A Study of Reasons for Procurement Schedule Delays in Public Building Construction Projects

Abstract
Considering the engineering procurement processes, items performed by the institutional procurement staff during planning, designing, and implementation stages of a construction project will involve various kinds of engineering-related knowledge and regulations. As the result, institutions having inadequate engineering procurement capabilities are likely to experience difficulties in examining the comprehensiveness of their tender document (including designed illustration, specifications, budget statement, etc), which not only will affect the contract schedule, but also the quality of construction during implementation.
Construction and Planning Agency (CPA), Ministry of the Interior is an agential construction institution appointed by the Executive Yuan. The contract statuses of 23 interim construction projects performed by CPA in 2003~2005 for Ministry of Education, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of National Defense, Council of Agriculture, etc were investigated. By discussing the quality of the tender document for these construction projects, 18 reasons resulting in contract delay were proposed. In addition, by adopting the cause and effect diagram (CED), 5 major factors influencing the quality of tender document during planning/designing stages of a construction project were summarized in terms of budget appropriation, construction preliminary plan, designed illustration, construction budget statement, schedule management, and corresponding authority. These factors include plan, illustration, budget, schedule, and personnel. Based on these factors, countermeasures such as reducing the area, reducing the items or equipment, increasing the budget, changing the engineering method, extending the construction duration, downgrading material or equipment, etc were suggested.
From the above-mentioned countermeasures such as reducing the area, reducing the items or equipment, increasing the budget, changing the engineering method, extending the schedule, downgrading material or equipment, etc, items that need special attention (as shown by the diagram in detail) during tender document quality examination were also investigated in this study in order to improve its quality during planning/designing stages of a construction project. The possible detrimental impact on the contract schedule as well as the quality of construction due to poor tender document will, therefore, be eliminated.