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International Journal of Construction Management
ISSN: 1562-3599 (Print) 2331-2327 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tjcm20
Constructability obstacles: an exploratory factor
analysis approach
Samereh JadidAlEslami, Ehsan Saghatforoush & Ahad Zare Ravasan
To cite this article: Samereh JadidAlEslami, Ehsan Saghatforoush & Ahad Zare Ravasan (2018):
Constructability obstacles: an exploratory factor analysis approach, International Journal of
Construction Management, DOI: 10.1080/15623599.2018.1534044
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15623599.2018.1534044
Published online: 03 Dec 2018.
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Constructability obstacles: an exploratory factor analysis approach
Samereh JadidAlEslami
a
, Ehsan Saghatforoush
b
and Ahad Zare Ravasan
c
a
Project and Construction Management, Mehralborz Institute of Higher Education, Tehran, Iran;
b
School of Construction Economics
and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa;
c
Department of Corporate Economy, Faculty of
Economics and Administration, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
ABSTRACT
Constructability is a concept with relative and not absolute value to increase optimization cap-
acity of resources such as workforce, time, cost, quality, and working environment conditions.
Given the growing complexity of projects and the increased number of failed and abandoned
projects, the necessity to implement constructability in projects has become more tangible.
Although the effects of lack of quantitative definition of constructability role in the traditional
construction approaches are evident and have led to lack of coordination in performance of
construction projects, so far no comprehensive quantitative approach has been considered to
analyze the obstacles to constructability implementation. This study aims to identify and cat-
egorize the obstacles to facilitating the presence of contractors in the early stages of planning
and design to implement constructability. In this study a comprehensive list of obstacles to con-
structability implementation is developed as a questionnaire. This questionnaire was presented
to the experts, active in the field of construction. Finally, its results were analyzed using explora-
tory factor analysis method. Totally, 63 obstacles were questioned, then they were categorized
by some of the experts of this industry into five categories of macro factors, including contrac-
tual, environmental, managerial, technical, and organizational. The significance of this study is
due to this fact that identifying and categorizing the key obstacles to constructability implemen-
tation provides a useful reference for managers and owners of the construction industry to iden-
tify and develop solutions to resolve them. Identifying the obstacles to the presence of
contractors in the planning and design stage and having a quantitative view toward this issue
affects project implementability. In this regard, one can present more effective solutions to facili-
tate the presence of contractors in the early stages of design and also improves the effective-
ness of constructability.
KEYWORDS
Constructability; construct-
ability obstacles; civil
projects; construction
industry; exploratory factor
analysis (EFA)
Introduction
‘Constructability the extent to which the design of a
building facilitates ease of construction as well as the
extent to which the adoption of construction techni-
ques and processes affects the productivity level of
building works’(Authority 2017). Constructability is
one of the project management methods to evaluate
the whole construction process. It is defined as a con-
cept with relative, not absolute, value to increase opti-
mization capacity of resources, such as workforce,
time, cost, quality and working environment condi-
tions. During a construction project from the early
stage of planning up to delivery and maintenance
there are many restrictions to implement construct-
ability (Shin et al. 1989). Project success is not
achieved unless through reviewing the construction
process and integrating the design and
implementation stages. Given the growing complexity
of projects and the increased number of failed and
abandoned projects, the necessity to implement con-
structability in projects has become more tangible
(Wong et al. 2005).
Due to the designer’s poor executive information,
lack of presence of executive contractors in the early
stages of study and design, leads to duplications,
reduction of executive capacity of the plan, and
increased time and costs (Saghatforoush 2014).
