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International Journal of Construction Management

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Constructability obstacles: an exploratory factoranalysis approach

Samereh jadidoleslami, Ehsan Saghatforoush & Ahad Zare Ravasan

To cite this article: Samereh jadidoleslami, Ehsan Saghatforoush & Ahad Zare Ravasan (2018):Constructability obstacles: an exploratory factor analysis approach, International Journal ofConstruction Management, DOI: 10.1080/15623599.2018.1534044

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15623599.2018.1534044

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Constructability obstacles: an exploratory factor analysis approach

Samereh jadidoleslamia, Ehsan Saghatforoushb and Ahad Zare Ravasanc

aProject and Construction Management, Mehralborz Institute of Higher Education, Tehran, Iran; bSchool of Construction Economicsand Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa; cDepartment of Corporate Economy, Faculty ofEconomics and Administration, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

ABSTRACTConstructability is a concept with relative and not absolute value to increase optimization cap-acity of resources such as workforce, time, cost, quality, and working environment conditions.Given the growing complexity of projects and the increased number of failed and abandonedprojects, the necessity to implement constructability in projects has become more tangible.Although the effects of lack of quantitative definition of constructability role in the traditionalconstruction approaches are evident and have led to lack of coordination in performance ofconstruction projects, so far no comprehensive quantitative approach has been considered toanalyze the obstacles to constructability implementation. This study aims to identify and cat-egorize the obstacles to facilitating the presence of contractors in the early stages of planningand design to implement constructability. In this study a comprehensive list of obstacles to con-structability implementation is developed as a questionnaire. This questionnaire was presentedto the experts, active in the field of construction. Finally, its results were analyzed using explora-tory factor analysis method. Totally, 63 obstacles were questioned, then they were categorizedby some of the experts of this industry into five categories of macro factors, including contrac-tual, environmental, managerial, technical, and organizational. The significance of this study isdue to this fact that identifying and categorizing the key obstacles to constructability implemen-tation provides a useful reference for managers and owners of the construction industry to iden-tify and develop solutions to resolve them. Identifying the obstacles to the presence ofcontractors in the planning and design stage and having a quantitative view toward this issueaffects project implementability. In this regard, one can present more effective solutions to facili-tate the presence of contractors in the early stages of design and also improves the effective-ness of constructability.

KEYWORDSConstructability; construct-ability obstacles; civilprojects; constructionindustry; exploratory factoranalysis (EFA)

Introduction

‘Constructability the extent to which the design of abuilding facilitates ease of construction as well as theextent to which the adoption of construction techni-ques and processes affects the productivity level ofbuilding works’ (Authority 2017). Constructability isone of the project management methods to evaluatethe whole construction process. It is defined as a con-cept with relative, not absolute, value to increase opti-mization capacity of resources, such as workforce,time, cost, quality and working environment condi-tions. During a construction project from the earlystage of planning up to delivery and maintenancethere are many restrictions to implement construct-ability (Shin et al. 1989). Project success is notachieved unless through reviewing the construction

process and integrating the design and implementa-tion stages. Given the growing complexity of projectsand the increased number of failed and abandonedprojects, the necessity to implement constructabilityin projects has become more tangible (Wonget al. 2005).

Due to the designer’s poor executive information,lack of presence of executive contractors in the earlystages of study and design, leads to duplications,reduction of executive capacity of the plan, andincreased time and costs (Saghatforoush 2014).Constructability achievements can be used for meet-ing future needs, including (Lueprasert 1996) identify-ing poorly designed structure due to mistakes andnon-executive decisions of the plan in the conceptualstudies phase. Executive engineers have problems with

CONTACT Ehsan Saghatforoush ehsan.saghatforoush@wits.ac.za School of Construction Economics and Management, University of theWitwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.� 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENThttps://doi.org/10.1080/15623599.2018.1534044

designer engineers during the construction process,often because it is not possible to implement the plan,and/or contradictory and non-executive plans (Hui-Hsuan et al. 2013). With regard to the study of con-structibility literature, this is a long-term issue andshould be continually pursued, and, as far as possible,it should be possible to eliminate and mitigate theseproblems, as well as facilitate the construction, beforemaking it, taking into account existing barriers. Focuson focus (Yustisia 2014)

