Construction Projects Performance In West African Country Of Benin

The concept of construction performance analysis began long time ago with a series of many published articles and scientific researches around the world. A substantial number of subsequent studies was focused on delays, schedule and cost performance analysis. However most of past research has been concentrated on manufacturing sector more than the construction industry. The current research is done in order to find out by delay, cost, schedule, planning and site labor productivity assessment the factors which affect development construction project performance in West African country of Benin.In this respect, for the first issue of delay problems, some Beninese construction experts have been interviewed about some construction projects:departmental hospital, administration office, school, community health care center and community market done in the past and located in Cotonou, Porto-Novo, Abomey and Parakou.After statistical data of frequency, severity and importance was analyzed, an index of thirty-five delay factors were identified and used in structured questionnaires that were sent to the construction managers (contractor, owner, consultant and architect). The top ten important delay factors by their rank were further identified as:Financial capability by contractor, financial difficulties by owner, poor subcontractor performance, materials procurement of contractor, changes in drawings of architect, inadequate planning and scheduling of contractor, slow inspection of completed works by the consultant, equipment availability of contractor, preparation and approval of drawings by consultant and acceptance of inadequate design drawings by consultant.A comparison of the top five delay factors of Benin construction projects requiring a time extension with selected construction projects in Asia and other African countries shows that financial difficulty is most common, especially in African countries. Other causes of delay are very similar for developing countries and related to lack of technology, management, skills and competencies of project participants.However for cost, schedule and planning performance analysis, earned value management (EVM) was used to make an assessment of cost and schedule performance through cost performance index (CPI) and schedule performance index (SPI) analysis for projects such as schools, medical centers and supermarkets. So, in order to measure the performance of each project through the success of project planning and execution phases, EVM measurement is compared to success index (SI). The SI measurement involved evaluating the performance of each category of project in terms of budget achievement, schedule achievement, design capacity and plant utilization. Both measures produced poor performance results (in which the performance index was lower than expected value).The cost and schedule variations were very significant for medical center projects, but were almost uniform in the case of schools and supermarket projects. Statistically, the results conclude that the larger and more complex a project is, the more variable the cost and schedule will be, and moreover, it was listed out from statistical results analysis that deviation of scheduling, poor estimation and budgeting of projects, non-effective cost and schedule variance control, mismanagement of design capacity and plant utilization are the factors that generate the failure of Beninese construction projects. Research undertaken by the World Bank supports these results, by revealing poor initial capacity building assessments and mediocre supervision to Beninese development construction projects.In the third step, this study evaluates the level of site labor productivity at a Beninese Construction Company. To perform this evaluation, I conducted a survey of national and international construction contractors in Benin related to their excavation construction activities. To analyze the respective productivity levels of each construction company, I performed a benchmarking measures analysis that featured calculations of the performance ratio (PR) and performance management index (PMI). As a result of these analyses, I found that whereas work performed by local companies was marked by lower productivity, work performed by international companies was characterized by good productivity.This result was compared to a singularity function method based on equation solving to make an accurate conclusion. As a result, a lower productivity performance was assessed again to work performed by local companies while a good productivity performance to international construction companies. Further analysis of construction workforces revealed that a construction company’s productivity is largely dependent on production capacity and consumption resources. This indicates that the retention of skilled workers and the acquisition and utilization of high-quality resources yields the highest levels of productivity. This research concludes that construction time overrun depends on economic, political stability and management implementation in each country. The low performance in terms of cost and schedule of those several construction projects come from ineffective cost and schedule variation control, poor initial capacity building assessments. However construction companies’productivity analysis shows that for a local company to be competitive in the construction work market, it must retrain skilled craftspeople, foreman, engineers, and project managers, and strengthen its building capacity by leveraging new equipment and technologies. These factors are the major causes for the underachievement found in most African countries and some developing countries as well, but had very little effect on construction projects performed in developed countries. Therefore, corrective actions and serious improvements to management are recommended for new development construction projects. The study can be extended to compare other African countries development construction project performance factors to Asian countries.