Constructability achievements can be used for meet-
ing future needs, including (Lueprasert 1996) identify-
ing poorly designed structure due to mistakes and
non-executive decisions of the plan in the conceptual
studies phase. Executive engineers have problems with
designer engineers during the construction process,
CONTACT Ehsan Saghatforoush ehsan.saghatforoush@wits.ac.za School of Construction Economics and Management, University of the
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
ß2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT
https://doi.org/10.1080/15623599.2018.1534044
often because it is not possible to implement the plan,
and/or contradictory and non-executive plans (Hui-
Hsuan et al. 2013). With regard to the study of con-
structibility literature, this is a long-term issue and
should be continually pursued, and, as far as possible,
it should be possible to eliminate and mitigate these
problems, as well as facilitate the construction, before
making it, taking into account existing barriers. Focus
on focus (Yustisia 2014)
Studies conducted during 1960 to 1970, indicate
that the origin of many complex problems in the con-
struction industry is due to lack of integration of
knowledge and experience in the framework of design
and construction. This issue directly affects projects’
time, cost and quality. Here, the necessity to apply
constructability became more tangible (IPENZ 2008).
Primary studies to find obstacles to facilitating con-
structability related to the United States construction
industry, were conducted in 1979 by Faculty of
Construction Industry Research using qualitative
methods. Following that, most of the studies were
conducted by qualitative methods and focusing on
case studies e.g. (O’Connor 1994;O’Connor 1995;
Zolfagharian et al. 2012; Saghatforoush 2014;
Jadidoleslami et al. 2016). In addition, since the con-
structability concept is relatively a new idea in devel-
oping countries, most articles in this field are
qualitative studies without quantitative data. Even
though lack of quantitative evaluation related to the
effects of constructability on the traditional
approaches of construction was evident and led to
lack of coordination in the performance of construc-
tion projects, till now there is no comprehensive
quantitative approach to analyze the obstacles to con-
structability implementation (Zimmer 2006). Project
success is not achieved unless through reviewing the
construction process and integrating the design and
implementation stages. Yet, such an approach pro-
vides an appropriate subjective context for experts
and employers in this field to accept and implement
constructability.
The aim of this study is evaluating the current
obstacles related to the presence of contractors in the
early stages of planning and design, and exploratory
factor analysis (EFA) to implement constructability.
The next section addresses the previous literatures
conducted in this field.
Constructability
Five important rules for effective evaluation of con-
structability are considering project construction
instead of focusing on problems, reviewing the inter-
ference of various applied systems in implementation,
documenting primary information, focusing on sig-
nificant factors, such as qualitative factors and team
designing and finally allocating sufficient time for
detailed reviewing of constructability in the project,
Although, principal review of constructability may
take several weeks and even months, for each time
spent on planning and reviewing, significant amount
of time will be saved in the construction stage. There
is a wrong idea stating that at first, constructability
studies should be done completely, while this is com-
pletely wrong and has a reverse effect (Smith 2013).
Constructability is a project management technique
for reviewing the whole construction process. Before
project implementation, it will reduce or prevent mis-
takes, delays, and overflow costs, through identifying
the obstacles (Primer 1986). Due to constructability
effect on costs and time progress to achieve optimum
conditions, considering plan constructability in the
early stages of project lifecycle is necessary (Griffith
and Sidwell 1995).
Constructability program refers to integrating
engineering design, and executive knowledge and
experience to better achieve project objectives.
However, partial comprehension of designers of con-
struction and implementation requirements, and
resistance of owners to constructability due to extra
visible costs in the project, are main obstacles to its
implementation. Generally, constructability results in
a cost added to other expenses and may harm the
company in the competition. An effective construct-
ability program will begin during the planning phase
and will continue conceptually to the end of construc-
tion (Arditi et al. 2002). Many of the problems and
issues of constructability are because of lack of com-
munication among employers, architects, designers,
and construction companies before starting the pro-
ject (IPENZ 2008).
Architects, engineers and designers—according to
the specific nature of their performance—are not
experts of executive methods. For this reason and also
the reasons for sharing responsibility, most of the per-
formance-based features and programs determine the
final result and applications (Glavinich 1995). Lack of
communication among designers and contractors
cover overtly performance features. By integrating
constructability in the design process in the early
stages of the project, construction contradiction will
be less, and consequently, project delivery will be
more secure (IPENZ 2008). Resolving these obstacles
require changing the methods, organizational culture
2 S. JADIDALESLAMI ET AL.
TABLE 1. The identified codes for constructability obstacles.
