The questions posed to the interviewees were open-ended, i.e: “What is the most significant challenge to effective building handover practices in the KSA public sector construction industry?” Through the interviews, the themes used under discussion were elaborated upon using laddering techniques in order to avoid short, standard replies. According to Grunert and Grunert (1995), laddering techniques are a tool for
88 uncovering subjective causal chains in qualitative interviews. The laddering technique involves a series of consecutive probes to allow respondents to develop causal chains.
The majority of the interviewees highlighted certain key challenges including high manager turnover, changing orders and rework during construction, the complexity of projects, lack of knowledge and experience, lack of communication, lack of transparency, unclear responsibilities, time of operations training, accelerated completion, and encouraged national labour are the most significant challenges in building handover practices in the KSA public sector construction industry (Figure 4.2). Figure 4.3 shows a sample of the transcripts.
In relation to high managers turnover, it was found that the majority of the participants (80%, 8Nr) believe that high projects manager turnover is the most important problem in the public construction sector in KSA. When a new manager is allocated, it would change the previous date set for the completion of a project by setting an earlier date as oppose to the agreed date. Also, a lack of clearly defined procedures means that documentation required towards end of the project could vary greatly from one manager to other. Lack of clearly laid out processes and procedures further enhance the impact of individual management styles.
Considering the lack of knowledge and experience, all interviews highlighted that there is a lack of knowledge and experience within Case Study Organisations. However, the interviewees’ opinions confirmed the need for effective training to enhance understanding and existing procedures of handover practices in the KSA public sector projects.
Four respondents (40%) highlighted poor integration (communication) between designers, contractors, and owners leading to high number of change orders and reworks. One of interviewees (S1) said:
From my point of view, the key challenges are changing orders and rework, construction and building projects are troubled by adversarial relations, high costs, claims, and also constructed facilities becoming complex.
89 Another interviewee agrees with his colleague and adds that the changes of design during construction, changing orders and rework are the key challenges in the subject.
In terms of complexity, 50% (5Nr) cited this factor about the constructed facilities; one of the interviewees (S4), from his point of view, mentioned it among another factor and said:
In my opinion, the main challenges are construction and building projects being troubled by adversarial relations, changing orders and rework, claims, wastage, and the constructed facilities becoming more and more complex. All of this impacts information flow.
However, another respondent (S5) stated from his experience:
According to my experience, the key challenges are over-specification (i.e. over planning), changes of design during construction, this often leads to low productivity and delays in project completion, and also loss of information as the facility is handed over to clients.
The majority of interviewees (60%, 6Nr) mentioned the “High Cost” factor amongst key challenges, affecting building handover; as one of the interviewee (S7) said:
Competition is often fierce amongst sub-contractors and owners have their own set of inefficiencies, resulting in high costs, waste and the late payment and cost overruns. Investing in improving communications is often not a priority.
Besides high costs, some of respondents (40%, 4Nr) mentioned the issues related to late payments; one of interviewees stated that:
I think there are five important challenges facing our company, which are high costs, late payment and cost overruns, absenteeism of labour, excessive overtime, wastage. All of this has an impact on the increasing complexity of overall constructed facility.
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Figure 6: Most significant challenge to effective building handover practices in KSA
A lack of transparency and accessibility of project data for all the project team electronically is considered as one of the most significant challenges to effective building handover, as one of the interviewees (S5) said:
In general, there are significant challenges to effective building handover practices, which include a lack of transparency and accessibility of project data. Each contractor chooses their own application of choice and there is no single unified approach”.
Another interviewee added, “we are still lagging behind other industry sectors in technology adoption.”
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Figure 4.3: Interviewee comments on unclear responsibility definition
Four interviewees (40%) identified a lack of transparency as one of the most important factors. S3 commented on challenges faced by the company with whom he was working as:
I think that within our division, there are three main challenges impacting on effective building handover practices. Firstly, there is a lack of shared trust, secondly, a lot of staff involved in operations and maintenance are not well
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trained and thirdly, there is lack of understanding of capability to use the information across the design/construction teams.
One of respondents (S1) mentioned that the society is not involved amongst some factors when he replied to the questions about challenges:
I think that the most significant challenge to effective building handover practices in the KSA public sector construction industry is that owners are not driven. There is a lack of appreciation of what effective operations of critical infrastructure means and value that data can bring. This can be attributed to a lack of training.
Although the training is considered an important factor when implementing any new system, only (50%, 5Nr) highlighted training as one of the key challenges in handover. (S6) from his point of view specified two challenges:
From my point of view, there are only two main significant challenges to effective building handover practices in the KSA public sector construction industry. These include tasks of various project team members not clearly defined and uncertain, as well as a lack of a concerted effort towards operatives training.
Another interviewee (S10) mentioned:
The main challenge to effective building handover practices in the KSA public sector comes from the client side, with lack of clear definition of handover requirements, lack of concerted effort towards training and lack of clear definition of responsibilities
Five of the respondents (50%) indicated unclear definition of responsibilities as a key factor:
Actually, there are significant challenges to effective building handover practices. There is lack of clarity on who is doing what. Also, tight profit margins for contractors often mean lack of mutual trust. There is lack of
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appreciation of how effective information sharing between designers, contractors and asset management teams could enhance the overall process.
In the same context, another interviewee (S7) said, “… not enough time is dedicated for operations training and, responsibilities of various project team members are unclear”.