Assessment Of Employer’s Requirement Changes In Public Building Construction Projects: A Case Of Jimma Town

Abstract

Employer requirements are the most vital substance for project existence. For the reason that, building construction projects emanated from employer requirements. As well, requirements are the necessary inputs of the design and specification of the project to be constructed. Thus, when these requirement changes occurred recurrently during the construction of a facility, it will be the cause of design and specification changes, ultimately it disturbs the schedules, consequently, exerted some impacts on the successful completion of the project. The main objective of the study is to assess employer’s recurring requirement changes in public building construction projects in Jimma Town. The research method used was descriptive types. The study population was public building construction projects and purposive sampling methods were employed. A total of 71 survey questionnaires ware distributed to consultants, contractors, and employers and 62 (87.32%) of valid questionnaires returned. Interviews were also conducted with four key personnel, and the data were analyzed with Microsoft Excel and SPSS 21and a discussion was followed. As per the findings of this study the major causes that enforced employer to requirement changes recurrently identified and ranked 1 up to 10 respectively were; Lack of careful checking and correcting planning documents, lack of effective risk management, planning, and monitoring structures, Poor project management and planning skill, Inadequate pre construction study, and review of design documents, Inadequate experience in requirement identification at the planning phase, Misunderstanding of employer’s requirements during design by designer, Inflation and price fluctuation, Failure of communication amongst parties involved within a construction project, change in scope or mission, lack of a systematic approach in clarifying and representing requirements. The study also revealed that the most significant impacts of employer recurring requirement changes on project successful completions were; increase cost of the project, claim and dispute between contracting parties, delay in delivery of the project, disruption of work progress, and material supply system. The result of the study shows, in the current practice of requirement management end-users are rarely involved at the early stage of the project development process to identify requirements, employers rarely allocated time and money on briefing process, most of the time stakeholders never use a proper change control system to control change request, rarely employ information system to manage employer requirements, never made impact analysis before approval of changes, mostly never assigned employer requirement manager in the projects, and mostly never train their personnel who are not experienced in requirement management. Generally, based on the findings, it is concluded that employer’s requirement changes were the main problems encountered recurrently during construction and negatively impacted the successful completion of public building construction projects in Jimma town. To alleviate those problems the stakeholders should make an impact analysis before the change is approved, allocate adequate time and money on the briefing process, and give emphasis on requirement management