Code
(J O’Connor-
1995)
(James
T. O’
Connor-1994)
(George
Jergeas-
2001)
(Zolfagharian.
et al.-
2012)
(James
T. O’
Connor-1988)
(By
Deborah J.
Fisher-
2000)
(Thabet-
2000)
(Franky
et al.
-2007)
(Trigunarsyah
-2003)
(Li Jiang
-2013)
(Eric J.
Hanlon-2001)
(Sheehan
-1991)
(FOX et al.
-2010)
(Russell
-1994)
(Scott D. Williams-
2007)
(Malek-
2011)
(Lewis-
2001)
1. Resistance
to change and
the consent of
the status quo
2. No official
commitment
for
implementing
3. Dishonesty
4. Risk aversion
and distrust
to builders
5. misconception
of this issue
that construct-
ability leads to
delay
in projects
6. Reluctance to
innovation
and creativity
7. Cultural barriers
due to the
traditional view
and flex-
ible vision
8. Lack of mutual
respect
between
designer
and builder
9. Weak sup-
port program
10. Irregular
reports about
the work trend
11. Delegating
responsibilities
to people with
low risk taking
12. No encourag-
ing program for
promoting cre-
ativity and crit-
ical thinking
13. Lack of docu-
menting
(continued)
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT 3
TABLE 1. Continued.
Code
(J O’Connor-
1995)
(James
T. O’
Connor-1994)
(George
Jergeas-
2001)
(Zolfagharian.
et al.-
2012)
(James
T. O’
Connor-1988)
(By
Deborah J.
Fisher-
2000)
(Thabet-
2000)
(Franky
et al.
-2007)
(Trigunarsyah
-2003)
(Li Jiang
-2013)
(Eric J.
Hanlon-2001)
(Sheehan
-1991)
(FOX et al.
-2010)
(Russell
-1994)
(Scott D. Williams-
2007)
(Malek-
2011)
(Lewis-
2001)
experiences
and knowledge
of success-
ful projects
14. Lack of apply-
ing promotional
tools to sell
plans
to employers
15. Inappropriate
methods of
labor
recruitment
16. Lack of
enough infor-
mation
between
designer and
builder (poor
communication
skills)
17. Lack of coord-
ination and
cooperation
in teamwork
18. Lack of focus
of team on
common
objectives
19. Inability in
identifying
problems and
opportunities
20. Lack of integ-
rity among key
members of
project team
21. Separate man-
agerial process
in design and
construction
22. Not paying
attention to
executive abil-
ities
in selecting
(continued)
4 S. JADIDALESLAMI ET AL.
TABLE 1. Continued.
Code
(J O’Connor-
1995)
(James
T. O’
Connor-1994)
(George
Jergeas-
2001)
(Zolfagharian.
et al.-
2012)
(James
T. O’
Connor-1988)
(By
Deborah J.
Fisher-
2000)
(Thabet-
2000)
(Franky
et al.
-2007)
(Trigunarsyah
-2003)
(Li Jiang
-2013)
(Eric J.
Hanlon-2001)
(Sheehan
-1991)
(FOX et al.
-2010)
(Russell
-1994)
(Scott D. Williams-
2007)
(Malek-
2011)
(Lewis-
2001)
23. Lack of moni-
toring of
matching
design objec-
tives and
executive
criteria
24. Contrast of
objectives of
organization
and project
25. Weakness in
the appropriate
time of pre-
senting inputs
26. Lack
of motivation
27. Lack of suffi-
cient
knowledge
28. Existence of
traditional
contracts
29. Inappropriate
contractual
strategies
30. Weakness in
engineering
and construc-
tion quality
31. Lack of exist-
ence of system-
atic organiz-
ing structure
32. Lack of using
ideas of project
stakeholders
33. Inappropriate
management
practices in
design teams
34. The absence
of an appropri-
ate database
related to con-
structability in
design offices
(continued)
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT 5
TABLE 1. Continued.
Code
(J O’Connor-
1995)
(James
T. O’
Connor-1994)
(George
Jergeas-
2001)
(Zolfagharian.
et al.-
2012)
(James
T. O’
Connor-1988)
(By
Deborah J.
