Fire services installation related contributors of construction delays

Delay is a common problem in the construction industry and there are several reasons that can contribute to delaying a project. In Hong Kong, completion of fire services installation is prerequisite to completing/finishing a building construction work. The fire services installation must be completed for application of an occupation permit for a building. Fail to obtain the permit on time would lead to construction delay. Apparently, fire services contractors play an important role in obtaining the occupation permit for a project completion. The economic losses due to construction delay could be very significant. This research identified, from a list of 49 pre-determined factors in nine categories (shown in Appendix A), the principal factors contributed to construction delays in a fire services installation. In particular, a questionnaire survey of 52 fire services contractors and 32 consulting engineers was conducted in order to obtain their professional judgements about the relative importance of the contributors of construction delay related to the fire services installation. The result showed that the principal contributors were: (1) improper site co-ordination and management of the electrical and mechanical installations, (2) lack of timely decision making of the client, and (3) defects identified during the fire services inspection by local authorities. In addition differing views were found between the consulting engineers and contractors on the areas identified were: (1) site management and supervision, (2) workload of the project staff, (3) the procedures for equipment approval, and (4) working experience of the parties. A monitoring and quality assurance system would be required in these areas to minimize the risk of the probable construction delay.