Investigation into the impact of supply chain management practices on overall time performance in the construction industry

Abstract

Supply chain management (SCM) has been stressed as a remedy to many of the underlying issues in the construction industry. However, the positive examples where SCM has been successfully utilized and diminished the lingering issues in construction is scarce. Delays are common in construction projects and have been a subject of research for decades. The past studies in the area of delay have taken quite a rigid approach, mostly focusing on the list of contributors, thus the studies have failed to identify their underlying causes and to make delay more manageable.

Over the past years, construction projects have been underachieving in terms of time performance leading to complaints from clients, lack of satisfaction and poor contribution of the sector to country’s gross domestic product (GDP). Due to the incessant problems in construction projects, Supply Chain Management (SCM) has been suggested as the way forward by many researchers. SCM prescribes organizational restructuring and extending achievement throughout organizations. It proposes improvement in the organization’s operation by including the elements of integration, coordination, communication, and information and control systems to create more value out of every construction process. The research aimed on investigating the impact of supply chain management practices on time performance and how it can help reduce on the delays in the industry. The objectives of the study were; to identify the most used supply chain management practices in the construction industry of Uganda, to determine factors affecting the timely completion of a construction projects in Uganda and to establish the relationship between the effective supply chain management and the timely completion of a project in the construction industry in Uganda. Questionnaire approach was used to collect data. The analyzed data showed that there was a positive relationship between supply chain management practices and timely completion of construction projects. There is need for project managers to take all supply chain practices important and follow each of the practices for better project management.