W8_Mohammed_ Most Common causes of Change Orders In Sudan Projects

Problem definition

“Projects in Sudan are experiencing far to many change orders. This analysis is to explore what are the causes and how can we reduce the number of change orders”. I have published this chapter earlier in another group, however here I modified it as per the CfH comments.

Development of the feasible alternatives

-Design Change

-Project resources/Material

-Wrong Estimation

-Unforeseen Conditions

Development of the outcomes for each alternative

·   The project's work was incorrectly estimated

·   The customer or project team discovers obstacles or possible efficiencies that require them to deviate from the original plan

·   The customer or project team are inefficient or incapable of completing their required deliverable within budget, and additional money, time, or resources must be added to the project

·   During the course of the project, additional features or options are perceived and requested

·   The contractor looks for work items to add to the original scope of work at a later time in order to achieve the lowest possible base bid price, but then add work items and fee back on once the contractor has been hired for the work. This is an exploitative practice.

Accepted Criteria

Considering the use of root cause analysis and the Ordinal Ranking, the causes was evaluated and ranked accordingly.

Analysis and comparison of the alternatives

The Causes for change requests/orders in oil & gas projects has been analyzed by the cause & effect fish-bone diagram.

Cause and Effect Diagram, Author

Table 1-1 Ordinal Ranking of Changer order causes attributes:

Attribute	Rank
A-Result of Paired Comparisons
Design Change > Wrong Estimation	Design Change affect more than Wrong Estimation
Design Change > Unforeseen Conditions	Design Change affect more than Unforeseen Conditions
Design Change > Project resources/Material	Design Change affect more than Project resources/Material
Wrong Estimation > Unforeseen Conditions	Wrong Estimation affect more than Unforeseen Conditions
Project resources/Material > Wrong Estimation	Project resources/Material affect more than Wrong Estimation
Project resources/Material > Unforeseen Conditions	Project resources/Material affect more than Unforeseen Conditions
B-Attribute	Number of time on left > (=Ordinal Ranking)
Design Change	3
Wrong Estimation	1
Project resources/Material	2
Unforeseen Conditions	0
Rank of 3 = most important, Rank of 0 = least important

Selection of the preferred alternatives

Following table 1-1, the cause’s impact on the change order could be ranked as follows (starting with highest):

1.      Design Change

2.      Project resources/Material

3.      Wrong Estimation

4.      Unforeseen Conditions

Performance monitoring and the post evaluation of results

Considering the above ranking, the main causes of change orders in Sudan oil & gas projects, is a design change translated in a poor ITB, the same delivered to the contractor with a lot of mistakes and missing parts, as a result of missing standardized WBS to put the owner and the contractor in the same track.

Conclusion

One of the main causes of change order is the poor planning of the project which lead to poor ITB. Adopting a standard WBS will minimize the number of change orders, and put contractor and owner in the same train. At the construction stage, the coordination and communication amongst various parties working on the project is of great importance to improve management and this controls problems and reduce change order

References

Ø      Michael Barssad, Diane Ritter. (2010). the Memory Jogger 2. Chapter Cause and effect/fish bone diagram, 34.

Ø      Juan Rodriguez. (2011). Common Causes for a Change Order. Retrieved from http://www.construction.about.com/od/Claims-Management/a/Common-Causes-For-A-Change-Order.htm

Ø      Elrashid, M. (2011). Blog W_2 Reasons behind change orders in Sudan. Retrieved from http://www. Kristal2011aace.wordpress.com