Causes of delays in construction project for developing Southeast Asia countries

Delay in construction industry impact the time and cost of project and mostly being the basis of dispute between stakeholders of the project. To reduce the impact, knowing the causal factors and lesson learned from past projects and studies is essential. Through this study, a literature review on the subject of construction delay factors studied in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam was undertaken to identify top factors and to determine whether there are special causes referring to this region. A comparison was made to a similar study on developed economies in Europe and North America. The result of the study revealed that the most significant factors causing delays in the Southeast Asia developing countries were related to contractor (material shortages, improper/ineffective planning, poor site management and supervision, and equipment shortage and failure), and owner-related causes (financial/payment issue and design change/variation order). The results of the study support the view that contractors handling projects in developing countries are dealing with the shortages problems, inefficiency/incompetence of the contractor, and problems caused by clients.