Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1999

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering, School of Civil Engineering

Although it is well known that ~here are deficiencies in the process of supply of materials and equipment to the work site, the exact nature and extent of the effects of procurement delays in projects in developing ·countries is not clearly understood. The analysis of procurement delay is important in terms of observing the severity of the impact and identifying causes of the delay. This thesis assesses the impact of procurement delay by collecting the project record data and questionnaire survey from contractors of different road projects in Nepal. The aim of the thesis is to find the overall procurement delay impact of the construction material and equipment. The overall cost impact of the procurement delay on road projects has been found as 0.48% of total budgeted cost of a project. Although this seems small when compared to the total budgeted project cost, the accumulation of the cost impacts of a number of road projects could be sizable. Therefore we must ensure that losses due to procurement delay must be minimized. Among the materials aggregates were found first while ranking according to the impact and frequency of occurrence whereas for equipment pavement equipment was ranked first. So far the causes of delay are concerned, organizational weakness was found to be most significant cause of procurement delay.