Fisher-
2000)
(Thabet-
2000)
(Franky
et al.
-2007)
(Trigunarsyah
-2003)
(Li Jiang
-2013)
(Eric J.
Hanlon-2001)
(Sheehan
-1991)
(FOX et al.
-2010)
(Russell
-1994)
(Scott D. Williams-
2007)
(Malek-
2011)
(Lewis-
2001)
35. Incorrect atti-
tude to the
Constructability
of an invest-
ment
opportunity
36. Resistance to
the early build-
ers in the initial
stages of the
project and
financial
investment
37. Lack of flexibil-
ity in contracts
38. High volume
of
change orders
39. Lack of know-
ledge of
employers
about benefits
and advantages
of applying
constructability
40. Lack of surveil-
lance on
matching
design objec-
tives and
executive
criteria
41. Contractor’s
unwillingness
to cooperate in
the design
phase of
the project
42. Pre-implemen-
tation
restrictions
43. Restriction in
designs
dependent
on owner
44. Lack of effect-
ive reward and
(continued)
6 S. JADIDALESLAMI ET AL.
TABLE 1. Continued.
Code
(J O’Connor-
1995)
(James
T. O’
Connor-1994)
(George
Jergeas-
2001)
(Zolfagharian.
et al.-
2012)
(James
T. O’
Connor-1988)
(By
Deborah J.
Fisher-
2000)
(Thabet-
2000)
(Franky
et al.
-2007)
(Trigunarsyah
-2003)
(Li Jiang
-2013)
(Eric J.
Hanlon-2001)
(Sheehan
-1991)
(FOX et al.
-2010)
(Russell
-1994)
(Scott D. Williams-
2007)
(Malek-
2011)
(Lewis-
2001)
punishment
standards
45. Lack of execu-
tive experience
in design team
46. Lack of finan-
cial incentive
for designers
47. lack of know-
ledge about
construction
technologies
48. Designer
imagination of
increasing
responsibilities
in implement-
ing construct-
ability
principles
49. Lack of exist-
ence of timing
program in
design stage
50. lack of evalu-
ating applicabil-
ity of designs
51. Lack of inte-
grating design
science and
executive
experience
52. Reluctance of
executive staff
to offer pre-
implementation
consultation
53. Lack of apply-
ing develop-
ment tools
and equipment
54. Lack of flexibil-
ity in standards
and regulations
of design
and implement
(continued)
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT 7
TABLE 1. Continued.
Code
(J O’Connor-
1995)
(James
T. O’
Connor-1994)
(George
Jergeas-
2001)
(Zolfagharian.
et al.-
2012)
(James
T. O’
Connor-1988)
(By
Deborah J.
Fisher-
2000)
(Thabet-
2000)
(Franky
et al.
-2007)
(Trigunarsyah
-2003)
(Li Jiang
-2013)
(Eric J.
Hanlon-2001)
(Sheehan
-1991)
(FOX et al.
-2010)
(Russell
-1994)
(Scott D. Williams-
2007)
(Malek-
2011)
(Lewis-
2001)
55. Competitive
restrictions
56. Restrictions of
selection in
tender projects
57. Incorrect time,
methods and
criteria for the
selection of
contractors
58. Exerting per-
sonal tastes
and restricting
the final deci-
sion making
right for
the owner
59. The absence
of communica-
tion tool and
lack of trans-
parency of
information
60. The long pro-
cess of dis-
pute resolution
61. The absence
of a realistic
planning and
feasibility
studies
62. Lack of a cul-
ture
of teamwork
63. Lack of sharing
the consultant
in project risk
8 S. JADIDALESLAMI ET AL.
and awareness of executive potential of issues at the
level of organizations and projects (O’Connor 1995).
Constructability obstacles
In leading countries such as USA, Australia, Britain
and Malaysia, various studies have been done to
explain constructability and to resolve the obstacles to
its implementation. A guidance for constructability
was released by CII institute in 1986, in which con-
structability is defined as optimum use of construc-
tion knowledge and experience in planning, design,
provisions and implementation to achieve project
overall objectives. This institute has performed many
studies about constructability. Given the studies con-
ducted by this institute about the effect of construct-
ability on costs and time progress to achieve
optimum conditions, considering plan constructability
in the early stages of project lifecycle is necessary
(Griffith and Sidwell 1995). The introduced construct-
ability principles by CIIA have advantages over other
models, considering the best time of applying these
principles in the project lifecycle.
