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Along with the development of the construction service industry today, which is increasingly complex, construction service actors must carry out better project management so that the planned design can be realised properly. Before carrying out a construction project, the parties will agree on a legal basis in the form of a letter of agreement or a contract. In the execution of construction contracts, sometimes there are differences in interpretation and other things that can cause claims or claims. The formulation of the problem in this study is what are the potential risk factors of claims on construction contracts, what are the variables of potential claim risk on construction contracts, what are the variables of claims-forming models, what are the causes of risks in model-forming variables and what are the improvement recommendations produced in this study. The data collection method for this questionnaire was obtained by distributing the questionnaire three times. The results to be achieved in this study are to be able to determine the potential risks of what factors and variables can cause construction claims (first questionnaire), find out the variables of the claimforming model (second questionnaire), and find out the causes of risk in the model-forming variables (third questionnaire). By knowing the level of influence of factors and variables, conclusions can be drawn about what needs to be anticipated in construction claims. Thus, appropriate recommendations are given to the West Papua Provincial Government to regulate the articles in the contract in more detail to minimise the potential for construction claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The JBCC Principal Building Agreement is widely used as the primary building agreement in South Africa, and claims are frequently encountered in construction projects where this contract is implemented. This study, therefore, set out to determine the perspective of principal agents, who are professional consultants acting as contract administrators within the South African construction industry, regarding the magnitude of claim incidents under the JBCC Principal Building Agreement. The research adopted a quantitative approach, involving the completion of a virtual structured questionnaire by 164 respondents who were practising principal agents in South Africa. The collected data was thereafter analysed by means of descriptive statistics. The following claim events were identified as noteworthy in terms of regularity and severity: adverse weather, the execution of additional work, rectification of physical losses and damages to the works where contractors are not at risk, causes beyond the reasonable control of contractors, and the inability to obtain materials and goods in time. By identifying the knowledge void regarding the frequency and impact of claims in South Africa under the JBCC Principal Building Agreement, this study provides contracting parties with updated insights that can assist them in averting and effectively managing such claims, thereby minimising damages to all parties involved. Furthermore, while the study was confined to South Africa, the findings may still hold relevance for users of the contract in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Joint Building Contracts Committee Principal Building Agreement is the leading construction contract in South Africa, and it is common for claims to arise during projects where this agreement is used. This research aimed to investigate the claim events that most severely impact project performance under the agreement in the South African construction industry. The study employed a quantitative research approach and distributed an online structured questionnaire that was completed by 380 respondents, which included principal agent practitioners and contractors in South Africa. The collected data was analysed using descriptive statistics. The results revealed that the most impactful claim events are contract instructions, additional work, and adverse weather. On the other hand, the least impactful claim events are the exercise of statutory power, opening and testing of work, materials and goods, and the insolvency of a nominated subcontractor. This study addresses the knowledge gap around the types of claims that most severely impact project performance under the Joint Building Contracts Committee Principal Building Agreement in South Africa. It provides especially principal agents with a good base level understanding of the critical claims under this agreement, assisting them to prevent and effectively manage such claims to mitigate potential damages for all parties involved. Although this study focused on South Africa, the findings may also be applicable to users of the agreement in other contextual settings especially neighbouring countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In construction, claims are usually a request for additional time, cost, or quality of work. A dispute will occur If the claim is not resolved correctly. In industrial revolution 4.0, we can use the Building Information Modeling (BIM) method to increase efficiency. BIM is a digital display containing all information about building elements integrated with the building's life cycle period. BIM will accelerate and reduce risks in construction, including the impact of claims. In Indonesia, several consultants/contractors have been implemented BIM in construction projects. This research aims to determine the effect of using 3D, 4D, and 5D BIM in construction projects for reducing claims to service providers as seen from the indicators on BIM 3D, 4D, 5D BIM. The research method used is a descriptive research method with a Q-method approach using closed survey research instruments to 37 contractor/consultant respondents who use BIM. The results obtained from the 3D BIM 4 indicators affect the reduction of claims. The 4D BIM indicator has two hands that affect the decrease in claims. The 5D BIM indicators all involve reducing claims.