Studies conducted during 1960 to 1970, indicatethat the origin of many complex problems in the con-struction industry is due to lack of integration ofknowledge and experience in the framework of designand construction. This issue directly affects projects’time, cost and quality. Here, the necessity to applyconstructability became more tangible (IPENZ 2008).Primary studies to find obstacles to facilitating con-structability related to the United States constructionindustry, were conducted in 1979 by Faculty ofConstruction Industry Research using qualitativemethods. Following that, most of the studies wereconducted by qualitative methods and focusing oncase studies e.g. (O’Connor 1994; O’Connor 1995;Zolfagharian et al. 2012; Saghatforoush 2014;Jadidoleslami et al. 2016). In addition, since the con-structability concept is relatively a new idea in devel-oping countries, most articles in this field arequalitative studies without quantitative data. Eventhough lack of quantitative evaluation related to theeffects of constructability on the traditional approachesof construction was evident and led to lack of coord-ination in the performance of construction projects,till now there is no comprehensive quantitativeapproach to analyze the obstacles to constructabilityimplementation (Zimmer 2006). Project success is notachieved unless through reviewing the constructionprocess and integrating the design and implementationstages. Yet, such an approach provides an appropriatesubjective context for experts and employers in thisfield to accept and implement constructability.

The aim of this study is evaluating the currentobstacles related to the presence of contractors in theearly stages of planning and design, and exploratoryfactor analysis (EFA) to implement constructability.The next section addresses the previous literaturesconducted in this field.

Constructability

Five important rules for effective evaluation of con-structability are considering project construction

instead of focusing on problems, reviewing the inter-ference of various applied systems in implementation,documenting primary information, focusing on sig-nificant factors, such as qualitative factors and teamdesigning and finally allocating sufficient time fordetailed reviewing of constructability in the project,Although, principal review of constructability maytake several weeks and even months, for each timespent on planning and reviewing, significant amountof time will be saved in the construction stage. Thereis a wrong idea stating that at first, constructabilitystudies should be done completely, while this is com-pletely wrong and has a reverse effect (Smith 2013).

Constructability is a project management techniquefor reviewing the whole construction process. Beforeproject implementation, it will reduce or prevent mis-takes, delays, and overflow costs, through identifyingthe obstacles (Primer 1986). Due to constructabilityeffect on costs and time progress to achieve optimumconditions, considering plan constructability in theearly stages of project lifecycle is necessary (Griffithand Sidwell 1995).

Constructability program refers to integratingengineering design, and executive knowledge andexperience to better achieve project objectives.However, partial comprehension of designers of con-struction and implementation requirements, andresistance of owners to constructability due to extravisible costs in the project, are main obstacles to itsimplementation. Generally, constructability results ina cost added to other expenses and may harm thecompany in the competition. An effective construct-ability program will begin during the planning phaseand will continue conceptually to the end of construc-tion (Arditi et al. 2002). Many of the problems andissues of constructability are because of lack of com-munication among employers, architects, designers,and construction companies before starting the pro-ject (IPENZ 2008).

Architects, engineers and designers—according tothe specific nature of their performance—are notexperts of executive methods. For this reason and alsothe reasons for sharing responsibility, most of the per-formance-based features and programs determine thefinal result and applications (Glavinich 1995). Lack ofcommunication among designers and contractorscover overtly performance features. By integratingconstructability in the design process in the earlystages of the project, construction contradiction willbe less, and consequently, project delivery will bemore secure (IPENZ 2008). Resolving these obstaclesrequire changing the methods, organizational culture

2 S. JADIDALESLAMI ET AL.

TABLE1.

Theidentifiedcodesforconstructabilityob

stacles.

Code

(JO’Con

nor-

1995)

(Jam

esT.O’

Conn

or-1994)

(George

Jergeas-

2001)

(Zolfagh

arian.

etal.-

2012)

(Jam

esT.O’

Conn

or-1988)

(By

Deborah

J.Fisher-

2000)

(Thabet-

2000)

(Franky

etal.

-2007)

(Trig

unarsyah

-2003)

(LiJiang

-2013)

(Eric

J.Hanlon-2001)(S

heehan

-1991)

(FOXet

al.

