Analysis of the Causes of Change Orders and their Impact on Project Budget and Timeline (A case study of the Federal Housing Corporation Construction Projects)
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Date
2026-11
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Addis Abeba Universty
Abstract
A change is any deviation from an agreed upon well-defined scope and schedule. It is any modification to the contractual guidance provided to the contractor by the owner or owner’s representative. Changes in construction projects are very common and likely to occur from different sources, by various causes, at any stage of a project, and may have considerable negative impacts on items such as costs and schedule delays. The purpose of this study is to analyze the causes, effect and mitigation strategies in Federal Housing Corporation (FHC) construction projects. Descriptive and explanatory research design and analysis methods were used through quantitative as well as qualitative research approaches. FHC housing construction projects participants were the sources of data and purposive sampling technique were used to collect data through questionnaires, interview and thorough document reviews. Five point Likert scale questionnaire was distributed for 65 respondents and 57 was returned and analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software and Microsoft excel. Based on the analysis, materials price fluctuations from external factors with RII of 0.85, change of design modification by owner with RII of 0.83 and work changes by client such as addition, omission and alterations of works with RII of 0.82 were considered as major causes of change orders and in terms of origin of the causes, owner related causes stand as a primary source of causes. Using RII and Mean score ranking methods, the delay of time and cost overrun were highly affected factors by an average of 123% time delay and 62.8% of cost overrun. Understanding of scope and schedule of change work, proper use of work breakdown structure (WBS), effective leadership skill, and identifying potential areas of changes risks are the most strongly agreed and ranked strategies to control the adverse effects of the change orders on construction projects of the corporation. Finally it is recommended that the project management team of the corporation should prepare detail schedule and WBS of work and material specifications in planning phase to reduce the causes of changes and minimize the adverse impacts of the change orders.
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construction projects, causes, changes, change orders, time, cost overrun.