James O’Connor in 1994, in the article titled
‘Barriers to Constructability Implementation’, qualita-
tively categorized the obstacles to constructability
implementation. Since then, most of the available
projects refer to some of these obstacles, and none
of which has presented a comprehensive list of
them, or they have based their studies on
O’Connor’s study. In the studies about construct-
ability, called Advances in Constructability (Candlish
1988), details of construction program are exam-
ined. Among constructability advances, a modular
layout has been presented that improves implemen-
tation through separating buildings and services. In
other studies, titled Evaluation of the role of the
contractor’s personnel in enhancing the project con-
structability (Nima et al. 2001), the role of contrac-
tors and their duties and commitments and
limitations and the influence of their presence on
enhancing project implement-ability have been eval-
uated. In another related study, called
Construability: The Key to Reducing Investment Risk
(Chasey and Schexnayder 2000), constructability and
its relation to and differences with various manager-
ial aspects such as TQM, value engineering, …were
examined. Constructability concept, history, its
expanded aspects, and advanced applied technologies
have been presented in it.
After basic studies of O’Connor in 1994, the
obstacles to constructability in the guidance released
by The Institution of Professional Engineers New
Zealand Incorporated under the title of constructability
were categorized and updated in 2008.
Similarly, after evaluating the related studies, the
codes for identified obstacles to constructability
implementation in the construction industry have
been shown in Table 1.
Given the tangible benefits of this concept, lack of
attention to constructability has been identified as a
significant problem during construction projects
implementation. Although lack of quantitative evalu-
ation of constructability effects on the traditional con-
struction approaches are evident and results in lack of
coordination in the construction projects perform-
ance, till now no comprehensive quantitative
approach has been presented to analyze the obstacles
to constructability implementation.
Usually, this problem is due to inappropriate
designs without the possibility to implement them,
poor decision making when designing, and lack of
executive experience of the engineering design team.
Executive engineers usually have problems with
designer engineers during construction process, due
to lack of plan implement-ability, and/or contradict-
ory and non-executive plans. In this study, these
obstacles are identified and categorized through
studying and reviewing the previous literatures and
using a quantitative method described in the
next section.
Research method
In this study, a comprehensive list of obstacles to
constructability implementation has been developed
in the form of a questionnaire. The questionnaires
were distributed to project managers, employers, con-
sultants, and contractors active in the field of con-
struction and mass production. Finally, the obtained
results were analyzed through the EFA method. A 63
items questionnaire has been designed based on the
identified obstacles for constructability implementa-
tion. The survey instrument asked the respondents to
rate the importance of each 63 barriers using a nine-
point scale with items ranged from 1 (strongly low)
to 9 (strongly high) for conducting Robust EFA
(Stenbacka 2001). The target of this study is different
experts in this industry working in diverse areas,
including owners, consultants and contractors. These
people in turn have had many experiences in similar
and divers projects. The features for respondents of
this study include:
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT 9
At least 10 years of work experience
Undergraduate or higher education in the field of
construction
Having work experience
Direct cooperation in the studied project
In order to gather data from the respondents, at
first, the companies and related experts were identi-
fied, then they were asked to fill the questionnaire
and finally, they filled and replied the questionnaires.
Totally, 650 questionnaires were sent out to the
respondents, 375 questionnaires were gathered and
330 usable questionnaires were used for the data ana-
lysis (response rate: 0.51). Sample size of 330 seems
to be adequate for conducting robust EFA (recom-
mended ratio of 5:1).
The research steps including identifying barriers
for constructability implementation, instrument devel-
opment, Targeting and reaching-out research sample,
data collection, data analysis using the EFA technique
and finally analyzing and discussing the results is
shown in Figure 1.