-2010)

(Russell

-1994)

(ScottD.W

illiams-

2007)

(Malek-

2011)(Lew

is-

2001)

1.Resistance

tochange

and

theconsentof

thestatus

quo

2.Noofficial

commitm

ent

for

implem

entin

g3.

Disho

nesty

4.Risk

aversion

anddistrust

tobu

ilders

5.misconceptio

nof

thisissue

that

construct-

ability

leadsto

delay

inprojects

6.Reluctance

toinno

vatio

nandcreativity

7.Cu

lturalb

arriers

dueto

the

tradition

alview

andflex-

ible

vision

8.Lack

ofmutual

respect

between

design

erandbu

ilder

9.Weaksup-

portprog

ram

10.Irregular

repo

rtsabou

ttheworktrend

11.D

elegating

respon

sibilities

topeop

lewith

low

risktaking

12.N

oencourag-

ingprog

ram

for

prom

otingcre-

ativity

andcrit-

ical

thinking

13.Lackof

docu-

mentin

g

(continued)

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT 3

TABLE1.

Continued.

Code

(JO’Con

nor-

1995)

(Jam

esT.O’

Conn

or-1994)

(George

Jergeas-

2001)

(Zolfagh

arian.

etal.-

2012)

(Jam

esT.O’

Conn

or-1988)

(By

Deborah

J.Fisher-

2000)

(Thabet-

2000)

(Franky

etal.

-2007)

(Trig

unarsyah

-2003)

(LiJiang

-2013)

(Eric

J.Hanlon-2001)(S

heehan

-1991)

(FOXet

al.

-2010)

(Russell

-1994)

(ScottD.W

illiams-

2007)

(Malek-

2011)(Lew

is-

2001)

experiences

andknow

ledg

eof

success-

fulp

rojects

14.Lackof

apply-

ingprom

otional

toolsto

sell

plans

toem

ployers

15.Inapp

ropriate

metho

dsof

labo

rrecruitm

ent

16.Lackof

enou

ghinfor-

mation

between

design

erand

builder

(poor

commun

ication

skills)

17.Lackof

coord-

inationand

coop

eration

inteam

work

18.Lackof

focus

ofteam

oncommon

objectives

19.Inabilityin

identifying

prob

lemsand

oppo

rtun

ities

20.Lackof

integ-

rityam

ongkey

mem

bers

ofprojectteam

21.Separateman-

agerialp

rocess

indesign

and

constructio

n22.N

otpaying

attentionto

executiveabil-

ities

inselecting

(continued)

4 S. JADIDALESLAMI ET AL.

TABLE1.

Continued.

Code

(JO’Con

nor-

1995)

(Jam

esT.O’

Conn

or-1994)

(George

Jergeas-

2001)

(Zolfagh

arian.

etal.-

2012)

(Jam

esT.O’

Conn

or-1988)

(By

Deborah

J.Fisher-

2000)

(Thabet-

2000)

(Franky

etal.

-2007)

(Trig

unarsyah

-2003)

(LiJiang

-2013)

(Eric

J.Hanlon-2001)(S

heehan

-1991)

(FOXet

al.

-2010)

(Russell

-1994)

(ScottD.W

illiams-

2007)

(Malek-

2011)(Lew

is-

2001)

23.Lackof

mon

i-torin

gof

matching

design

objec-

tives

and

executive

criteria

24.C

ontrastof

objectives

oforganizatio

nandproject

25.W

eaknessin

theapprop

riate

timeof

pre-

sentinginpu

ts26.Lack

ofmotivation

27.Lackof

suffi-

cient

know

ledg

e28.Existence

oftradition

alcontracts

29.Inapp

ropriate

contractual

strategies

30.W

eaknessin

engineering

andconstruc-

tionqu

ality

31.Lackof

exist-

ence

ofsystem

-aticorganiz-

ingstructure

32.Lackof

using

ideasof

project

stakeholders

33.Inapp

ropriate

managem

ent

practices

indesign

team

s34.The

absence

ofan

approp

ri-atedatabase

relatedto

con-

structability

indesign

offices

(continued)

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT 5

TABLE1.

Continued.

