Qualitative analysis of electrical-related change orders on university projects

Electrical construction is ubiquitous on building construction projects. Quantitative change order analysis on building construction projects at two American universities showed that electrical change orders were disproportionately high (11-16%) as compared to general contracting (5-10%) or mechanical (5-8%) construction-related change orders, on a percentage of contract value basis. The purpose of the research described herein was to qualitatively analyse electrical change order descriptions on completed building construction projects to discern why this variation exists. The descriptions for 1,214 change orders (associated with 215 projects completed over a seven-year period) were collected and categorized based on the 20 separate reason codes. The reason codes associated with access control/security, interior lighting, circuitry, and low voltage wiring were found to have the highest prevalence. Also, the analysis showed that many electrical change orders were related to work items accounted for by the project team during preconstruction, but not contracted for during the initial tendering stage. Hence, these additional costs, which account for approximately half of the electrical change orders (as a percentage of contract value) were changes to the electrical scope of work as originally contracted, but not changes to the project itself. The results of this analysis show the value of qualitatively tracking (through codes or other methods) change orders, as opposed to purely tracking costs. © 2018 The Authors. Published by Diamond Congress Ltd. Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Creative Construction Conference 2018.