EFA is a frequently used method to discover pat-
terns of multidimensional constructs that are subse-
quently used for the development of measurement
scales. Its major objective is to reduce a number of
observed variables to fewer factors in order to
enhance interpretability and detect hidden structures
in the data. Here, robust EFA using IBM SPSS 25.0
was employed to perform the analysis. The aim of
this method is quantitative categorization of obstacles
to constructability implementation. Next section anal-
yses the collected data from questionnaire sur-
vey performed.
Data analysis
Prior to running the EFA, a test was conducted to
verify the adequacy of the data for FA. The Kaiser-
Meyer-Olkin (KMO) was calculated to insure sam-
pling adequacy. The KMO for the sample, is 0.75
which is above the ‘Mediocre’threshold of 0.5 (Kaiser
1974). Furthermore, we also performed a Bartlett
sphericity test, which was statistically significant
(p<0.05), indicating the eligibility of the data. Then,
we used a Shapiro–Wilk test to determine whether
our sample had a normal distribution. We found that
none of our variables was normally distributed. Thus,
principal component analysis was our choice for the
factor extraction method as proposed in robust EFA.
The rotation method should also be selected for the
robust EFA purpose. Oblimin rotation, which is pro-
posed in robust EFA was used in this research.
Finally, the number of factors to be extracted from
the data were determined based on Eigen values
greater than one, and an absolute factor loading val-
ues greater than 0.6. As a result, 34 out of 63 factors
were dropped from the initial pool and remained 29
factors were grouped into five components. The
results can be seen from Table 2.
Extraction method used is principle component
analysis and the rotation method used is Oblimin. To
indicate the meaning of the components, they have
been given short labels indicating their content. Since
the results of this stage were open to several interpre-
tations, we decided to use experts’opinions here. So,
three project managers were invited and based on the
discussions on the factors meanings in each compo-
nent, five ‘Organizational’,‘Managerial’,
‘Environmental’,‘Contractual’and finally ‘Technical’
labels were assigned to the extracted components. The
final results are shown in the Table 3.
Discussion
Based on the percentage of variance shown in the
Table 2, the order of effective factors is organiza-
tional, managerial, technical, contractual and environ-
mental. According to the findings of researchers,
organizational obstacles are the most significant ones.
Resolving these obstacles require changing methods,
organizational culture and awareness of the executive
potential of issues at the level of organizations and
projects. Due to the constructability to influence the
cost-effectiveness and time progression to achieve
optimal conditions, consideration of the design’sin
the early stages of the project life cycle is necessary
(O’Connor 1995).
Many of the problems related to constructability
are the result of lack of communication among
employers, architect or designer and construction
companies, before starting the project (IPENZ 2008).
Architects and engineers and designers—given the
nature of their performance—are not experts in the
Instrument development
Using robust EFA for data analysis
Data collection
Identifying barriers for constructability
implementation
Figure 1. The research steps.
10 S. JADIDALESLAMI ET AL.
TABLE 2. The results of robust EFA.
The results of robust EFA 1 2 3 4 5
Resistance to change and the consent of the status quo 0.81
Reluctance to innovation and creativity 0.73
Cultural barriers due to the traditional view and flexible vision 0.75
Lack of sufficient knowledge 0.80
Lack of existence of systematic organizing structure 0.79
Resistance to the early builders in the initial stages of the project and financial investment 0.70
Lack of effective reward and punishment standards 0.71
Reluctance of executive staff to offer pre-implementation consultation 0.75
Lack of existence of a strong support program to promote creativity 0.73
Lack of presenting regular reports about the work trend 0.70
Lack of documenting experiences and knowledge of successful projects 0.76
Inappropriate methods of labor recruitment 0.8
Contrast of objectives of organization and project 0.71
Not having the correct attitude to the constructability of an investment opportunity 0.78
The absence of communication tool and lack of transparency of information 0.80
Weakness in engineering and construction quality 0.73
Lack of executive experience in design team 0.80
Lack of knowledge about construction technologies 0.81
Lack of applying development tools and equipment 0.79
Lack of flexibility in standards and regulations of design and implement 0.72
Not paying attention to executive abilities in selecting contractors and consultants 0.73
Existence of traditional contracts 0.75
Inappropriate contractual strategies 0.71
Lack of flexibility in contracts 0.88
Incorrect time, methods and criteria for the selection of contractors 0.81
The long process of dispute resolution 0.75
Lack of knowledge of employers about benefits and advantages of applying constructability 0.81
Contractor’s unwillingness to cooperate in the design phase of the project 0.88
Exerting personal tastes and restricting the final decision making right for the owner 0.87
%of variance 21.54 17.92 15.13 13.41 11.07
Cumulative %39.46 54.59 68.00 79.07
TABLE 3. Extracted components and their related factors.