Code

(JO’Con

nor-

1995)

(Jam

esT.O’

Conn

or-1994)

(George

Jergeas-

2001)

(Zolfagh

arian.

etal.-

2012)

(Jam

esT.O’

Conn

or-1988)

(By

Deborah

J.Fisher-

2000)

(Thabet-

2000)

(Franky

etal.

-2007)

(Trig

unarsyah

-2003)

(LiJiang

-2013)

(Eric

J.Hanlon-2001)(S

heehan

-1991)

(FOXet

al.

-2010)

(Russell

-1994)

(ScottD.W

illiams-

2007)

(Malek-

2011)(Lew

is-

2001)

35.Incorrect

atti-

tude

tothe

Constructability

ofan

invest-

ment

oppo

rtun

ity36.R

esistanceto

theearly

build-

ersin

theinitial

stages

ofthe

projectand

financial

investment

37.Lackof

flexibil-

ityin

contracts

38.H

ighvolume

of change

orders

39.Lackof

know

-ledg

eof

employers

abou

tbenefits

andadvantages

ofapplying

constructability

40.Lackof

surveil-

lanceon

matching

design

objec-

tives

and

executive

criteria

41.C

ontractor’s

unwillingn

ess

tocoop

eratein

thedesign

phaseof

theproject

42.P

re-im

plem

en-

tatio

nrestrictio

ns43.R

estrictio

nin

design

sdepend

ent

onow

ner

44.Lackof

effect-

iverewardand

(continued)

6 S. JADIDALESLAMI ET AL.

TABLE1.

Continued.

Code

(JO’Con

nor-

1995)

(Jam

esT.O’

Conn

or-1994)

(George

Jergeas-

2001)

(Zolfagh

arian.

etal.-

2012)

(Jam

esT.O’

Conn

or-1988)

(By

Deborah

J.Fisher-

2000)

(Thabet-

2000)

(Franky

etal.

-2007)

(Trig

unarsyah

-2003)

(LiJiang

-2013)

(Eric

J.Hanlon-2001)(S

heehan

-1991)

(FOXet

al.

-2010)

(Russell

-1994)

(ScottD.W

illiams-

2007)

(Malek-

2011)(Lew

is-

2001)

punishment

standards

45.Lackof

execu-

tiveexperience

indesign

team

46.Lackof

finan-

cial

incentive

fordesign

ers

47.lackof

know

-ledg

eabou

tconstructio

ntechno

logies

48.D

esigner

imaginationof

increasing

respon

sibilities

inimplem

ent-

ingconstruct-

ability

principles

49.Lackof

exist-

ence

oftim

ing

prog

ram

indesign

stage

50.lackof

evalu-

atingapplicabil-

ityof

design

s51.Lackof

inte-

gratingdesign

scienceand

executive

experience

52.R

eluctanceof

executivestaff

toofferpre-

implem

entatio

nconsultatio

n53.Lackof

apply-

ingdevelop-

menttools

andequipm

ent

54.Lackof

flexibil-

ityin

standards

andregu

latio

nsof

design

andimplem

ent

(continued)

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT 7

TABLE1.

Continued.

Code

(JO’Con

nor-

1995)

(Jam

esT.O’

Conn

or-1994)

(George

Jergeas-

2001)

(Zolfagh

arian.

etal.-

2012)

(Jam

esT.O’

Conn

or-1988)

(By

Deborah

J.Fisher-

2000)

(Thabet-

2000)

(Franky

etal.

-2007)

(Trig

unarsyah

-2003)

(LiJiang

-2013)

(Eric

J.Hanlon-2001)(S

heehan

-1991)

(FOXet

al.

-2010)

(Russell

-1994)

(ScottD.W

illiams-

2007)

(Malek-

2011)(Lew

is-

2001)

55.C

ompetitive

restrictio

ns56.R

estrictio

nsof

selectionin

tend

erprojects

57.Incorrect

time,

metho

dsand

criteria

forthe

selectionof

contractors

58.Exertingper-

sonaltastes

andrestrictin

gthefin

aldeci-

sion

making

right

for

theow

ner

59.The

absence

ofcommun

ica-

tiontool

and

lack

oftrans-

parencyof

inform

ation

60.The

long

pro-

cess

ofdis-

pute

resolutio

n61.The

absence

ofarealistic

planning

and

feasibility

stud

ies

62.Lackof

acul-

ture

ofteam

work

63.Lackof

sharing

theconsultant

inprojectrisk

8 S. JADIDALESLAMI ET AL.

and awareness of executive potential of issues at thelevel of organizations and projects (O’Connor 1995).

