Construction Delay Disputes: a Model for a Reduction in the Escalation of Technical and Factual Disagreements

Although construction delays are often inevitable, the escalation of construction delay claims is problematic as it is a leading and persistent cause of costly disputes. Such claims involve disagreements over legal, technical and factual matters. Disputed delay assessments are at the core of the latter. This research involves the analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of academic and professional literature, and twenty-one case studies involving construction, infrastructure, and engineering projects located on three continents. While the literature has been highly critical of the current approaches to the measurement and management of construction delays, it has not offered a comprehensive solution to this issue. This paper finds that a reduction of construction delay disputes can be achieved by using a model of work based upon the use of (i) reliable source materials; (ii) information repositories and technologies to produce, validate, and share such source materials, and (iii) mechanisms that increase contractual certainty, namely delay analysis protocols. Such a model of work offers an advanced solution that is likely to increase agreements on the impact of delays during the contract administration phase of construction projects and thus reduce the current rate of escalation of claims into disputes.