for all project parties.
Novelty/Improvement: the application of standard contract of FIDIC 2017 as the project contract in Egypt shall be a solution for the badly written contract and facilitate the contract administration for all project stages which shall be a great step to improve the Egyptian construction field and save billions of Egyptian pounds in arbitration courts.
Development of ECC for infrastructure projects Eldosouky, Adel I.; Elkorany, Tamer M.; Albayomi, Khaled A.
Ain Shams Engineering Journal,
September 2023, 2023-09-00, 2023-09-01, Letnik:
14, Številka:
9
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
By covering several potential risks as feasible, a well-drafted infrastructure construction contract decreases the probability of disputes occurring to a significant degree. The Executive Regulations ...of the Egyptian Tender Law No.182 of 2018 is the governing document for drafting Egyptian Construction Contracts (ECC). However, to handle the requirements of various infrastructure projects, the ECC still requires some amendment additions. This paper sets out a guide that includes a number of amendments to the clauses that contract experts must consider when drafting new contracts in order to prevent potential disputes. This study aims to explore and investigate the major sources of conflicts facing infrastructure construction contracts, as reflected in the literature review and interview results with contract professionals. The methodology mainly incorporates undertaking a literature review, implementing a comparison and analysis of general conditions of the Egyptian, International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC), and American Institute of Architects (AIA) construction contracts, and presenting international directions for dealing with the causes of conflicts in these contracts. These steps have been followed to propose amendments for the clauses that cause disputes in the ECC while the final step is conducted to verify the amendments’ findings through experts’ interviews. The findings show that these amendments are of significant importance to be considered while drafting new construction contracts, considering FIDIC 99 (Red Book), AIA A201-1997, and the general conditions of the Egyptian Ministry of Housing, Utilities and Urban Communities are the forms of general conditions that are used for comparison.
Construction contracts, such as FIDIC model contracts, are relatively complex and cumbersome, and their composition needs to be better understood. This research uses a multi-functional approach that ...is widely recognized in the contract literature, and anatomizes FIDIC model contracts in order to gain a holistic and comprehensive understanding of them. Moreover, this research comparatively analyses the distribution of the three functions, namely control, coordination and adaptation, in four forms of FIDIC model contracts to explore how project delivery systems (PDSs) affect contract design. After a classification framework that includes three functions and ten subclasses was established, the FIDIC 1999 series model contracts were coded sentence by sentence using content analysis. The results show that the three functions are all non-trivially reflected in construction contracts and are influenced by project complexity. Regarding different PDSs, the complexity of contract control is relatively rigid; the complexity of contract coordination is largely influenced by PDSs; and the impact of PDSs on the complexity of adaptation provisions depends on the sub-class. The conclusions may help scholars and practitioners understand construction contracts from a functional perspective, and offer references for contract designers to reasonably consider the distribution of the three functions in construction contracts.
The article presents a settlement analysis of introduced changes in the example infrastructure investment. The procedure of introduced the Change Command and the Engineer's Instruction on the ...Construction contract, as well as examples of the Change Commands given by the Engineer on the analyzed object were presented. The study covered the settlement of a road investment, based on compliance with expressway parameters. The analyzed object was very composed, thus has an extended bill of quantities and cost estimate. In accordance to such an extended cost estimate for this investment, it was important to establish an appropriate and fast flow of settlement documents. Moreover, changes in the project documentation and settlement based on the Contract Conditions for the Construction for Engineering - Construction Works designed by the Employer - the so-called. & quot;Red Book& quot; was showed. The studies discussed the cases of settlement of increased quantities, new entry items and replacement construction works that occurred on the analyzed investment, as well as examples of a sample settlement documents. The authors of this studies conclude that the introduction of the Engineer in the early stages of the investment process and the overall FIDIC procedures help establish sample forms, development of working out procedures and document flow schemes, including a settlement documents. In consequence they minimize the costs of addition, replacement, and abandoned works and reduce the time of the investment realization.
•Identification of critical risk factors that impact supply chains of large-scale projects•A mathematical model developed that establishes the prioritization of supplies of critical equipment ...throughout the lifecycle of Large-scale projects.•Managers and organizations can adopt this solution as a practical and dynamic tool to support decision-making in the definition of possible critical supply scenarios.
The purpose of this article is twofold: to identify the critical risk factors (RFs) that impact supply chains (SC) in the engineering, procurement, and construction of large-scale projects (EPC-LSP) of the oil and gas industry (OGI) and to apply these RFs in a mathematical model developed, based on multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods in an expert group. The mathematical model was developed in MATLAB and was based on the Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluations (PROMÉTHÉE) II and (PROMÉTHÉE GDSS) Group Decision Support System methods. The model's criteria were defined with the RF mapping identified using 33 years of literature and the application of questionnaires to specialists. The evaluation process of the alternatives concerning the defined criteria was conducted through questionnaires to specialists. Finally, the functionality and results of the model were validated by the specialists in the field through interviews. As a contribution, managers, companies, and industry could adopt this solution as a practical and dynamic tool to support decision-making. This fact especially holds true in possible critical supply scenarios, where it is necessary to direct resources to minimize risks and other impacts to EPC-LSP SC. Another novelty refers to the critical risk factors identified, originating from an extensive literature mapping covering the three pillars of sustainability. Moreover, this research was to fill the literature gap, given the lack of studies that propose clear, practical, and specific tools for SCRM in EPC-LSP.
Construction delays are a common phenomenon in construction projects that adversely affecting the time and cost targets of those projects. When there are delays, contractors tend to submit delay ...claims seeking time and cost adjustments to their contracts. Quite often, these claims are denied upfront due to deficiencies in the delay notification process itself. The vagueness of and ambiguities in contractual provisions too protract the notification process. This study was aimed to improve the level of success of delay claims submitted by the contractors working in the Sri Lankan construction projects that are administered in accordance with FIDIC 1999. The data required for the study were collected from a total of 248 projects, using a mix of qualitative and quantitative approaches. The study reveals that the effectiveness of the delay notification process can be improved by identifying the delay events well in advance. To overcome the flaws of the delay notification process, it is also equally important for the contractors to be aware of contractual provisions.
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