Constructability obstacles

In leading countries such as USA, Australia, Britainand Malaysia, various studies have been done toexplain constructability and to resolve the obstacles toits implementation. A guidance for constructabilitywas released by CII institute in 1986, in which con-structability is defined as optimum use of construc-tion knowledge and experience in planning, design,provisions and implementation to achieve projectoverall objectives. This institute has performed manystudies about constructability. Given the studies con-ducted by this institute about the effect of construct-ability on costs and time progress to achieveoptimum conditions, considering plan constructabilityin the early stages of project lifecycle is necessary(Griffith and Sidwell 1995). The introduced construct-ability principles by CIIA have advantages over othermodels, considering the best time of applying theseprinciples in the project lifecycle.

James O’Connor in 1994, in the article titled‘Barriers to Constructability Implementation’, qualita-tively categorized the obstacles to constructabilityimplementation. Since then, most of the availableprojects refer to some of these obstacles, and noneof which has presented a comprehensive list ofthem, or they have based their studies onO’Connor’s study. In the studies about construct-ability, called Advances in Constructability (Candlish1988), details of construction program are exam-ined. Among constructability advances, a modularlayout has been presented that improves implemen-tation through separating buildings and services. Inother studies, titled Evaluation of the role of thecontractor’s personnel in enhancing the project con-structability (Nima et al. 2001), the role of contrac-tors and their duties and commitments andlimitations and the influence of their presence onenhancing project implement-ability have been eval-uated. In another related study, calledConstruability: The Key to Reducing Investment Risk(Chasey and Schexnayder 2000), constructability andits relation to and differences with various manager-ial aspects such as TQM, value engineering,… wereexamined. Constructability concept, history, itsexpanded aspects, and advanced applied technologieshave been presented in it.

After basic studies of O’Connor in 1994, theobstacles to constructability in the guidance released

by The Institution of Professional Engineers NewZealand Incorporated under the title of constructabilitywere categorized and updated in 2008.

Similarly, after evaluating the related studies, thecodes for identified obstacles to constructabilityimplementation in the construction industry havebeen shown in Table 1.

Given the tangible benefits of this concept, lack ofattention to constructability has been identified as asignificant problem during construction projectsimplementation. Although lack of quantitative evalu-ation of constructability effects on the traditional con-struction approaches are evident and results in lack ofcoordination in the construction projects perform-ance, till now no comprehensive quantitativeapproach has been presented to analyze the obstaclesto constructability implementation.

Usually, this problem is due to inappropriatedesigns without the possibility to implement them,poor decision making when designing, and lack ofexecutive experience of the engineering design team.Executive engineers usually have problems withdesigner engineers during construction process, dueto lack of plan implement-ability, and/or contradict-ory and non-executive plans. In this study, theseobstacles are identified and categorized throughstudying and reviewing the previous literatures andusing a quantitative method described in thenext section.

Research method

In this study, a comprehensive list of obstacles toconstructability implementation has been developedin the form of a questionnaire. The questionnaireswere distributed to project managers, employers, con-sultants, and contractors active in the field of con-struction and mass production. Finally, the obtainedresults were analyzed through the EFA method. A 63items questionnaire has been designed based on theidentified obstacles for constructability implementa-tion. The survey instrument asked the respondents torate the importance of each 63 barriers using a nine-point scale with items ranged from 1 (strongly low)to 9 (strongly high) for conducting Robust EFA(Stenbacka 2001). The target of this study is differentexperts in this industry working in diverse areas,including owners, consultants and contractors. Thesepeople in turn have had many experiences in similarand divers projects. The features for respondents ofthis study include:

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT 9

� At least 10 years of work experience� Undergraduate or higher education in the field of

construction� Having work experience� Direct cooperation in the studied project

In order to gather data from the respondents, atfirst, the companies and related experts were identi-fied, then they were asked to fill the questionnaireand finally, they filled and replied the questionnaires.Totally, 650 questionnaires were sent out to therespondents, 375 questionnaires were gathered and330 usable questionnaires were used for the data ana-lysis (response rate: 0.51). Sample size of 330 seemsto be adequate for conducting robust EFA (recom-mended ratio of 5:1).

