IMPACT ANALYSIS OF DESIGN CHANGES IN HEALTHCARE CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS USING SYSTEM DYNAMICS

Abstract

Design changes in construction projects are considered one of the main contributors for deviating from planned costs and schedules. Many research efforts discussed management of design changes, yet less efforts addressed them in healthcare construction projects. Unlike other projects, healthcare projects require meeting both engineering and medical specifications, accordingly any design change may have a dramatic impact on the project performance. This research, therefore, presents a new system dynamics model that simulates the environment of healthcare construction projects that are delivered using design-bid-build (DBB) strategy to identify the potential engineering and medical factors that can lead to design changes and their impact on the project’s completion time and cost. Thus, it allows developing a realistic construction plan, and taking preventative actions to avoid any deviation from project goals. Using a real public healthcare construction project in Egypt, the proposed model has been validated and proved through a comprehensive sensitivity analysis, its ability to arrive at realistic construction plans.