Claim management describes the process required to eliminate or prevent construction claims from arising and for the expedition handling of claims when they do occur. The present study aimed to identify the factors affecting the claimed design and their ranking. This research is applied and descriptive. The effective factors have been identified by reviewing the claims filed by the contractors of Shiraz Municipality during one year and have been classified according to their nature in the four main areas of the Claims (scope, time, quality and cost). To collect data, questionnaires based on the multi-adjective decision-making method used in this study were used, which were completed by experts of civil engineering projects in Shiraz Municipality. Data were analyzed using a combined approach of Decision-making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) and Analytic Network Process (ANP). According to the results, 3 factors: Deviation from the project schedule plan, Changes in the technical specifications of and the resources of tasks and Not controlling the actual values on-site before execution with the initial estimate of the contract have the most effect and factors: Not to prepare a joint mapping with the presence of the consultant and the contractor at the beginning and Contractor financial loss due to bidding a lower price offer than the market have the least effect on claim. In general, factors related to time and quality areas have a greater effect on claim than factors related to scope and cost areas.

Claim management describes the process required to eliminate or prevent construction claims from arising and for the expedition handling of claims when they do occur. The present study aimed to identify the factors affecting the claimed design and their ranking. This research is applied and descriptive. The effective factors have been identified by reviewing the claims filed by the contractors of Shiraz Municipality during one year and have been classified according to their nature in the four main areas of the Claims (scope, time, quality and cost). To collect data, questionnaires based on the multi-adjective decision-making method used in this study were used, which were completed by experts of civil engineering projects in Shiraz Municipality. Data were analyzed using a combined approach of Decision-making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) and Analytic Network Process (ANP). According to the results, 3 factors: Deviation from the project schedule plan, Changes in the technical specifications of and the resources of tasks and Not controlling the actual values on-site before execution with the initial estimate of the contract have the most effect and factors: Not to prepare a joint mapping with the presence of the consultant and the contractor at the beginning and Contractor financial loss due to bidding a lower price offer than the market have the least effect on claim. In general, factors related to time and quality areas have a greater effect on claim than factors related to scope and cost areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrated project delivery (IPD) was originally developed to overcome the challenges associated with increased project complexity, high fragmentation levels of the construction industry, and inadequate interoperability among the different stakeholders. Despite its documented benefits on project performance, IPD adoption is still witnessing a slow uptake in the US. Recent research studies have tied such slow adoption—in part—to the lack of contractual understanding and implementation of IPD. This paper addresses this critical research need. To this end, the authors used an interdependent research methodology consisting of (1) selection of IPD agreements; (2) identification of the main contractual IPD issues of concern that may lead to conflicts, claims, and/or disputes between the contracting parties through analysis of seven various IPD case study projects; and (3) reviewing and analyzing the contractual provisions, relevant to the identified IPD issues of concern, under the most pertinent national IPD standard forms of contracts. It is worth noting that in order to assure the scientific rigor of this research, the authors consulted throughout all methodological steps and verified research outcomes with the construction group of a leading legal firm. Results show that the major areas of concern in relation to contractual management of IPD processes include risks and incentives; liabilities and indemnification; suspension and termination; insurance; data sharing; and, dispute resolution. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by providing (1) a comparative analysis showing how these issues have been tackled under leading IPD standard forms of contracts; and (2) contractual guidelines to promote better understanding of effective and efficient IPD practices. As such, this research offers substantial practical implications through furnishing insightful information about causes of disputes in IPD agreements as well as how the most popular IPD contracts in the US handle them, and finally, checklist questions to serve as a reference for the contracting parties in negotiating the terms governing their IPD projects. Ultimately, this research should better support changing the contracting culture to better enable and facilitate broader and wider adoption of IPD practices in the US. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Change management has a crucial importance in the project management field. Changes in the construction field can be consolidated directly or converted to a full process project claims. A lot of theories and area of concerns spotted claims consolidation methods and techniques to seek best practices to solve such problems between all construction project stakeholders. It is not easy to completely prohibit claims from arising in the construction project, but as the technology developing rapidly; it became easier to face arising claims with a fully documented project, as the good documentation is a fundamental requirement in a successful claim Lixia et al. [5]. Due to project complexity increasing and project cost rising, it is essential for companies to succeed in managing their project's budget and schedule. According to Oracle, 90% of projects overrun their assigned budget, which leads to a high percentage of failed projects in the construction field. Hence, a lot of software appeared to help claimers to manage their claims in the best effective way to reduce the time consumed in the hard preparation which needs a lot of effort and resources to be completed. In another way, the new software maintains focusing on how to win the claim not how documents prepared to go through a claim. One of this software is Oracle Primavera Contract Management (PCM) which is a web-based program includes many features such as document management, cost control, field monitoring and time management. In addition to that, it decreases time schedule delays which provide visibility in the contract performance by providing a central repository for data on the turnaround time on a given process. Reporting this data provides the project managers with a useful metric of average contractor performance and work process and helps to identify which contractor needs extra attention or should be avoided in future projects. PCM enables timely payments for completed work by providing the ability to view, track and automate performance beast progress payment to subcontractors. In addition, to ensure that unnecessary delays are avoided it also reduces liability by improving turnaround time between project contributors. This paper aims to identify the method of using the PCM program and Primavera P6 to prepare the claims in a short time with less effort to produce fully documented claims. In addition to that, it illustrates how users able to make delay analysis using Primavera contract management, which linked to the PCM program. In addition to that, it illustrates the application of one of the web-based project management software toward construction company performance. Also, to emphases and analyze the advantages of implementing the Web-based project management system. Also, this paper investigates the PCM effectiveness in stringing and managing construction projects. Finally, improvement in project progress can be achieved by applying PCM to generally enhance company performance and specifically during facing claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydropower construction projects are complex and uncertain, have long gestational periods and involve several parties. Furthermore, they require the integration of different components (Civil, Mechanical and Electrical) to work together as a single unit. These projects require highly specialised designs, detailed plans and specifications, high-risk construction methods, effective management, skilful supervision and close coordination. Thus, claims are common in such projects. These claims are undesirable because they require significant time and resources to resolve and cause adversarial relationships among the parties involved. Therefore, it is in the common interest of all involved parties to prevent, minimise, or resolve claims as amicably as possible. Identifying common claim types and their causes is essential in devising techniques to minimise and avoid them in future projects. This report details a case study performed on a large-scale hydropower project in Bhutan. The findings of this case study indicate that differing site conditions are the major contributor of impact and change claims and 95% of total claims can be settled by negotiation, whereas 5% of claims can be settled by arbitration.

The time for performance of a project is usually of the essence to the employer and the contractor. This has made it quite imperative for contracting parties to analyse project delays for purposes of making right decisions on potential time and/or cost compensation claims. Over the years, existing delay analysis techniques (DATs) for aiding this decision-making have been helpful but have not succeeded in curbing the high incidence of disputes associated with delay claims resolutions. A major source of the disputes lies with the limitations and capabilities of the techniques in their practical use. Developing a good knowledge of these aspects of the techniques is of paramount importance in understanding the real problematic issues involved and their improvement needs. This paper seeks to develop such knowledge and understanding (as part of a wider research work) via: an evaluation of the most common DATs based on a case study, a review of the key relevant issues often not addressed by the techniques, and the necessary improvements needs. The evaluation confirmed that the various techniques yield different analysis results for the same delay claims scenario, mainly due to their unique application procedures. The issues that are often ignored in the analysis but would also affect delay analysis results are: functionality of the programming software employed for the analysis, resource loading and levelling requirements, resolving concurrent delays, and delay-pacing strategy. Improvement needs by way of incorporating these issues in the analysis and focusing on them in future research work are the key recommendations of the study.

It is a common phenomenon for construction projects to have applications for extension of time. Many problems are encountered in practice in the application and preparation of extension of time claims. A study was conducted to identify the main problems encountered in the application and assessment of extension of time claim in selected construction projects in Malaysia. Three (3) case studies have been used 10 investigate the extension of time issues. Findings from the study revealed that local contractors usually fail to comply with the contract procedural requirements to submit timely notification of delay and have difficulty in demonstrating their entitlement for extension of time. The main problem faced by contract administrators is that contractors tend to "inflate" their extension of time entitlement with the intention to maximise their claims. Adherence to the agreed procedure in preparing and evaluating of delay claims and the implementation of a set of agreed standardised delay analysis may help to minimize the frequency and impact of such problems.

