Factors Affecting Project Delivery Time Delays And Cost Overruns Of Project Development At The Royal Irrigation Department Of Thailand

In Thailand, water management is considered as one of the major problems. To solve these problems, the Royal Irrigation Department (RID) under the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MOAC) was created. The Royal Irrigation Department construction projects are government projects that provide water resources to the community in Thailand.

Mr. Rathsayam Tiyarathtagarn made a case study to identify the problems related with project time delays and cost overrun in irrigation projects and also to develop a framework for managing irrigation project effectively. His three sub-objectives are (1) to investigate the project life cycle of irrigation project development; (2) to identify specific factors causing time delay and cost overruns for irrigation project development; and (3) to propose recommendations for effective managing the delivery time and cost in the process of irrigation project development.

Mr. Tiyarathtagarn found out that the major factors affecting RID’s project delivery time delays and cost overruns are project approval, land acquisition and asset compensation, design change and change order, increasing of material prices, failure to timely site access and poor planning and management.

His thesis abstract is copied and posted.

ABSTRACT

It is very important for public projects to be completed on time and within budgets. Normally, achieving the project within predetermined time, budget, and quality is the basic purpose of construction project control. Unfortunately, many construction projects at the Royal Irrigation Department can not be delivery within specified time and budget. Many projects show massive cost and time overruns. In cases, the government had to increase project time and cost. In general, the problem involved with project delays and cost overruns are avoidable. In an attempt to solve these problems, there are various strategies have been applied. Among them, many factors were found as the main source lead to manage time and cost in project efficiently.
This study wants to find out the factors causing project delivery time delays and cost overruns of project development at the Royal Irrigation Department construction project.
In order to understand the irrigation construction process, therefore the objectives of this research are established to 1) investigate the project life cycle of irrigation project development, 2) identify specific factors causing time delay and cost overruns for irrigation project development, 3) propose recommendations for effective managing the delivery time and cost in the process of irrigation project development.
The data was collected from interview survey by case study in three large scale projects of RID; PASAK, KAWNOI and NAMKUMN Project. The interviewee has been conducted in the viewpoint only of Royal Irrigation Department. The findings found that the factors pertinent the executive’s role or project sponsor in the conceptual and planning phase and factors pertinent project manager in planning, construction and closing phase. The recommend are the executive’s role need to more attention during conceptual and planning phase and work closely with project manager during construction phase. The project manager should more consider in detail work by using Work Breakdown Structure during planning phase. More controlling and monitoring in construction phase are very important. Every problems, obstacle and lesson learn during construction must be present by project manager in term of summary reports or seminars need to be conducted after project had closed.