Component name Factors
Organizational Resistance to change and the consent of the status quo
Reluctance to innovation and creativity
Cultural barriers due to the traditional view and flexible vision
Lack of sufficient knowledge
Lack of existence of systematic organizing structure
Resistance to the early builders in the initial stages of the project and financial investment
Lack of effective reward and punishment standards
Reluctance of executive staff to offer pre-implementation consultation
Managerial Lack of existence of a strong support program
Lack of presenting regular reports about the work trend
Not having educating and encouraging program for promoting creativity and critical thinking
Lack of documenting experiences and knowledge of successful projects
Inappropriate methods of labor recruitment
Lack of coordination and cooperation in teamwork
Lack of integrity among key members of project team
Contrast of objectives of organization and project
Lack of motivation
Lack of using ideas of project stakeholders
Inappropriate management practices in design teams
Not having the correct attitude to the constructability of an investment opportunity
The absence of communication tool and lack of transparency of information
Technical Weakness in engineering and construction quality
Lack of executive experience in design team
Lack of knowledge about construction technologies
Lack of applying development tools and equipment
Lack of flexibility in standards and regulations of design and implement
Contractual Not paying attention to executive abilities in selecting contractors and consultants
Existence of traditional contracts
Inappropriate contractual strategies
Lack of flexibility in contracts
Incorrect time, methods and criteria for the selection of contractors
The long process of dispute resolution
Environmental Lack of knowledge of employers about benefits and advantages of applying constructability
Contractor’s unwillingness to cooperate in the design phase of the project
Exerting personal tastes and restricting the final decision making right for the owner
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT 11
construction executive methods. For this reason and
other reasons, sharing responsibilities determines
most of performance-based features and programs,
the final result and applications (Glavinich 1995).
Lack of communication between designers and con-
tractors usually covers performance features in a hid-
den or explicit form. By integrating constructability in
the design process in the early stages of the project,
construction disputes will be reduced, and as a result,
project delivery will be more secure (IPENZ 2008).
Considering managerial obstacles, it should be
mentioned that managerial factors usually originate
from internal forces of the organization, special
obstacles, challenges, orientations and determinant
effects (Bullen 1981). Therefore, it is reasonable that
they follow organizational obstacles in terms of
significance.
In terms of technical obstacles, an overview shows
that most of these obstacles are due to lack of know-
ledge and experience of teams involved in the project,
especially the design team. The plan of constructabil-
ity to better achieve project objectives is integrating
engineering design and execution, and executive
knowledge and experience. However, designer’s partial
understanding of construction and execution require-
ments and owners’resistance to constructability due
to extra costs of the project are main obstacles to its
implementation. The barriers and technical challenges
in the classification given in this paper are important
and relevant factors such as ‘Lack of mutual respect
between designer and builder’,‘Lack of enough infor-
mation between designer and builder’,‘Separate man-
agerial process in design and construction’,‘Lack of
monitoring of matching design objectives and execu-
tive criteria’,‘Lack of executive experience in design
team’,‘lack of evaluating applicability of designs’and
‘Lack of integrating design science and executive
experience’are evaluated.
Mainly, a constructability program causes a cost
that is added to the design cost, and may harm the
company in the competition. And effective construct-
ability program begins during planning phase and
conceptually continues to the end of construction
(Arditi et al. 2002). Most of the categorized obstacles
in this group refer to inappropriate plans without the
possibility to implement them. Executive engineers
usually have problem with designer engineers because
it is not possible to implement the plan and/or
contradictory and non-executive plans (Hui-Hsuan
et al. 2013).