In construction contractual management, sharing experts’ domain knowledge through ontology is a good way to narrow the knowledge gap between the domain experts and the construction team. However, little work has been done on ontology taxonomy development in this domain. Based on a literature review on sharing domain knowledge, taxonomy development methods and the essence of construction contracts, this study proposes a synthesized methodology for taxonomy development in the domain of construction contractual semantics. This methodology is based on an ontological model extracted from definitions found in the contract, and uses common root concepts as the initial root concept classes, and includes the iterative development and competency questions approaches as well. In the case study, using the research results from pilot studies, the proposed methodology was applied to the AIA A201 General Conditions of the Contract for Construction (2007) document at the textual level. As a result, a taxonomy was developed which was used to determine the validity of the proposed methodology. The taxonomy development methodology and the developed taxonomy itself are both valuable contributions in the quest to further develop ontology-based applications for sharing domain knowledge about construction contract semantics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Areas that once were deemed unsuitable for construction due to a high water table are now being developed to meet the needs of an increasing population. With the decline in land availability to build or expand highway networks above ground, underground facilities, such as mass-transit lines, may represent the future of transportation. Underground structures naturally require the control of groundwater to complete construction. A review of common dewatering systems and methods used in the construction of transportation facilities found that similar techniques are used in other industries. Also, scant few case studies document dewatering problems although they represent a key component of common construction claims in the civil engineering industry. A common thread among all construction initiatives is the need for thorough subsurface site investigation. The uncertainty of subsurface conditions related to groundwater issues has resulted in insurance claims and litigation reaching disproportionately high numbers in civil engineering construction. Better assessments of hydrogeological formations may help to mitigate potential groundwater control problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The frequency of claims is unavoidable given the nature of the contracts, their complexity, the number of parties involved, the risk and the pressure of time constraint in the preparation of the contract documents and the realisation of the work. The significantly increasing number of construction claims indicates the need for the implementation of an effective construction claim management. This paper will look into claim problems experienced by Malaysian contractors in construction projects. To achieve this, questionnaires survey were conducted involving the contractors and consultants. The findings indicate that the lack of site staff awareness to proactively detect claims, inaccessibility or unavailability of relevant documents, and conflicts which arises during owner/contractor negotiation are all critical problems associated with the process of claim management. The problems observed from this research could be used to solve or improve the contractors’ claim management system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important contributor to cost overruns of infrastructure projects is contract changes after the construction contract has been concluded. Using mainly descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests, real project data were analyzed from forty-five Dutch transportation infrastructure projects with a total construction contract value of over € 8.5 billion. First it was explored if we could find evidence for the presumption that contractors bid low on contracts to recover the loss of bid profit by claiming contract change costs in the project implementation. We conclude that we could not find evidence for the opportunistic behavior of contractors. Second, the different sizes and reasons for the contract changes were explored. We conclude that: scope changes are the most significant reason for contract changes, followed by technical necessities; smaller projects tend to have higher relative contract change costs; and contract changes due to omissions in the contract are more present in smaller projects than in larger projects. The results of the analysis suggest among other things that policymakers and planners should pay more attention to flexible contracting, and to the contract management of smaller projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydropower construction projects are complex and uncertain, have long gestational periods and involve several parties. Furthermore, they require the integration of different components (Civil, Mechanical and Electrical) to work together as a single unit. These projects require highly specialised designs, detailed plans and specifications, high-risk construction methods, effective management, skilful supervision and close coordination. Thus, claims are common in such projects. These claims are undesirable because they require significant time and resources to resolve and cause adversarial relationships among the parties involved. Therefore, it is in the common interest of all involved parties to prevent, minimise, or resolve claims as amicably as possible. Identifying common claim types and their causes is essential in devising techniques to minimise and avoid them in future projects. This report details a case study performed on a large-scale hydropower project in Bhutan. The findings of this case study indicate that differing site conditions are the major contributor of impact and change claims and 95% of total claims can be settled by negotiation, whereas 5% of claims can be settled by