ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPMENT OF A MODEL FOR THE CAUSES OF COST AND TIME OVERRUNS IN ENGINEERING PROJECTS

Cost and time overruns have been the most disgusting problems in most engineering projects. There are number of factors such as funds unavailability at the proper time, unavailability of skilled manpower, incapability of management to manage project properly, lack of commitment from project team and problems in the of supply of raw material on time. By understanding the causes of cost and time overruns, we can control cost and time overruns in engineering projects. These overruns may be due to external or internal factors that make engineering projects to delay and over budget. The main objective of this research is to explore the causes of overruns in engineering projects and to develop a model to overcome these causes. Literature review, personal visits to various engineering projects and data have been collected to explore the causes of overruns in the delayed engineering projects and to determine the types of delays causing overruns in terms of time and cost. Results indicate that most important factor to complete engineering projects on time and avoid budget overruns is the commitment and loyalty of the project team especially the top management. The commitment in true spirit of the project team and the management can be enhanced through clan type organizational culture in the project team as depicted by Cameron, K. S. and Quinn(1). The data of this research was analyzed using SPSS and a model was developed to overcome the causes of overrun in engineering projects.