Assessing the effectiveness of Libyan supervisors in dealing with construction delays

Delays are perhaps the most common and costly problem encountered in construction and civil engineering projects worldwide. According to the owner's requirements, in the Libyan construction industry, the owner's supervisor (OS) - either an individual supervisor engineer (SE) or a consultant organization (CO) - represents the owner on the construction site and plays an important role in monitoring the implementation of the consultant's (design team's) plans This involves monitoring the performance of the contractor and reducing the owner's risk of any liability or contractor claims. The OS also attempts to ensure that the owner's targets are met in terms of the three main criteria of time, cost and quality. The OS has clearly defined guidelines and procedures to monitor quality and budget. However, monitoring time, and protecting the owner from any claims, is a more problematic task. One of the OS's important roles is to ensure that the project remains on schedule, hence to protect the client from delays and associated claims. However, there are no existing means of determining the OSs' effectiveness in performing this task. In this thesis, a review of relevant literature is combined with a field survey of experts in the supervision of Libyan construction projects, to develop a method of assessing the effectiveness of both SEs and COs regarding construction project delays. This method produces a set of weighted criteria, which generates scores according to SEs' and COs1 performances as perceived by those surveyed. The results indicate that Libyan SEs are currently deficient in a number of areas, particularly communication skills; obtained scientific, technical and legal knowledge; knowledge in dealing with claims; previous experience; and knowledge and use of modern techniques. The results indicate that Libyan COs are less deficient in a number of areas, but are most deficient in terms of motivation, and quality systems. The results have implications for the selection and appointment of Supervisor Engineers and for their professional development needs. This research also investigates causes of delay in construction projects in Libya. The most frequent delay causes in Libyan construction projects are: delay in owner payments to the XIcontractor; long administrative routines; instability of material prices; frequent adjustments and additional work ordered by owner; delay in administrative processes carried by owner's supervisor; unavailability of spare parts in the local market; supervisor delays in decision making and taking action on time; lack of or bad application of modern planning techniques by the contractor; the delay in communication between the supervisor and the owner to obtain required approval or permission; and unclear drawings and specifications prepared by the consultant.