The research steps including identifying barriersfor constructability implementation, instrument devel-opment, Targeting and reaching-out research sample,data collection, data analysis using the EFA techniqueand finally analyzing and discussing the results isshown in Figure 1.

EFA is a frequently used method to discover pat-terns of multidimensional constructs that are subse-quently used for the development of measurementscales. Its major objective is to reduce a number ofobserved variables to fewer factors in order toenhance interpretability and detect hidden structuresin the data. Here, robust EFA using IBM SPSS 25.0was employed to perform the analysis. The aim ofthis method is quantitative categorization of obstaclesto constructability implementation. Next section anal-yses the collected data from questionnaire sur-vey performed.

Data analysis

Prior to running the EFA, a test was conducted toverify the adequacy of the data for FA. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) was calculated to insure sam-pling adequacy. The KMO for the sample, is 0.75which is above the ‘Mediocre’ threshold of 0.5 (Kaiser

1974). Furthermore, we also performed a Bartlettsphericity test, which was statistically significant(p< 0.05), indicating the eligibility of the data. Then,we used a Shapiro–Wilk test to determine whetherour sample had a normal distribution. We found thatnone of our variables was normally distributed. Thus,principal component analysis was our choice for thefactor extraction method as proposed in robust EFA.The rotation method should also be selected for therobust EFA purpose. Oblimin rotation, which is pro-posed in robust EFA was used in this research.Finally, the number of factors to be extracted fromthe data were determined based on Eigen valuesgreater than one, and an absolute factor loading val-ues greater than 0.6. As a result, 34 out of 63 factorswere dropped from the initial pool and remained 29factors were grouped into five components. Theresults can be seen from Table 2.

Extraction method used is principle componentanalysis and the rotation method used is Oblimin. Toindicate the meaning of the components, they havebeen given short labels indicating their content. Sincethe results of this stage were open to several interpre-tations, we decided to use experts’ opinions here. So,three project managers were invited and based on thediscussions on the factors meanings in each compo-nent, five ‘Organizational’, ‘Managerial’,‘Environmental’, ‘Contractual’ and finally ‘Technical’labels were assigned to the extracted components. Thefinal results are shown in the Table 3.

Discussion

Based on the percentage of variance shown in theTable 2, the order of effective factors is organiza-tional, managerial, technical, contractual and environ-mental. According to the findings of researchers,organizational obstacles are the most significant ones.Resolving these obstacles require changing methods,organizational culture and awareness of the executivepotential of issues at the level of organizations andprojects. Due to the constructability to influence thecost-effectiveness and time progression to achieveoptimal conditions, consideration of the design’s inthe early stages of the project life cycle is necessary(O’Connor 1995).

Many of the problems related to constructabilityare the result of lack of communication amongemployers, architect or designer and constructioncompanies, before starting the project (IPENZ 2008).Architects and engineers and designers—given thenature of their performance—are not experts in the

Instrument development

Using robust EFA for data analysis

Data collection

Identifying barriers for constructability

implementation

Figure 1. The research steps.