arbitration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The time for performance of a project is usually of the essence to the employer and the contractor. This has made it quite imperative for contracting parties to analyse project delays for purposes of making right decisions on potential time and/or cost compensation claims. Over the years, existing delay analysis techniques (DATs) for aiding this decision-making have been helpful but have not succeeded in curbing the high incidence of disputes associated with delay claims resolutions. A major source of the disputes lies with the limitations and capabilities of the techniques in their practical use. Developing a good knowledge of these aspects of the techniques is of paramount importance in understanding the real problematic issues involved and their improvement needs. This paper seeks to develop such knowledge and understanding (as part of a wider research work) via: an evaluation of the most common DATs based on a case study, a review of the key relevant issues often not addressed by the techniques, and the necessary improvements needs. The evaluation confirmed that the various techniques yield different analysis results for the same delay claims scenario, mainly due to their unique application procedures. The issues that are often ignored in the analysis but would also affect delay analysis results are: functionality of the programming software employed for the analysis, resource loading and levelling requirements, resolving concurrent delays, and delay-pacing strategy. Improvement needs by way of incorporating these issues in the analysis and focusing on them in future research work are the key recommendations of the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the British court case Connell v. Mutch t/a Southey Building Services, which dealt with the recovery of overpayment in a case of negligent construction. Topics include claim and counterclaim filing, the effect of defense on set-offs, and the recovery of litigation expenses by the counterclaim party.

The claim negotiations are very important to both sides which have attended the engineering project construction. On one hand, the contractors want to cut down loss through negotiations and protect their own legitimate interests, on the other hand, the owners want to shift risks by it and reduce the project construction cost. The strategy and tactics of both sides are one kind of typical game form in the claim negotiations. This article firstly uses alternating offers model to describe the claim negotiations between the owner's and contractor's bargaining. By estimating the contractor's possibility distribute of retention value and the conditional probability of contractor's biding price given under the assumption, the prior beliefs are revised with the Bayesian principle and counter-offer strategy is adjusted. Finally, the paper analyzes and uses strategies which have been considered the time value of money of each other's bargaining to enable the claim event be solved effectively, of course enhancing the engineer project's construction-efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Claims and disputes on time extension for delays are common in construction projects. Various methods and divergent approaches are used by different parties in assessing delays. Disputes then often arise on (a) eligibility of a delay event for claiming extension of time (EOT), (b) choice of method for evaluating EOT, and (c) quantification of the EOT. This research initiative aims at formulating a knowledge-based decision guidance system to help all concerned parties in navigating through these various options, in order to rationalize their approaches towards the preparation and evaluation of the EOT claims. Such rationalization is based on structured approaches, which are in turn devised from the particular contractual and project conditions. This rationalization is also expected to assist in a convergence of assessment approaches that would in turn reduce disputes and consequently wasted resources. In targeting those aims, a prototype of an integrated decision support system (DSS) for dealing with time extension claims was recently developed using (a) a structured web-based decision support framework, which is supplemented by (b) a Pocket PC based portable framework with seamless database integration. This paper presents some essential highlights on the development and usefulness of key modules of the DSS. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: It is generally acknowledged that construction claims are highly complicated and are interrelated with a multitude of factors. It will be advantageous if the parties to a dispute have some insights to some degree of certainty how the case would be resolved prior to the litigation process. By its nature, the use of artificial neural networks (ANN) can be a cost-effective technique to help to predict the outcome of construction claims, provided with characteristics of cases and the corresponding past court decisions. This paper presents the adoption of a particle swarm optimization (PSO) model to train perceptrons in predicting the outcome of construction claims in Hong Kong. It is illustrated that the successful prediction rate of PSO-based network is up to 80%. Moreover, it is capable of producing faster and more accurate results than its counterparts of a benchmarking back-propagation ANN. This will furnish an alternative in assessing whether or not to take the case to litigation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The purpose of this research was to make a comparative analysis of the operation of the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW) (the NSW Act) and the Construction Contracts Act 2002 (NZ) (the NZ Act). Data were extracted from the NSW and NZ Acts, the NSW Department of Commerce and from the published books, reports and articles. Under the NSW Act, which is only concerned with payment claim disputes, adjudicators' jurisdiction is narrow and timelines for the submission of documents and for making an adjudication determination are short. Consequently, payment