Identifying the reasons for the prolongation of school construction projects in Najaf

Abstract

Abstract There are several problems facing the construction industry in Iraq. Delays in construction projects affect one of the most important factors in project success, namely time. This delay causes many problems such as increasing the cost of the project, lack of timely operation, and on a larger scale, economic and social impact on the country. As being one of the metropolises of Iraq, the city of Najaf needs a lot of development projects in the development path. Public school construction projects are an example of projects needed in the city, and delays in these projects in recent years have sometimes caused the city’s schools to operate on a mixed basis. This study deals with studies and researches related to the delay of construction projects in other countries, and after interviews and surveys of construction industry stakeholders in Iraq, new factors have been obtained and finally, using the opinions of the mentioned experts, prioritizing the factors extracted from both identified the source and the five main causes of project delays, including late payment to the contractor, design errors, construction length errors, problems with neighbors, and inexperience of contractors. In the next step, the amount of delay due to the main factors identified in the projects was analyzed using the official documents of 30 sample projects from the statistical population of completed school construction projects in Najaf city. Statistics on the amount of delay caused by factors and comparing it with some indicators, the need to use contractors with better ratings, skilled manpower, experienced project managers, and the number of sufficient engineers at the project site were presented.