Survey on the cumulative impact of change orders in construction

Change orders are inevitable in construction. It is also common knowledge among practitioners that change orders may be seriously disruptive to construction productivity, and are responsible for the adversarial relationship between parties. However, the true negative aspect of a change order lies in its cumulative impact. That is, the negative impact of a change order not only should be measured by the change itself, but also will extend to its "ripple" effect. Thus, when a number of change orders, each of which will incur a chain reaction, are introduced into a construction project, their synergistic impact to productivity may well exceed the sum of individual impacts. The factors which affect productivity are complex. Although a number of researchers have developed various models to quantify the cumulative impact on productivity, those models are not faultless so far. Although the concept of cumulative impact has been recognized by courts and administrative boards, contractors often lose the case due to not meeting the three main elements: liability, causation, and injury. Thus, contractors must keep integrate documentations in order to establish a successful cumulative impact claim.