The effects of capital projects delays on project budget and quality: company in Richards Bay.

Abstract

On time delivery of projects, within budget and of the level of quality standard required by the customer is the core of successful project delivery. This dissertation aimed at understanding the capital project delays, identifying the factors causing capital project delays and investigating effects of project delays on project budget and quality at Company Capital Projects (CCP) in Richards Bay. The researcher covered the general background on project schedule outside and inside CCP in Richards Bay. In-depth literature review has served as a guide in scrutinizing the project management in terms of the project schedule, project finance and project deliverables. This literature review allowed comparing the effects of project delays in CCP with that on the literature review. Quantitative research method was used and the method of data collection involved survey with questionnaire which was distributed to 22 participants of the project management team that works directly with projects namely the Project Director, Principal Project Manager, Project Managers, Project Planners, Project Quantity Surveyors, Project Cost Engineers, Project Contract Administrators, Project Accountants and Project Quality Officer. The findings of the study were based on 20 questionnaires that were completed, response rate of 90.9%. The result of the questionnaire survey has helped identify factors that caused capital project delays and 46 critical factors were identified in this study that caused project delays and were further categorised into four underlying clusters namely: (i) owner related delay factors; (ii) consultant related delay factors; (iii) contractor related delay factors; and (iv) external related delay factors. The investigated effects of project delays on project cost and quality in CCP, the study revealed that project delays impact on budget and quality of a project. The outcome of this study should be that the project management team at CCP will be aware of the extent to which project delays can impact on their project delivery, it should guide efforts to enhance project performance, and should enable the avoidance or minimisation of project delays at CCP.

Keywords: Capital projects delays, project budget, project quality.