Development of a Benchmarking Model for Construction Projects in Kenya
Abednego Oswald Gwaya1, Sylvester Munguti Masu2, Walter Odhiambo Oyawa3
1Dr. Abednego Oswald Gwaya, Lecturer, Department of Construction Management, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Nairobi, Kenya.
2Sylvester Munguti Masu, Asst. Prof., Department of Construction Economics & Management, Technical University of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya.
3Walter O. Oyawa, Professor, Department of Civil Engineering Department , Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture And Technology, Nairobi, Kenya
Manuscript received on November 02, 2014. | Revised Manuscript received on November 04, 2014. | Manuscript published on November 05, 2014. | PP: 31-37 | Volume-4 Issue-5, November 2014. | Retrieval Number: E2417114514/2014©BEIESP
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© The Authors. Published By: Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Abstract: CThe construction industry is a crucial sector both for developed and developing economies. It contributes 10% towards GDP for developed economies and more than 4% for developing economies. The industry has often faced many challenges in form of cost and time overruns and quality issues. Project management was introduced as a solution to the perennial problems of cost, time and quality in execution of construction projects. But the much touted benefits are not always achieved leaving clients with a lot of disappointments. It can be argued that the traditional project management variables have been inadequate in the assessment and control of construction projects. This paper set out to develop the most appropriate project management variables for Kenya to enable achieve an efficient and effective construction industry. The purpose of this paper is to develop a project monitoring model for construction projects to fulfill two main objectives: to provide a project success index for every finished project in order to compare them with each other and to establish a benchmark for future improvement in success of construction project execution. The methodology adopted in this paper was, first, to undertake a literature review on existing methodologies. Then a research instrument in form of a questionnaire was developed and a survey approach was used. Based on a sample size of 580 members with a response rate of 344 members and or 59.4%, descriptive statistics and principal component analysis were employed for processing data to come up with project success criteria. The model’s output is a project success index which is calculated based on seven project success criteria. The findings can be of valuable use both for academia in form of more research discourse in the field of project management and for industry participants in form of model application.
Keywords: Construction project, Project success criteria, Project monitoring, project success index, success factor.