claim disputes are resolved rapidly and economically. The NZ Act on the other hand addresses all kinds of disputes. The jurisdiction of adjudicators is broad and the period for making an adjudication determination is about twice as long as in NSW. One of the strengths of the NSW Act is the ability to enter judgment for an adjudicated amount by simply filing an adjudication certificate in a court. One of the strengths of the NZ Act is in allowing the claimant to join the owner of a construction site in an adjudication; the adjudicator has a power to determine that the owner, who is an associate of the respondent, is jointly and severally liable with the respondent for the debt, and can approve of a charging order over the construction site owned by the owner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Microsoft Access database management system is presented. This was developed to document and analyse claims for additional payment and time for completion on construction projects. Although the database was developed to facilitate the determination of the bases, causes and underlying management issues behind construction claims in Kuwait, the system has wide applicability and its unified methodology would be appropriate for monitoring construction claims on live projects. The database was tested on field data from eight completed construction projects. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The Critical Path Method, in common with other planning tools seeks to simulate technologically related events and activities. One of the assumptions of the Critical Path Method states that there will be unlimited resources available enabling every task to commence at its earliest possible starting time. This rarely happens in practice. For some time, heuristic algorithms have been available for the resolution of resourcing conflicts. At the construction site level, critical path schedules are often generated from a known resource availability which dictates the network logic. The networks so produced are different from networks which model the technological relationships and then make adjustments for resource constraints. It was hoped that a resource-based network would be more rational than an activity-based network. However, there is no guarantee that the resource-based network will provide the most efficient solution. Developments in the combinatorial mathematics of scheduling enable the degree of inefficiency to be measured. At the construction site level, these issues tend to be irrelevant, however, if the Critical Path Method is being used to justify or disprove a construction claim, then distortions can be introduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experience with Possibility of Registering a Claim (PRC) suggests that the design of the whole curriculum in which an Intelligent Computer Assisted Instruction (ICAI) systems sits must be carefully evaluated if such systems are to achieve teaching and learning objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

When confronted with construction claims, negotiation is always the preferred method for owners and contractors. The authors conducted a questionnaire survey to explore the correlation between negotiation risk attitude and power as well as the influence of these two parameters on behaviors and outcomes in construction claim negotiations. The results indicate that to some extent, negotiation risk-taking is correlated with high power. The risk taker usually performs collaborating behaviors (better than avoiding and obliging), while the risk averter always adopts obliging behaviors (which are proved to be less beneficial than collaborating and avoiding). The risk averter enjoys a remarkable increase in reaching better outcomes with an increasing degree of adopting dominating behaviors. The high-power party with frequently used dominating behaviors has access to better outcomes than the low-power party while the low-power party that commonly uses obliging behaviors is more likely to face deterioration. The findings can be used by construction practitioners as references to evaluate their negotiation risk attitude and power in negotiations. Consequently, they can adjust their negotiation strategies accordingly to achieve better outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite their negative impact on the construction industry, cost overruns have become an almost natural part of building and infrastructure projects. This paper examines the phenomenon as a worldwide problem, identifies its root causes, ranks them (on a local basis), and analyses them. Root-cause analysis is not merely an arbitrary expression; rather, it is a systematic, formal, well-structured methodology, used as part of the total quality-management approach. The expand-focus principles and techniques were applied in this research for assembling an initial, as wide as possible, inclusive list (pool) of 146 potential causes gathered from the international professional literature as well as from prominent local experts. Through two cycles of expand-focus, they were filtered and merged into merely 15 independent universal root causes. These were further investigated through a cross-sectional survey among 200 local construction practitioners who ranked the 15 universal root causes according to their conceived local importance and influence on cost overruns. The survey revealed that, locally, Cause number 1 is premature tender documents; Cause number 2 is too many changes in owners' requirements or definitions; and Cause number 3 is tender-winning prices are unrealistically low ( suicide tendering). The unique value of this paper to the global community of construction engineering and management is twofold: (1) It identified 15 universal root causes of cost overruns, which provide a good starting point for any local investigation, and (2) offers a well-structured methodology for ranking these 15 universal root causes in accordance with the local circumstances, thereby pinpointing the vital few that may prevent locally a substantial part of the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]