10 S. JADIDALESLAMI ET AL.

TABLE 2. The results of robust EFA.The results of robust EFA 1 2 3 4 5

Resistance to change and the consent of the status quo 0.81Reluctance to innovation and creativity 0.73Cultural barriers due to the traditional view and flexible vision 0.75Lack of sufficient knowledge 0.80Lack of existence of systematic organizing structure 0.79Resistance to the early builders in the initial stages of the project and financial investment 0.70Lack of effective reward and punishment standards 0.71Reluctance of executive staff to offer pre-implementation consultation 0.75Lack of existence of a strong support program to promote creativity 0.73Lack of presenting regular reports about the work trend 0.70Lack of documenting experiences and knowledge of successful projects 0.76Inappropriate methods of labor recruitment 0.8Contrast of objectives of organization and project 0.71Not having the correct attitude to the constructability of an investment opportunity 0.78The absence of communication tool and lack of transparency of information 0.80Weakness in engineering and construction quality 0.73Lack of executive experience in design team 0.80Lack of knowledge about construction technologies 0.81Lack of applying development tools and equipment 0.79Lack of flexibility in standards and regulations of design and implement 0.72Not paying attention to executive abilities in selecting contractors and consultants 0.73Existence of traditional contracts 0.75Inappropriate contractual strategies 0.71Lack of flexibility in contracts 0.88Incorrect time, methods and criteria for the selection of contractors 0.81The long process of dispute resolution 0.75Lack of knowledge of employers about benefits and advantages of applying constructability 0.81Contractor’s unwillingness to cooperate in the design phase of the project 0.88Exerting personal tastes and restricting the final decision making right for the owner 0.87% of variance 21.54 17.92 15.13 13.41 11.07Cumulative % 39.46 54.59 68.00 79.07

TABLE 3. Extracted components and their related factors.Component name Factors

Organizational Resistance to change and the consent of the status quoReluctance to innovation and creativityCultural barriers due to the traditional view and flexible visionLack of sufficient knowledgeLack of existence of systematic organizing structureResistance to the early builders in the initial stages of the project and financial investmentLack of effective reward and punishment standardsReluctance of executive staff to offer pre-implementation consultation

Managerial Lack of existence of a strong support programLack of presenting regular reports about the work trendNot having educating and encouraging program for promoting creativity and critical thinkingLack of documenting experiences and knowledge of successful projectsInappropriate methods of labor recruitmentLack of coordination and cooperation in teamworkLack of integrity among key members of project teamContrast of objectives of organization and projectLack of motivationLack of using ideas of project stakeholdersInappropriate management practices in design teamsNot having the correct attitude to the constructability of an investment opportunityThe absence of communication tool and lack of transparency of information

Technical Weakness in engineering and construction qualityLack of executive experience in design teamLack of knowledge about construction technologiesLack of applying development tools and equipmentLack of flexibility in standards and regulations of design and implement

Contractual Not paying attention to executive abilities in selecting contractors and consultantsExistence of traditional contractsInappropriate contractual strategiesLack of flexibility in contractsIncorrect time, methods and criteria for the selection of contractorsThe long process of dispute resolution

Environmental Lack of knowledge of employers about benefits and advantages of applying constructabilityContractor’s unwillingness to cooperate in the design phase of the projectExerting personal tastes and restricting the final decision making right for the owner

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT 11

construction executive methods. For this reason andother reasons, sharing responsibilities determinesmost of performance-based features and programs,the final result and applications (Glavinich 1995).Lack of communication between designers and con-tractors usually covers performance features in a hid-den or explicit form. By integrating constructability inthe design process in the early stages of the project,construction disputes will be reduced, and as a result,project delivery will be more secure (IPENZ 2008).

Considering managerial obstacles, it should bementioned that managerial factors usually originatefrom internal forces of the organization, specialobstacles, challenges, orientations and determinanteffects (Bullen 1981). Therefore, it is reasonable thatthey follow organizational obstacles in terms ofsignificance.

In terms of technical obstacles, an overview showsthat most of these obstacles are due to lack of know-ledge and experience of teams involved in the project,especially the design team. The plan of constructabil-ity to better achieve project objectives is integratingengineering design and execution, and executiveknowledge and experience. However, designer’s partialunderstanding of construction and execution require-ments and owners’ resistance to constructability dueto extra costs of the project are main obstacles to itsimplementation. The barriers and technical challengesin the classification given in this paper are importantand relevant factors such as ‘Lack of mutual respectbetween designer and builder’, ‘Lack of enough infor-mation between designer and builder’, ‘Separate man-agerial process in design and construction’, ‘Lack ofmonitoring of matching design objectives and execu-tive criteria’, ‘Lack of executive experience in designteam’, ‘lack of evaluating applicability of designs’ and‘Lack of integrating design science and executiveexperience’ are evaluated.

Mainly, a constructability program causes a costthat is added to the design cost, and may harm thecompany in the competition. And effective construct-ability program begins during planning phase andconceptually continues to the end of construction(Arditi et al. 2002). Most of the categorized obstaclesin this group refer to inappropriate plans without thepossibility to implement them. Executive engineersusually have problem with designer engineers becauseit is not possible to implement the plan and/orcontradictory and non-executive plans (Hui-Hsuanet al. 2013).

