ECI Impacts on Reducing the Causes of Disputes in Construction Projects

• Author / Creator

  Abdel Azim, Ahmed

• This study investigates the complexity and the context of the construction industry and conditions where causes of disputes arise. The construction project life cycle needs management approaches that help to reduce conflicts in the first place, reduce risk and improve performance. According to lean, disagreements and disputes are waste; if eliminated, costs would be reduced, performance improved, and the health of the working environment would be sustained. Emerging collaborative project delivery methods involve key participants very early in the project, frequently even before the design phase. It is characterized with a multiparty contractual agreement that allow risk and rewards sharing among the stakeholders to mitigate them collaboratively. Although partnering may be a helpful solution to improve the situation by getting people to work together; however, it does not analyze the underlying issues that make the conditions difficult and contribute to uncertainty and disputes. Taking inspiration from lean and collaborative delivery methods, ECI is a project delivery method that can fill the partnering deficit gap. It would specify the time of contractor involvement to improve the design, increase productivity, reduce risk, improve performance, and sustain a healthy environment through constructability reviews, design assistance, or even taking over the design process. This study contributes to filling that missing gap by evaluating the impact of ECI that, if brought to the construction projects, would reduce the cause of disputes occurrence, and improve performance and relationships. According to the research findings, there are several pathways for ECI implementation, which indicates that there is no one strict rule, neither for its procurement evaluation nor for its contractual design. This means that ECI can be used in two stages for the same contractor, or it can use different contractors for each stage. It could also be done in different ways, such as with traditional DBB, DB, management contracting, project partnering, or alliancing. This study offers research opportunities and agendas to help academics and construction practitioners gain better knowledge that can help them design an appropriate ECI pathway that can improve the project’s performance and reduce surprises that might lead to conflicts and disputes. ECI has been shown to reduce various types of claims such as design, time extension, scope, liability, and termination claims. The results were confirmed with actual data from a case study in Canada, “170 Street over YHT—Bridge Rehabilitation”. Moreover, the study analyzes the ECI influence on the contractual risks through a comparison of two ECI contracts: CCGC contract form as adopted by the City of Edmonton in Canada and JCT (MC) as adopted in UK.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Early Contractor Involvement
  • Construction industry--Management

• Graduation date

  Spring 2023

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-b8ym-e451

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.