Construction is an important industry and a key component of economic growth and development. As an industry that creates, for example, factories for production, hospitals for treatment, schools for education, and homes for living, it plays a major role in sustaining key social structures and practices. However, the construction industry is well-known for its unpredictability with regard to costs and time. While it attracts significant quantities of investment, investors usually look for fast returns and thus push for faster construction. As a result, the concept of “fast-track construction” is becoming more and more prevalent.
While fast-track projects require extensive utilization of resources and materials, professional, well-informed, and experienced management is required to govern their efficient utilization [
3]. However, adequate management of resources alone cannot deliver a successful project; a comprehensive approach to the management of all aspects of a project must prevail [
4], from quality and finance to timelines and contracts.
A list of factors and risks was drawn up and analyzed for this study to identify which factors have the most impact on fast-track construction process and the potential practices used to assess and manage them. The goal was to use the performance characteristics that have an impact on fast-track construction to develop a quantitative assessment model capable of measuring the efficiency of fast-track project management. By providing a quantitative RII model to evaluate fast-track project management performance with the use of fast-track performance indicators, this study adds to our understanding of construction management.
Furthermore, the concept of sustainability has been found to be applicable to the management field from a social development perspective, and not only with respect to green buildings and climate change, as it has been found that focusing on success factors can lead to sustainable construction practices [
6] and further studies in the literature confirm that sustainable development is highly associated with efficient and successful project management practices and leadership, especially when dealing with rapid and complex situations [
7]—which is often the case with fast track construction.
1.1. Literature Review
Finishing ahead of schedule is rarely observed in construction [
8]; therefore, fast-tracking has been a commonly used technique to accelerate project completion, returning significant benefits to project owners [
9]. Fast-track construction is associated with risks and adverse impacts, with the risks being identified as uncertainties that affect the project with unpredictable effects on project duration and costs [
10].
The fast-track technique is based on overlapping the different stages of the project that can be performed simultaneously (e.g., design with construction). Therefore, with the fast-track construction strategy, activities can be conducted concurrently. The strategy can be applied between project phases such as design, procurement, and construction. This makes a project more complex [
2] and may result in many design or construction errors, which in turn may affect the project’s objectives, in addition to the major safety challenges that can arise as a result of these concurrent activities [
11]. Therefore, when a fast-track approach is applied, extensive monitoring is necessary to mitigate these risks [
9].
On the other hand, fast-track construction is sometimes essential to deliver certain objectives. For example, Qatar has witnessed the widespread adoption of fast-track construction strategies to deliver the infrastructure for the FIFA World Cup 2022. One case study of an
$11 million fast-track fit-out project [
2] examined the challenges in delivering and managing fast-track projects in Qatar. To meet the required completion time, the design and construction phases overlapped by three months. The study used a questionnaire that was distributed to professionals from the industry and identified 27 barriers to managing fast-track construction projects, with the most significant challenges being: (1) design errors and omissions, (2) lack of sufficient information, and (3) poor coordination between work packages [
2].
Furthermore, according to the case study described above and similar findings in the literature, it can be concluded that a lack of sequences between the work packages has a significant impact on project management. Communication among the project teams is crucial, in addition to managing complex client requirements and expectations during both the design stage and the change orders later on. In addition, poor cost estimation for the project arose as a result of overlapping work packages, a factor that can lead to poor financial management. Further, the research study revealed a knowledge effect. This was explained by the lack of corporate experience working in this particular environment and limits to operational capacity [
2].
Another study that examined fast-track methods applied to road construction in Indonesia emphasized the major role played by appropriate scheduling in delivering a successful fast-track construction project [
12]. Fast-tracking calls for some actions to be undertaken concurrently rather than consecutively, making scheduling critical.
Uncertainties and risks in fast-track construction are common [
13] and were investigated in a case study in South Africa [
14]. This study aimed to examine and analyze the management behaviors and techniques involved in controlling uncertainties and costs during both the design and construction phases of a fast-track construction project. Findings from this study include the fact that fast-tracking leads to less predictability in the project outcomes and is dependent on the experience and knowledge of the project team, the availability of resources, and project team alignment. The research also shows that the estimated completion periods of fast-track construction projects usually tend to be overly optimistic, with, for example, the commencement date of construction delayed due to a delay in the design, or the completion date pushed back because of the necessity for rework or improper management of the sequence of activities, which has been also studied by [
3,
15,
16]. The authors also pointed out the risks associated with financial management. In their case study, for example, the project team did not consider provisions for cost contingencies. Cost contingency is an amount that is calculated within the budget for construction activities that are required but cannot be predicted or foreseen. If these occur in a fast-track construction project, the contractor will be required to rapidly expend money beyond the predetermined budget; therefore, the contractor must have solid financial management standards to be able to accommodate such risks [
14].
Ref. [
17] researched 17 different case studies in order to investigate the factors impacting schedules in fast-track construction. A key finding was that the most significant risks in fast-track construction that may cause delays are errors in cost estimation, design errors and change orders, and unprofessional scheduling practices, which were found to be one of the most influential factors due to the overlapping phases of the project. The author noted that the frequency and complexity of change orders are proportional to the number of consultants involved in a project [
17].
Ref. [
18] studied the relationships between the risks associated with the management of fast-track projects in Pakistan. They grouped the risks in fast-track projects and ranked them in developing economies as follows: (1) financial, (2) managerial, (3) technical, (4) legal, (5) environmental, and (6) social. However, the ranking is not the same for developed economies, in which the results showed a prioritizing of managerial over financial risks. Therefore, it can be concluded from this study that risks vary among countries for several reasons, including variations in the political environment. Overall, the individual ranking of risks that was categorized by [
18], which can be found in
Table 1 of their paper, is as follows: (1) rework, (2) design errors, (3) unrealistic schedule, (4) numerous change orders, and (5) construction accidents [
18].
Another study by [
19] examined the influence of information complexity on the quality of construction. The findings demonstrated that the following factors, among others, have a major impact on construction and reduce quality performance: ineffective communication, contract changes, and information delays. The following significant causative factors were shortlisted from this study and included in our research.
Lack of an appropriate communication medium;
Absence of support for advanced communication technologies;
Not getting the necessary information at the right time;
Poor communication skills;
Frequent changes in the project contract;
Slow information flow between parties;
Defects and quality errors causing repetitive rework.
Ref. [
20] studied client-related rework in Egypt and the potential practices for its reduction. The study was based on a questionnaire, revealing that client-related rework is extremely common in fast-track construction and leads to approximately a 20 percent increase in cost and a 23 percent delay in schedules. Regarding the causes of rework, the study concluded that the three main reasons are:
Clients’ financial problems;
Obstacles in prompting decision-making processes;
Client requests for changes in materials.
These factors were also ranked the highest in the severity index of the study. The study also highlighted additional root causes, like poor communication with the design [
20] team and a client’s lack of experience, as well as repetitive scope changes made by clients. The study concluded that building information management (BIM) potentially offers a means of resolving many of these issues. By providing visual representations of built environments for clients, this technology makes it easier for them to visualize their decisions, reducing the probability that they will require changes in future.
Ref. [
21] conducted a deep study on oil and gas construction and concluded that the major impacts on construction processes include, but are not limited to, frequent change orders by the owner, inadequate planning and scheduling practices, design errors, and poor estimation practices.
Furthermore, due to the required speed of fast-track projects, it is possible to do less testing and commissioning in the early design stages but then conduct rapid testing during the construction phase. When testing and commissioning are ignored, operational issues are highly likely to arise [
2].