Survey: Skill and Experience Gaps Costing Distressed North American Construction Industry Millions

"Mega-disrupter" affects half of distressed US and Canada capital projects.

The Seventh Annual CRUX Insight Report, Changing the Narrative, reveals the scale of disruption and financial damage done to engineering and construction projects globally and the clusters of interrelated causes driving claims and disputes. One of these "mega-disrupters" – stemming from lack of skills and experience – is endemic, costing the U.S. and Canadian construction industries millions of dollars in lost time and money.

Key findings from the latest CRUX analysis include:

• 2,002 projects across 107 countries analyzed with a total value of $2.254 trillion
• Disputed costs averaged $83.1 million – just under a third (33.2%) of capital expenditure
• Time overruns would add almost 16 months or two-thirds (66.5%) to a typical schedule
• The total value of sums in dispute on the projects analyzed was $84.44 billion, while the cumulative length of time extensions was close to a millennium (994 years).
• Five "mega-disrupters" – conflicts and disputes over contracts, behaviors, speed to build, skills and the environment – each affected 40-50% of the projects worldwide.
• In the U.S. and Canada, the skills-related mega-disrupter caused claims and disputes on over half (52.1%) of projects
• Workmanship deficiencies triggered claims and disputes on two out of every ten projects in the U.S. and Canada (20.8%)

A Damaging Pattern