Strategies for minimising rework in the building construction industry in Ghana

Abstract

Rework is an endemic problem in building construction projects and it is an area of research that has received limited attention. Recent research has shown that rework is the primary cause of time and schedule overruns in projects and that rework levels do not significantly differ between current procurement methods despite calls from government for the use of more integrated procurement approaches such as design-and-construct to improve project performance. The study adopted a quantitative research approach involving the administration of survey questionnaires to a simple random sample of 89 architects.The findings revealed eight key factors underlying rework on construction sites. The factors included; high employee turnover and unrealistic schedules, lack of experience and knowledge of design and of the construction process, re-construction due to quality failures, pressure for early completion, on site correction of errors in design, lack of design coordination and integration, inadequacies in contract documentation and client initiated changes in design and execution. Further findings of the study revealed four key effects of rework in construction industry in Ghana as including; increased expenses of labour wages and pay, increased expenditure on building materials, increased time to construct the project and/or correct errors and increased total cost of project. Also, six key strategies for minimizing or preventing rework in the construction industry included; monitoring as the project proceeds, brainstorming in meetings, risk identification, probability analysis, checklist of risk factors and deducing from past experience. Key challenges to minimising or preventing rework included; carelessness of workers, uncertainty about design changes from client, adverse behaviour of some workers, and difficulty in supervision and unclear specification and recruitment problems University of Education,Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh xiii in getting the right calibre of workers. Based on the findings, the study recommends that Architects should review newly released working drawings in order to prevent any field inconsistency prior to construction, intensify supervision during the execution stage of the project, liaise with the contractor during recruitment of personnel for the project and there is the need for consensus on a workable mechanism to bring together the client, consultant and the contractor to minimize change orders and introduction of additional works during construction phase.