Because of inappropriate contractual strategies in
the construction industry, project stakeholders and
key agents’cooperation is too limited. This issue
causes lack of constructability of the plan and also
financial losses (Jadidoleslami et al. 2016). In the con-
ventional contractual structure, information flow and
entrance of various project agents are done discon-
tinuously, and the employer states his/her objective,
consultants develop and design it, public contractors
receive the plan and partial contractors construct it.
Many experts believe that this method is very ineffect-
ive and leads to wasting a lot of resources and costs
and prevents optimum implementation of the project.
As a principle, the expense of making any changes in
the project increases over time, whether this change is
toward plan optimization, or correcting its deficien-
cies (JadidolEslami et al. 2016). Effective factors such
as ‘Existence of traditional contracts’,‘Inappropriate
contractual strategies’,‘Lack of flexibility in contracts’,
and ‘contrast of objectives of organization and project’
presented in Table 2 show the relevance and import-
ance of this issue.
Environmental factors originate from major envir-
onmental effects, such as economic conditions,
technological advancements, etc. that are beyond our
control to a large extent. Factors related to competi-
tive strategy, stabilize or grow the situation of indus-
try or technology in the market through better quality
or lower cost (Bullen 1981). Yet, environmental
obstacles to implement constructability have over-
lapped with managerial obstacles, which indicate that
focusing on improving management or changing
managerial performance can provide appropriate dir-
ection for studies to find solutions to resolve these
obstacles (Jadidoleslami et al. 2016).
Major obstacles to organizational and managerial
performance have emphasized improvement of
experience in the design team. Employers’lack of
awareness and traditional view toward benefits of
constructability, are also among major obstacles con-
sidered by researchers in the evaluated studies. Other
factors, such as traditional contracts, engineering gap,
and lack of supervision and incentive plans are
among the obstacles that have been considered less
and it seems that they require more discussion and
attention to realize facilitation of implementing this
concept. Given the undeniable benefits of construct-
ability, finding these obstacles in the construction
projects, provides a clearer view to the construction
stage for planners and designers. Moreover, identify-
ing these obstacles, efforts can be done to
resolve them.
12 S. JADIDALESLAMI ET AL.
Conclusion
In this study, at first a comprehensive list of obstacles
to constructability implementation was developed as a
questionnaire using literature review and examining
projects applied constructability. Then, this question-
naire was offered to project managers, employers,
consultants and contractors active in the field of con-
struction and mass production. The obtained results
were analyzed by EFA method. From 63 asked items,
35 items were about obstacles to constructability
implementation in the construction industry. Then,
they were categorized by some of the experts of this
industry into five groups of macro factors, including:
organizational, technical, contractual, environmental
and managerial.
This study shows that organizational macro factors
are the most significant obstacles to constructability
implementation in Iran. What is important is that
ignoring the effects of poor design or decision making
can seriously result in incompatibility in the perform-
ance of construction projects such as increased costs
and time of construction, and reduced quality.
Successful construction projects without simultaneous
review and reform of the design process and con-
struction and parallel applying of knowledge and
experience are impossible. Examining the available
conditions and problems related to facilitating the
presence of contractors in the early stages of study
and design to improve constructability, will pave the
road for implementing this concept in the men-
tioned projects.
As a potential for future works, researchers may
follow qualitative research methods such as case stud-
ies to investigate obstacles to constructability imple-
mentation in similar or other settings. Case study is a
useful method in studying such a subject. Moreover,
future works could focus on more specific areas such
as contractual, environmental, project management,
organizational obstacles and alike, so that more
detailed and in-depth information or deep-rooted
obstacles could be identified. Moreover, future
researches can move beyond listing obstacles and
could explore the interrelationships between them or
the effect of these obstacles on projects’outcome.
Furthermore, future studies might focus on finding
solutions to solve these obstacles for constructability
implementation through taking conditions of the con-
struction industry into account, applying expert opin-
ions, and considering the identified obstacles and
their significance. Particularly, scholars should try to
find a functional model to implement this concept in
the urban construction projects.
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