ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Saudi Arabia
- All Subjects: Construction industry--Saudi Arabia--Evaluation.
- Creators: Sullivan, Kenneth
The problem of litigation and disputes in the construction sector is a major impediment to countries’ development goals. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the problem of high legal costs and long delays that arise due to litigation involving project owners, designers, contractors and other construction parties worldwide and in Saudi Arabia, as well as to give recommendation according to the outcomes of this research. The causes of litigious behavior in Saudi Arabia and other countries around the world were identified and documented, also the differences in litigation of the Saudi Arabian construction industry as compared to other countries were identified. Preliminary investigations revealed that there are some level of similarity in the nature of the causes. Thus, these causes were grouped into three main categories which are expectation factors, communications factors and documentation factors. Further research based on existing literature showed that the practices used to minimize litigation in the construction industry were investigated. The following delivery process were researched: design-build (DB) delivery method, Alliance Contracting, Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR), Best Value Approach, Integrated Project Delivery (IPD), and Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), and the PIPS/PIRMS approach. These delivery methods were found to have issues, which means the methods by observation do not seem to be the ideal solution to minimize litigation in the construction industry. The only delivery method found to have no litigation issues was the PIPS/PIRMS approach.
The current Saudi Arabian (SA) procurement system leads to many losses in money and benefits in projects. Also, the use of the traditional procurement system in SA has been identified as one of the causes for poor performance in the delivery of construction and the major risk to the SA government. A questionnaire has been developed and carefully designed based on literature review. The purpose of the survey was to identify the validity of the recent claims that the procurement system in SA is broken and to improve the current SA procurement system. The questionnaire was sent out to 1,396 participants including included 867 engineers, 256 consultants, 93 contractors, 35 owners and 132 architects and 13 academics.
All participants have been registered and licensed professionals at the SA Council for professional engineers, who work in both private and public sectors. The participants are interested in the SA procurement and contracts system with experience ranging from one to more than twenty-five years with the majority of twenty-five years of experience in common construction sectors such as; residential and commercial buildings, healthcare buildings, industrial building and heavy civil construction.
Most of the participants from both private and public sectors agreed with the survey questions subject matter regarding: zone price proposals, contractors' evaluation, risks, planning, projects' scope, owners concern and weekly risks reports (WRR). The survey results showed that the procurement system is the major risk to projects, affects construction projects negatively and is in need of improvement.
Based on the survey and literature review, a model, called Saudi government performance procurement model (SGPPM), has been developed in which the most expert contractor is chosen through four phases: submittals& education, vendors selection, illustration and execution. The resulting model is easy to implement by SA government and does not require special skills or backgrounds.