Because of inappropriate contractual strategies inthe construction industry, project stakeholders and

key agents’ cooperation is too limited. This issuecauses lack of constructability of the plan and alsofinancial losses (Jadidoleslami et al. 2016). In the con-ventional contractual structure, information flow andentrance of various project agents are done discon-tinuously, and the employer states his/her objective,consultants develop and design it, public contractorsreceive the plan and partial contractors construct it.Many experts believe that this method is very ineffect-ive and leads to wasting a lot of resources and costsand prevents optimum implementation of the project.As a principle, the expense of making any changes inthe project increases over time, whether this change istoward plan optimization, or correcting its deficien-cies (JadidolEslami et al. 2016). Effective factors suchas ‘Existence of traditional contracts’, ‘Inappropriatecontractual strategies’, ‘Lack of flexibility in contracts’,and ‘contrast of objectives of organization and project’presented in Table 2 show the relevance and import-ance of this issue.

Environmental factors originate from major envir-onmental effects, such as economic conditions,technological advancements, etc. that are beyond ourcontrol to a large extent. Factors related to competi-tive strategy, stabilize or grow the situation of indus-try or technology in the market through better qualityor lower cost (Bullen 1981). Yet, environmentalobstacles to implement constructability have over-lapped with managerial obstacles, which indicate thatfocusing on improving management or changingmanagerial performance can provide appropriate dir-ection for studies to find solutions to resolve theseobstacles (Jadidoleslami et al. 2016).

Major obstacles to organizational and managerialperformance have emphasized improvement ofexperience in the design team. Employers’ lack ofawareness and traditional view toward benefits ofconstructability, are also among major obstacles con-sidered by researchers in the evaluated studies. Otherfactors, such as traditional contracts, engineering gap,and lack of supervision and incentive plans areamong the obstacles that have been considered lessand it seems that they require more discussion andattention to realize facilitation of implementing thisconcept. Given the undeniable benefits of construct-ability, finding these obstacles in the constructionprojects, provides a clearer view to the constructionstage for planners and designers. Moreover, identify-ing these obstacles, efforts can be done toresolve them.

12 S. JADIDALESLAMI ET AL.

Conclusion

In this study, at first a comprehensive list of obstaclesto constructability implementation was developed as aquestionnaire using literature review and examiningprojects applied constructability. Then, this question-naire was offered to project managers, employers,consultants and contractors active in the field of con-struction and mass production. The obtained resultswere analyzed by EFA method. From 63 asked items,35 items were about obstacles to constructabilityimplementation in the construction industry. Then,they were categorized by some of the experts of thisindustry into five groups of macro factors, including:organizational, technical, contractual, environmentaland managerial.

This study shows that organizational macro factorsare the most significant obstacles to constructabilityimplementation in Iran. What is important is thatignoring the effects of poor design or decision makingcan seriously result in incompatibility in the perform-ance of construction projects such as increased costsand time of construction, and reduced quality.Successful construction projects without simultaneousreview and reform of the design process and con-struction and parallel applying of knowledge andexperience are impossible. Examining the availableconditions and problems related to facilitating thepresence of contractors in the early stages of studyand design to improve constructability, will pave theroad for implementing this concept in the men-tioned projects.

As a potential for future works, researchers mayfollow qualitative research methods such as case stud-ies to investigate obstacles to constructability imple-mentation in similar or other settings. Case study is auseful method in studying such a subject. Moreover,future works could focus on more specific areas suchas contractual, environmental, project management,organizational obstacles and alike, so that moredetailed and in-depth information or deep-rootedobstacles could be identified. Moreover, futureresearches can move beyond listing obstacles andcould explore the interrelationships between them orthe effect of these obstacles on projects’ outcome.Furthermore, future studies might focus on findingsolutions to solve these obstacles for constructabilityimplementation through taking conditions of the con-struction industry into account, applying expert opin-ions, and considering the identified obstacles andtheir significance. Particularly, scholars should try tofind a functional model to implement this concept inthe urban construction projects.

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