黑洞社区

About two-thirds of high-rise construction projects are completed late and almost a fifth are more than six months behind schedule.

These are the findings of research by the Chartered Institute of 黑洞社区 (CIOB) into more than 2,000 schemes.

In a report to be published today, the CIOB said 鈥減oor time control鈥� was responsible for the industry鈥檚 dismal record on delays.

About half of the engineering projects examined were not finished by the completion date, and 18% were more than six months behind schedule.

High-rise building projects performed particularly poorly, with a fifth completed more than six months late and a third finishing on time.

Meanwhile, simpler projects, including low-rise offices, educational buildings and shopping malls, were deemed to have a 鈥渞easonable chance鈥� of completing on time or early.

The CIOB said better facilities were needed to train and accredit planning engineers and project schedulers in time management techniques.

Keith Pickavance, the CIOB鈥檚 senior vice president, who will become the institute鈥檚 president later this month, will present the findings today.

He said: 鈥淲e have to accept that respondents regarded the time-management on construction projects as generally poor.

鈥淭he growth in training, education and skill levels in the use of time management techniques has not kept pace with technology. This should be of concern, as there is a trend towards developing contracts which are increasingly punitive if not executed efficiently.鈥�

He added that the construction industry used the latest technology in 鈥渧irtually every other field鈥� but time control, where software was used ineffectively, if at all.

Contractors 鈥� who usually got the blame for delayed completion 鈥� were found to have consulted design teams about the time management strategy in 10% of projects surveyed. None of the respondents said a scheme鈥檚 electrical engineer was consulted.

The CIOB also found that delays were not often announced 鈥減romptly or widely鈥�. Only 20% of those surveyed said delays had been declared when it was not required by the contract.