Investigation of conflict impacts on engineering, procurement, and construction schedule performance

Most construction projects are subject to disagreements among the primary stakeholders (owners, engineers/designers, and contractors) which, if not addressed and resolved in a timely manner, become very time consuming and costly. Although these conflicts and disagreements have the potential to adversely affect project schedule performance and success, their undesired consequences rarely have been studied. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the impact of the primary stakeholders� internal and external conflicts on engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) schedule performance. To achieve this objective, potential conflict scenarios were initially defined. Then, data associated with 30 completed case studies of construction projects was collected and analyzed. Two-sample t-test statistical tests were utilized to assess the impact of various potential conflict scenarios on project schedule performance. Next, Cohen�s d method was utilized to measure the weights associated with each of the identified scenarios. It was concluded from the results that internal conflicts among contractors and external conflicts between designers and contractors have a significant impact on schedule performance associated with the engineering, procurement, and construction phases. Additionally, the results revealed that conflicts within contractor entities seriously affect the design and procurement schedule performance. This study will assist project managers in effectively allocating resources, based on their impact on schedule performance throughout the project. The findings of this study will also provide guidance to project decision makers, helping them proactively plan how to effectively address disagreements at the early stages of their lifecycle.